50th Anniversary

by Greg Cailliet

With help from (in alphabetical order) Rich Ajeska, Dave Ambrose, Mark Carr, Mike Foster, John Heine, Roger Helm, Jerry Kashiwada, Stacy Kim, Lloyd Kitazono, Bud Laurent, Dave Lewis, Gary MacDonald, Mike Moser, Dan Reed, and Mary Yoklavich

The Early Years (late 1960s)

We understand from Jim Nybakken’s early history of MLML (“The Early Years” http://digital.mlml.calstate.edu/islandora/object/islandora%3A1777), that the first beach volleyball court at MLML was built in 1969. He stated that “the student body reported that the student council was developing by-laws and committees, was putting out a newsletter and had set up a volleyball court.”  So, in addition to other MLML blogs, here’s one on the history of MLML volleyball.

Dave Lewis recalls: “The Sand Court was already installed when I arrived in ’69 (a good year indeed!)… John Hansen apparently helped spearhead the effort to clear/level the court space and install the poles and net a year or so prior.  No ropes, just vague foot-furrows for boundaries, with constant disputes about In or Out.  Lots of Jungle Ball until Hal Salwasser showed up (6’6” UCSB player), with plenty of patience to get us at least semi-disciplined. Hal went on for a Ph.D. and became Dean of the Oregon State University Forestry Department (unfortunately, he passed away in October of 2014).

Dave continues “the precursor to the annual Marine Lab Tournament was an annual match with Hopkins, always hotly-contested, rotating venues each year (they had an asphalt court).  Early participants included Rich Ajeska, Bud Laurent, Hal Salwasser, Eric Dittmer, Dave Lindquist (the first MLML student e with this name), and Bill Davis. Rich says he was fortunate enough to be there (’69-70’) when Hal arrived and quickly began his task of explaining that volleyball actually had rules!”

“That group also played one year in the annual (4^th of July?) tournament in Boulder Creek (on asphalt).  We barely lost to the Locals in the final; Salwasser was spectacular.  We also had a team in the Salinas Recreation League (indoors) for several years, where we were perennial runners-up to the local powerhouse team comprised of Hawaiian and Filipino guys [I can still remember Sammy Taporco a 5’7” Filipino hitter who hit straight down, either hand, with a spectacular windmill windup motion- You couldn’t figure out which hand he would hit with each time- Unbelievable!],”

“Hal got that early MLML volleyball team into quite good shape over the next few months and we played in the first Hopkins vs MLML match which, not surprisingly, we won - we had Hal on our team, of course we won.  It was fun.  We did tie-die our team t-shirts, and brought food and copious amounts of beer and our girlfriends/wives came along to cheer us on.” Rich Ajeska provided a black and white photo, taken by his wife, of the starters.

Bud Laurent then says: ““I can only add a few details about the nature of jungle ball and Hal’s redemption of the sport in our hands, if that’s of interest. ...I do recall that the net was more or less an informality, acting more like a gill net on players than something that was to be avoided at all costs.  I also remember the sometime-heated nature of our contests, particularly the time when Bill Davis and I had to be pulled apart by the other players from the sweat-drenched, sand-encrusted wrestling match we decided was necessary to resolve some dispute or another.“

 

The Early Years Continued (1970s-1980s)

Having a beach volleyball court (or two) has pretty much been a pre-requisite for having a marine laboratory, or an institution located on the shore, especially on the west coast and in California. When Mike Foster and I were graduate students at U.C.S.B., we worked hard to build (and used daily) two courts down on the beach below the Biological Sciences building and toward Goleta from the original Campus Point marine laboratory. It was quite a popular place and a good, midday activity for exercise and sunshine.

When I (Greg Cailliet) joined the MLML faculty in 1972, one of my first objectives (besides teaching classes, accepting graduate students, obtaining research funding, attending faculty meetings, keeping my job, and working toward achieving tenure) was to construct a proper beach volleyball court, similar to those at U.C.S.B. with the correct characteristics. I did this with the help of many, eager graduate students at the time, including Dave Lewis, Gary McDonald, and others. Dave Lewis added “Your arrival improved the court, really upped our skill-set and emboldened our attitude with tacit faculty approval.” I clearly remember Drs. Broenkow, Nybakken and Morejohn’s irritation….” (See a little more on this a bit later in this blog) This beach volleyball court was on sand to the south of a trailer located next to the large, outdoor seawater holding facility in the yard of the original building, once the rectangular Beaudette Foundation building. Care was taken to use enough sand so that it had sufficient depth, and appropriate dimensions, posts, supports, net size and height, and rope boundary, within reason for the space available. Jerry Kashiwada adds: “One drawback was that the court was built over a seawater-system leach field and occasionally a spring of seawater would bubble up to cause a brief delay in play. Another irritant that drew occasional curses was beach burrs, which which either found their way onto the court or covered errant balls landing in the surrounding dunes.” Dave Ambrose also mentioned the beach burrs, saying “the penalty for retrieving a ball hit out of bounds was feet full of sand burrs.”

