November 30
My day started out at 4:30 a.m. expecting to leave by 6:30, but bad weather didn’t help with leaving. Although, every one of the Argos’ flights were delayed it wasn’t so bad. As soon as the Argos were reunited we began to share stories and talk about what had been happening with life after JASON. It only rains in San Diego like once a year, but the day we arrived had to be the day! It hadn’t rained in San Diego in about six months. And in San Diego people tend to forget how to drive when it’s raining. So we got in a little fender scraper, but nothing too extreme! With numerous U-turns we managed to make our way back to the hotel and Ada and I shared a room. We ate at the Hard Rock Café that night and it was great! After that we went to go looking for dessert. Of course while we were walking it began to pour rain, and it was chilly outside. We made our way back to the hotel for some rest for tomorrow.

December 1
We woke up early and made our way over to the lavish continental breakfast at the Best Western. At 10:30 a.m. we went to San Diego Bike and Kayak tours to rent mountain bikes for our bike tour through San Diego. Our tour leader was Curtis and he took us on a 12-mile bike ride through San Diego. Although the hills were steep and our legs were aching we were able to finish. We sped full speed down Mount Solidad on our bikes remembering to follow the rules of the road. We traveled through Pacific Beach to the Children’s Pool which was full of seals lounging on the beach.

We also went into a cove, which involved climbing up and down an extremely steep staircase: 150 steps straight down with no breaks. But we managed to make it to the cove and it was very bright with a 15-foot opening. We learned about the types of environments in San Diego. There were also amazing houses that we saw that could have been worth tens of millions of dollars.

Later that day we met with the film crew and discussed how we were going to work with Dr. Enric Sala. We then met with Dr. Sala. He was awesome! His views on ecology were so interesting, and he had a great sense of humor. We did some filming at Scripps Institute, and learned about pristine ecosystems. Throughout the filming we had lots of mess-ups and bloopers, and Dr. Sala was usually the one making us laugh! The film crew and Argos enjoyed making jokes on each other. There was also one time when we were taking a "room tone" and for 30 seconds we had to be completely quiet, and it was one of the hardest things we had to do. After it was over we all broke out in laughter.

December 2
We woke up around 7:00 to be ready for the eventful day. We went over to Scripps and picked up Dr. Sala. On our way over to the testing sight he got a call from the film crew and he tricked them into thinking that his car broke down and he was stuck 30 minutes away. After he told them that we were expecting him to say, "Oh just kidding," but instead he said, "I’ll call back later with updates," and hung up. We were all shocked, but immediately started laughing hysterically. The crew was shocked too, and once he showed up at the site 5 minutes later they were so relieved. It was hilarious.

We made our way down to the tide pools and saw so many sea anemones and mussels, it was amazing! Although, Dr. Sala told us that this was nothing compared to a truly pristine ecosystem. Learning how humans truly affect the ecosystem was really interesting. We did about ten different transects learning about the different organisms in this region, and we saw a big difference in the mussels near the ocean and the mussels further away.

After lunch we had a talk with Dr. Sala and we discussed our results. It was really interesting. Back at the hotel we worked on our journals and then we learned how to use the probes we would be using the next day. When we were testing salinity, we didn’t have any salt so Caroline went to go find some. She couldn’t find any table salt so she came in with a bag of McDonald’s fries that she picked up from the top of the trashcan. It took all the fries and the bag before we got any readings. We would continuously burst into laughter as we did this. It was an exciting and fun day!

December 3
We made our way over to the Children’s Pool where there were about seven seals. We were able to get a little closer to the seals with Dr. Sala. There were many activists there and it was really interesting to hear their insights on the situation at the Children’s Pool. One man came storming towards us and seemed extremely angry. He was for the beach being public and against having the seals there. It was really neat to be able to get about 50 feet from wild Seals!

After looking at the seals we went to a different beach to do some water testing. The water was freezing! Luckily it was just our feet in the water, but I soon couldn’t feel them after a while.

We then talked to Dr. Sala and he told us about his next expedition, which included going to a place in the middle of the Pacific for four months and studying a pile of trash as big as Texas! We then said our goodbyes and gave him his own seal purse! As he walked away with his seal purse over his arm we all burst into laughter. Dr. Sala told us to spread the word and act now to save what pristine ecosystems are left. He really influenced me to spread the word! I really hope I’ll get the chance to work with him again someday.

We went souvenir shopping for our family and friends, and went back to the hotel to work on journals! Being here was such a great experience, and none of us wanted to leave.

I want to bring back to my community everything I’ve learned from JASON, not only from this experience, but from all the others as well. The Host Researchers have truly inspired me to really spread the word about our ocean’s health, ecosystems, whales, and more to my community. I was so happy to have gotten to work with the JASON crew, and to meet new people and make life-long friends along the way! It takes so many people to make JASON happen, and I was so happy to have met people from all different backgrounds. I really hope to work with the Argos and Host Researchers again one day!