Thursday, November 30
This morning was my flight out of Detroit and towards sunny-skied San Diego, California. I met our coordinators for the mission at the Detroit Airport. They had just flown in from Milwaukee. It was snowing in Michigan, so I was eager to get out of the cold weather and hit the beach.
Our flight was supposed to be about 4.5 hours long, but due to 200mph head winds and fog in San Diego our flight ended up being an exciting 6 hours long. After listening to the captain try to describe our location above the U.S. several times, I had decided that we had definitely circled the state of Kansas at least 3 times on our way to California. Once we finally arrived in not-so-sunny California (I can't lie, it was a little disappointing), we were reunited with all of the other Argonauts. It's so great to finally see everyone again after boot camp.
Apparently it only rains like it did today less than four times a year in San Diego. Also, according to the locals, people have no idea what to do when it rains and they tend to forget how to drive. So of course on our way to the hotel, we were rear ended at a stoplight. Luckily, it was only a small scratch. The streets couldn't have been any harder for us to navigate, and so about an hour and at least 10 U-turns later, we arrived at the hotel. The long drive was all right because we spent the entire time sharing stories from our other missions, since each of us had gone on a different mission prior to this one.
We went to the Hard Rock Cafe, next door to our hotel, for dinner. We then went walking through the pouring rain for some ice cream and finally retuned to the hotel to get some sleep. I am really hoping that the weather tomorrow will clear up and allow us to have some more fun.
Friday, December 1
I can't believe that it's December and I am waking up with beautiful palm trees right outside of my window. What a strange view! Back at home I'd be getting prepared to trudge through the snow to get to school. It is very funny to see all of the San Diego residents wearing scarves and gloves outside, thinking this is cold.
We began our morning with the hotel's lavish continental breakfast. We needed fuel for ourselves to take a twelve-mile bike tour of San Diego and the waterfront. We began the tour up at the top of Mount Solidad and rode down, around, and through the San Diego area. The view along the entire way was absolutely spectacular. I was amazed by everything from the crazy houses on hills, beautiful beachfronts, and the $25 million mansions along the tour. We were also able to walk down this long, closed flight of stairs carved into the rock to get down inside one of the caves along the shoreline from inside of a building. The sight from inside was unlike anything else. The only down side about our biking tour was how much my backside hurt afterwards from sitting on that uncomfortable seat for three hours.
Last night there had been a lot of rain that had washed many different pollutants, bacteria, and the oil sitting on the roads right into the ocean. This is why we did not see anyone surfing, and also why it is taken as a general rule in San Diego that you don't go in the ocean for at least two to three days after the rain.
After our adventurous bike ride, we met the film crew and our host researcher, Dr. Enric Sala, for dinner at a restaurant that was completely overrun with Christmas decorations. I was only able to talk with Dr. Sala for a little bit and I could already tell how cool he was.
In the evening we had to set up for our first shoot, which would explain our mission and give us our background information. All of the filming began to bring back plenty of old memories from the other missions. The Argos and even the researchers always enjoy messing with the film crew. So today at one time when the crew continued to make us try and re-shoot one of our questions, I took out my water bottle and began to drink from it while being as noisy as possible. Everyone thought it was hilarious except for the sound guy, hopefully he'll forget by tomorrow.
Saturday, December 2
This morning we got to do our field assignment with Dr. Sala out at La Jolla cove. On the way to the shoot, Enric was called by the director, and instead of telling her that he was coming with the Argonauts, he told her that his car had broken down and that he was stuck at least half an hour away from La Jolla. When we arrived at the cove with Dr. Sala we found the film crew all in a frenzy trying to think of their next plan on how to get Dr. Sala. It was great to see that Dr. Sala is not only a brilliant scientist but a very humorous person as well.
It is always very interesting to us Argonauts to watch other people look at us. Since we often go into restaurants and buildings with our National Geographic shirts on we usually get some funny looks and are often asked about what we are doing in San Diego. Although no one has asked for any autographs, I still feel like some sort of movie star.
Once we were done with the morning filming we headed to lunch. As you may be able to tell, our day pretty much revolves around us getting food. Personally, I don't find that to be a problem.
I find it so neat to have people from so many different backgrounds coming together to create and make The JASON Project a reality. It is always great getting to know all of the different production staff and researchers who are along with us.
We finished the rest of the afternoon by analyzing the data we collected and looking at what it means with Dr. Sala. However, at night the Argos all had to figure out how to operate the different water testing probes, so that we could use them on camera tomorrow morning. After we finished testing the temperature of tap water, we decided that we needed something to change the salinity, or salt, in the water for the probe to pick up. So we sent one of our guides to go and find some salt packets from the hotel front desk. But instead, she returned with a packet of McDonalds french fries which she had taken from on top of the trash can. It was hard to keep from laughing as we poured all of the fries and the actual carton itself into the tap water and observed as the water salinity reading went up on the laptop.
Well, after that little experiment I am sure that we are ready for some more science tomorrow.
Sunday, December 3
Today morning we began out at the La Jolla Children's and Seal Pool, which was a pool created as a safe place for children to play and is now an important area for harbor seals to live and breed. We were given a chance to get very close to the seals, and it was amazing to see the way they moved and how they responded to humans being even 50 feet away from them. Luckily, we were able to film all we needed with the seals without getting too close to them or disturbing them. However, we were forced to stop and start over again every time a plane or helicopter would fly overhead, which happens about every minute in California on average. The major conflict between humans and the seals in this ecosystem was very clear to us as we simply watched different peoples' reactions to the pool. We had several people tell us how they desperately wanted to save the seals as we did, and one man even came and interrupt our filming exclaiming that the beach was public property and the seals should be kicked out. I was shocked at how much of a debate was going on over the small, but very important area.
Following some more water testing we were able to sit down with Dr. Sala and draw our conclusions about the mission. Dr. Sala was very inspiring as he told us that we need to spread the word about how degraded our ecosystems are across the world today. We can still help to bring a balance between humans and the once-pristine ecosystems of our planet, but we must act wisely, and we must act now.
We concluded the wrap-up by presenting Dr. Sala with a card and a "seal" purse that we got for him. It was so funny watching him walk away with the purse in his arm.
After lunch our film crew went on their way and we wrapped up our JASON experience with journals and some San Diego shopping. This trip was truly an eye opening experience for me. I hope to share the new knowledge that I have gathered on this mission with others in my community in order to help spread the awareness about our degraded ecosystems and how we can help. I know that if we all work towards it, someday we can live in a world in which humans and the ecosystem live in a healthy balance.