Not enough Spring break

Spring break started out great! Mel and I did the Elwha Consortium tour with Pat Crain of ONP. Although I have been to the tour stops many times I learned a lot about the fish windows that the park is looking at using during the dam removal. The survival of the Bull trout is going to depend on the rescue plan. The second day of the conference was alot of fun and it is always great to see the results of the data that I helped to collect.
One Friday of that same week I went along with Matt Beirne and Larry Ward to look for juvenile Lampreys on one of the side channels of the Elwha. I have never seen a live lamprey so I was really excited to learn all about these little creatures. Lampreys like very fine sediment with some organic material in slow moving water or shallow pools. Lately it seems that equipment failure has been following me around because the electroshocker (which we use to find and stun the lampreys) wasn't working correctly! We fiddled with it for about an hour and then Larry decided to call it an afternoon. It was very disappointing because we didn't find one lamprey! Oh well hopefully we will have better luck next time.
Last week Sonny I had planned on doing our monthly water quality but again our equipment wasn't working properly! This was a big disappointment because the Hydolab just came back from its yearly maintenance from the company. Sonny and I didn't figure it out until we were on the other side of Lake Sutherland and then on our return trip back to the dock the engine on the boat started to smoke! Thankfully we made it back to the dock without rowing! Equipment failure I am learning is just a part of the scientists' life.