Tracy taking an algae sample from her kayak. Photo Credit: http://t2canwordpress.com
Retrieved from Traci and Tracy’s Blog: t2can.wordpress.com
One aspect of our adventure was taking algae samples along our route. Ideally we would document and update our activities on this blog, but real-time updates were not an option. After the fact though, here are some photos and descriptions. Thank you to Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, for connecting us with Nicky Haigh and theHarmful Algae Monitoring Program at Vancouver Island University. Tracy managed to take over a dozen algae samples in our 840 miles of paddling, and I documented a few on film. Tracy diligently sampled and labeled the small blooms we encountered. We were both pleased that our algae encounters were rare as well as few and far between.
Algae blooms sampled by Tracy and Traci while Kayaking. Photo courtesy http://t2can.wordpress.com
Weeks into the journey, we had really seen only a few tiny blooms. Once we crossed back into the US though, this all changed. Holy cow, this just never seemed to end! This bloom started at Nakat Bay, about five miles before Cape Fox, and extended all the way north to Foggy Bay. From our small craft we couldn’t tell how far out from shore the bloom extended, but we passed through waves and bands of orange for over twenty miles. Was this due to the location? Time of year? Weather and temperature? We are just observers, documenting what we encountered.
Tracy Landboe is a high school science teacher and competitive paddler and Traci C is an avid paddler and adventurer. These two friends decided to paddle the inside passage over the summer of 2012 and collect algae bloom samples along the way.
Tracy Landboe is a high school science teacher and competitive paddler and Traci C is an avid paddler and adventurer. These two friends decided to paddle the inside passage over the summer of 2012 and collect algae bloom samples along the way.