This court hosted many hours of beach volleyball, involving lots of students and some faculty, especially when Mike Foster came to MLML in 1976 from CSU Hayward (now East Bay) and later, when Hank Mullins joined the faculty. Jerry Kashiwada adds “the players were a true cross-section of the lab and also included office staff and technicians. This was the main form of exercise for most of the lab. There were a few runners and surfers but far more volleyball players than anything else.” It was such a popular activity that sometimes people had to either rotate in or wait in line to play. Often, some would start playing early in the day, say 10:00 or 11:00 am so they could get a good game or two of doubles before everyone broke from classes for their noon lunch break.

The proper standards of play were imposed, including serving, hand-setting, bumping, and spiking. Jerry adds: “The early days featured some unique styles including a two-handed pelecypod shot used by Gary McDonald.” Some would say that scuzz dinking was also allowed, but sometimes damaging. However, there were often complaints by some faculty (the names Morejohn, Broenkow, and Nybakken come to mind again) that their students were late returning to class because the lure of the sand, sun, volleyball, and physical activity was too much. As a new faculty member, I had to be very careful about overly promoting this sport during the class day. Remember, I did not yet have tenure.

John Heine adds that “Dr. John Martin, the lab director, was not a fan of the beach volleyball court, but generally left us to it and did not make a fuss over it.” He also pointed out that “The outdoor showers and drains were always full of sand from the volleyball players, and had the well-remembered wooden pallets to keep users’ feet out of the slimy water.” John Heine also wrote a novel called “Marine Dreams,” about the fictitious “Elkhorn Marine Laboratory,” and the novel parallels some of the stories in this blog (and others) about Moss Landing. The pages relating to beach volleyball are 54-56. In it, there are characters that loosely parallel figures at MLML. Remember, “it’s all fiction (except for the Scuzz Dink)!!”

The Middle Years (Sanddab Volleyball)

Sometime in the late 1970s, a group of us formed a indoor volleyball group, with the team made up of combinations of six people, and it was named named Sanddab Volleyball. I used to have one of the original t-shirts, but cannot find it. I did find the diagram of the logo and have a scan of it (see photo). We had both men’s and co-ed teams, and played in Watsonville in the evenings.

 

The Sanddab men’s team won the 1978 Watsonville City Volleyball Championship. Jerry Kashiwada has the trophy that was given to him as an MVP award and is at his home. Jerry recalls: “Greg Cailliet was so amped at the end of the game, I felt like we had won an Olympic gold metal.  My main thought at the time was: ‘It was a great way to give a little something back to the professors (Mike Foster was also on the team) who gave so much to their students including the gift of beach volleyball.’” Lloyd Kitazono recalls “playing in a playoff game against a team from Watsonville that was composed almost entirely of Japanese-Americans and they were not tall but they were fundamentally sound. They were not as talented at Jerry K but close. It was a hard fought match that went to 3 games, which we won. I don't have a photo of that team, but I remember that you, Mike F., Jim Oakden, Bob Cowen, Jerry K. and I were on it for sure. Jim Harvey and Bruce Stewart may have been on the team too. I remember you had the "best hands" at the lab and had a killer 2-handed dink.”

Lloyd Kitazono also recalls the co-ed Sanddab volleyball team from 1977 that won the B or C division of the Santa Cruz indoor league. Included are Lloyd Kitazono, Russ Shea (now deceased), Greg Cailliet, Bob Cowen, Roger Helm, Mary Yoklavich and two additional ladies whose names I have forgotten, but the one next to Mary was named Stephanie. [This could also be part of the legend for the photo.]I have a team trophy in my office at MLML (see photo), and think it was from that tournament.

 

 

Lots of former students felt that playing volleyball was a good source of exercise, and a de-stressor. At the website http://www.ourstory.com/mlml, I found this group photo from 1981 in front of the trailer on the volleyball court. Jerry Kashiwada also wrote: “As I look back on my years at MLML, the volleyball games seem more like an addiction than exercise. It’s mostly a huge blur but one game that stands out and proves the point was during finals week one rainy winter day - a few of us decided to play anyway and found out why beach volleyball in the rain was not a popular activity, but there are times when none of those inconveniences matter.”

 

Lloyd, and many others had very fond memories of playing beach volleyball at the lab, but he also remembered that Dr. Broenkow was not very happy when his students returned to class late after lunch because they had been playing volleyball (and that one of these students was his T.A. Lloyd Kitazono)! Lloyd also remembers “playing volleyball in the afternoon after classes were over and we would play until it was too dark to see the ball. My wife was not too happy about that! FYI.” When Lloyd left MLML and started teaching at the California Maritime Academy in 1978, he continued playing volleyball with some students and also formed a men’s club team that he coached for a few years. He later coached three of his daughters in high school for 11 years. After retiring from teaching at the Academy in 2013 after 35 years, he still enjoys watching volleyball, as most of us do – both beach and indoor.

