Oh Canada :)

     My name is Adrian Salinas and I am an undergraduate at Cal State University of Los Angeles. I was invited to come to the Bamfield Marine Science Center located on Vancouver Island in British Columbia this summer by Dr.Robles, a well known person at this station. We have been here for 2 weeks out of the 8 weeks we are scheduled to be here for.
  It is my first time out of the country, as well as first time away from home for this length of time. So far it has been great. It is way different from Los Angeles. There is so much green and wild life.
   Bamfield is a pretty small town that is usually loaded with students and researchers from a lot of different places. It feels pretty good to meet different people especially the locals who are so friendly and welcoming.
  Just the other day it was Canada Day. The town had a parade and a little concert to celebrate. We participated in the events and had a great time. Now whenever i look at a calendar i no longer have to wonder what the Canadians do on Canada day anymore.
  Some of the activities that i have done were things like fishing, hiking, and field work. The fishing was pretty awesome. I almost caught a salmon, but it got away. Gary on the other hand caught some pretty crazy things. He caught an octopus and a rock fish, which were released after they were observed. After awhile with out catching anything i finally got a tug on my line. It was a flat fish which i decided that we keep and cook it. The fish tasted pretty good.
   Hiking the West Coast trail was an adventure. There were these huge ladders that we had to climb and go down in order to continue onto the trail. They were pretty scary when going down, but the views were worth it. One thing about the trails though is that they are filled with swamps of mud everywhere. i think that added to the adventure though. We got to this one cliff that was off trail and ended up looking out to a near by rock that was filled with sea lions and further out we caught glimpses of whales, but we could not identify what kind of whales they were.
    The field work is comprised of us waking up at different times depending on the tides. We go out to these sights on islands, where there are muscle beds. The purpose of going out to the different sites is to set out these things called Drogues, they measure the wave velocity during the tide series. There are premarked spots that are used to attach and drill the Drogues in. Then for about 4 days we go out and measure how far the stopper on the Drogue has moved. I think the best part of doing this is getting to explore the different tide pools from time to time because you never know what you will get to see. Just today i got to see this Chiton that is named Gumboot, it was pretty huge and another day we got to see a sun star, it gets pretty interesting.
    I still have a couple of weeks left so there will be more to add to the list later.