On Saturday, team members Michele and Michael harvested several ripe sori from bull kelp on the south end of the island. They were dried for 36 hours so that when re-introduced to the water, spores would drop almost immediately to the sea floor. Here's what the drying area looked like.
The team was delighted to welcome newest volunteers Bill Beedie (from Gabriola Automotive) and Tony, as well as to have along with us journalist Tamara Cunningham from the Nanaimo News Bulletin. Tamara documented the process, and an article is coming out this Thursday.
The assistance of Bill and Tony is greatly appreciated. We were able to use Bill's boat as a staging area for repacking the carboys with new sori, and of course for pulling the heavy concrete blocks back up. Below are some photos of today's adventure with brief descriptions.
Here's Bill's beautiful wooden boat dating to the 1930s.
Bill's boat worked in tandem with our research boat "Kelpie" to retrieve and re-position the carboys once packed with fresh sori. You'll see on the inflatable boat kelpers Paul O'Sullivan and Michael Mehta.
Here's how the heavy concrete blocks that held the carboys in place were pulled up. The skill and patience of Bill and Tony came in very handy for this task. Once on-board the larger boat, team member Michele carefully stuffed dozens of sori cuttings into each carboy.
The repacked carboys and concrete block systems were then hoisted back onto "Kelpie" for placement in the new area with depths ranging between 15-22'
1 comment:
Nice work team!
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