 

Lab Addition Years (Relocation of the Court to the Sand Dunes)

When the new lab building was added in 1983 to the south, it occupied that space, so we had to build a new volleyball court in the dunes even further to the south. Mike Foster was instrumental in obtaining sufficient field equipment and labor to produce that court, nicely shielded from the north-westerly winds by the remaining sand dunes to the west.

Mike Foster adds “that the main complaint about the court to the south of the pre-earthquake new lab was from George Knauer, who objected to the noise, in his office. ..he brought this up at a faculty meeting and wanted to stop the play or find a new location.” Mike continues to say that he thought this “was the only vote ever taken at a John Martin faculty meeting, and George lost.”

Also, to build the pre-earthquake new lab court, we had to do something with a large mallow bush that was encroaching on the volley ball court area.  Mike and John Heine wanted to “trim” it (i.e. cut it back or remove it), but Sheila Baldridge would not hear of it:  “It’s a native plant.”  She was correct there, and and none of us wanted to upset Sheila. That site also became heavily used, both during the class week, after classes, in the summer when the sun was out sufficiently long, and even on weekends, when we would have all-day volleyball “tournaments.” Many of us recall that a the old sand court, it was fun to get a set next to the sand dune because you could use the dune to jump higher for a spike. It was used during the 25^th MLML anniversary in summer of 1991, when visiting MLML graduates came for the celebration.

When MBARI was built next to the MLML Shore Lab, they built a nice sand v-ball court just to the south of our property, and many MLMLers played games there with George Matsumoto, Mark Chaffey, Mike Kelly, and Steve Haddock.

The Monterey Bay Marine Laboratory Tournament

During the middle of the history of beach volleyball at MLML (around 1981), there was a revival of the multi-marine laboratory tournament, including the Monterey Bay institutions MLML, UCSC, Hopkins Marine Station, Granite Canyon Mariculture Lab, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and sometimes other groups like the California Department of Fish and Game.

From what I can glean from others, the Monterey Bay multi-marine laboratory volley ball tournament was started again by Mike Moser. Mike was at MLML in in the late 1970s and went to LML in about 1979. Soon after he arrived at UCSC, he wanted to start an inter-marine lab beach volleyball tournament for the institutions listed above. Dave Lewis told Mike about the old late-1960s MLML/HMS tournament (already mentioned), but that it had not been held for a while. So, Mike (and others) started the tournament in the early 1980s. It continued until he left LML in 1990 to go to Berkeley. And, of course, the tournament continued after that, but sputtered in frequency.

According to Dave Lewis, “The Ball & Baculum trophy was also created by Mike Moser” (It has also been more politely call the “Ball & Bone trophy”).  I have since confirmed with Mike that this was true, but also from Gary McDonald (MLML alumnus; who then also worked at LML and UCSC) that he and Mike “took a funky v-ball, put a crown on it, and put it on a plaque [with sand grains embedded on it].” He continues that they “then got a cast of a walrus baculum [called an oosik by native Alaskans] and mounted it across the ball (Why the baculum? It just seemed like a good idea at the time).

Each year the winner's name and date were written on the baculum of the trophy. The winning institution got to keep the trophy until the next tournament. No one has recorded the years and winners, but MLML volleyball players were early winners, with victories changing hands often after that. There is no official recorded list of years and winners, but that might be a nice project (perhaps for a senior thesis but not for an M.S.. degree). Currently, the trophy is at LML (see photo from Mark Carr, a former MLML graduate student now on the faculty at UCSC).

Mike Foster hopes for another tournament coming soon so we can snatch the trophy back. What do you think new MLMLers?” (http://www.ourstory.com/mlml, under 1981). Major forces switched from tournament to tournament. The MBA team was often lead by one of their tall players, Gilbert VanDykhuizen, who learned much of his skills while a graduate student at MLML. Another major force was UCSC’s LML player Baldo Marinovic, who still goes by the trophy on the way to and from his office. John Heine described one of MLML’s tactics as “scuzz dinking.” He went on to say “while it was customary to set the ball up on the second hit for the spiker, some players would keep the opposition “honest” by sneaking a short set (or dink) over the net, either forward or back,that somehow just barely went over the net, and very difficult to dig. This would would drive Baldo at UCSC crazy!!

And, Mike Foster’s history of MLML (“The Middle Years” http://islandora.mlml.calstate.edu/islandora/object/islandora%3A1778) provides some additional details of some tournaments in the 1980s and described the trophy as well. There, he goes on to say “This is a tradition that really must be restored. So, get out and fix up the MLML beach volleyball court and start playing. Otherwise, when the “Bone & Ball” tournament happens again, MLML will not have much of a chance against marine labs that play regularly.”

