Life on the Outer Coast

Monday, August 27th
Departed Crescent harbor with Ryan and Melissa (biologists from Hopkins Marine Institute) at 6:30am for No Thorofare Bay. They are in Sitka to collect several species of invertebrates for genetic studies. We arrived at the bay just before low tide (-1.4ft). There is a tiny cove just south of the entrance to the bay that affords anchorage when the current is running hard. The current was definitely running, the entrance looked like the rapids of a river. Didn’t even cross my mind to try to enter the bay by water. There is easy access to the intertidal along the entrance and the bay via the forest in the small cove.
At the beginning of the entrance there was an impressive abundance of Metridium senile (Plumose anemone). The walls were covered with polyp to polyp anemones. Not sure I’d seen so many before. There was also much Halichondria panacea (bread crumb sponge) on the walls.
The central part of the entrance (visible once the white water had dissipated) was a forest of Laminaria bongardiana (split kelp), each about 6ft tall. I had only seen it stretched out at low tide before; it was rather more attractive waving in the current.
Past the steep walled part of the entrance, the intertidal habitat changed to pools, there was a variety of chitons eg. Tonicella miniata, Orange cucumber (Cucumaria miniata), and limpits. Inside the bay, just past the mouth, the habitat changed again, the bottom was coarse shell and sand and there were a lot of relatively transparent shrimp about 4 to 5 inches long at the edge of the water.

One of the organisms of interest was Strongylocentrotus purpuratus (Purple urchin). I had thought that the large urchins came in two varieties, red and purple. Not so, the largest urchins S. franciscanus can be red, purple or almost any variation of those hues. Looking at Kozloff, the test of the purple urchin doesn’t exceed 9cm, whereas the red is up to 15cm. The spines are also smaller on the purple (mostly less than 2.5cm) and the red urchin up to 7cm. Although the purple urchin was reported to live at No Thorofare Bay (probably by people who were as confused as I), none were found. There were a lot of the very large red urchins just before the entrance widened out to the bay. The sea otters don’t seem willing to traverse the entrance, too narrow?

Two hours past the tide, the entrance was relatively calm and around three hours past I paddled the kayak through the passage. It was interesting how long past the tide that slack occured. Have to check it out further.

The land side of the intertidal zone was rather interesting as well, I had ample time to wander as I frequently checked the skiff. The area on the bayside had a lot of yellow cedar was some impressive epiphytic growth. Lots of Isothecium cardotii. I did notice some of that species growing on the hummock just below a spruce, but it wasn’t on it… Collected several Hydnum repandum from the edge of the forest. There was a beautiful patch of Amanita vaginata developing. Really nice view of the separation of the universal veil.
A multitude of common murres, rhinoceros auklets and marbled murrelets along the way there and back. Starting to see a few more comorants again.

Sunny and warm.