 

The Post-Earthquake Years – Volleyball on the Hill?

After the earthquake, when forced to move the labs to the trailers in Salinas, beach volleyball virtually ceased, except when some would revisit the court south of the old site. But that too met a different fate when it was restored by the benthic bubs to a natural sand dune with dredge spoils from the harbor and using only native vegetation. The MBARI sand court was used occasionally when MLML folks were at the shore.

Upon the move up to the present MLML site on the hill in 2000, it was determined, and once again lead by Mike Foster, that a court could be dug out, filled, and built to the south west of the present upper parking lots. It is there to this day, but has not attracted much use, especially since both Foster and Cailliet got older and retired, and others (John Heine, Jim Oakden, Jim Harvey, Mary Yoklavich, Stacy Kim, Jim Barry, Jerry Kashiwada, Eric Nigg, Dave Shonman, Chuck Versaggi, Sara Tanner, Dave Ambrose, Kon Karpov, Bruce Stewart, Russ Shea, Bruce Ross, Roger Helm, Lloyd Kitazono, Bob Cowen, Allan Fukushima, Todd Anderson, Gilbert Van Dykhuizen, Guy Hoeltzer, Don Croll, Steve Reshkin, Doug Vaughan, and many others have moved on, lost interest, or gotten older like we have. This, of course is not a complete list. Therefore, please feel free to add or subtract names in response to this blog.

Indeed, in true California State University fashion, all of this construction activity conformed with the MLML Program Plan 2000-2010, in which it was stated that one of the “Goals of the MLML Student Body,” in addition to: 1) returning fees from home campus coming to MLML; 2) continuing the MLML Seminar Series; 3) continuing the Open House; and 4) collaborating with the Friends of MLML for sales of retail products; were to include 5) “Development of extramural facilities including the volleyball court, the student body lounge and programs in support of recreation: (kayaking, diving, photography).”

Unfortunately, there has been little beach volleyball played on the court that Foster built in the early 2000s . Some beach volleyball has continued to occur at the MBARI sand court , where there are several excellent players. Some MLMLers still go down and play with them occasionally. And, we understand that interest in reviving beach volleyball at MLML on the hill is increasing.

There is still a need for physical activities at MLML. One graduate student said that “It's a funny thing but prior to coming to MLML I was a shy, introverted, completely non-athletic person.  The people at MLML gave me confidence to grow not just in science and socially, but also athletically.  It did a lot for me…”

I agree with that statement and sentiment, and, will end this blog with a quote from Mike Foster – “V-ball at MLML - a fine tradition and good times that, as you say, should be revived. Maybe something will get going at the 50th? No doubt we could still stumble on the court for at least a few serves and perhaps a scuzz dink.”

Jim Harvey addition: Current students, lead by Alex Olson, have just recently started clearing and using the volleyball court on the hill. So Foster's  wish is coming true.

By Roger Helm (11 February 2016)

“What the heck is that?” “Way cool, look at those teeth?” “Eewh, everything is covered in slime?” “They’re all so tiny… oh, except for that shark, what kind is it?” “Wow, this is really amazing!” “There must be a mile of salps here?” “Are those myctophids?” “That is so weird looking, what is it?” “Who wants to help me figure out what these species are?” “Did anyone bring a copy of Fitch and Lavenberg’s Deep Sea Fishes or Miller and Lee’s California Fishes?” “Hey, pass me that Light’s Manual, I’ll try to figure out what some of these inverts are?” I think this is perhaps why Dr. G. Victor Morejohn got into teaching; it’s really fun and invigorating to be surrounded by a bunch of students delighting in new discoveries.

It was around midnight and we had just brought the cod end of a trawl net into the make shift fish lab we set-up on “The Rolling O” and spilled the haul onto a big waterproof table. The students in Dr. Morejohn’s Marine Birds and Mammals class, at least those that were still awake or not too seasick, were swarming around the table excitedly touching, warily poking, uncertainly watching, and generally being amazed by what was sloshing around in front of them.   As the graduate student assistant for the class, I was grinning from ear to ear watching the students applying what we had been teaching them for the past several months as they sorted through the mess of flopping and oozing flesh. We hadn’t caught a Great White Shark, but the students seem no less thrilled by all the bizarre, colorful, and otherworldly creatures they were now cataloging.

It was April 1978, and we had taken the class on a three day cruise on “The Rolling O” to the waters off Año Nuevo Point just north of Monterey Bay in the hopes of hooking a Great White Shark. Each year these fearsome predators come to Año Nuevo to sink their massive jaws into an unsuspecting Northern Elephant Seal. The seals, which can weigh several tons, frequent Año Nuevo in winter to breed and return in spring through summer to molt.

Much to the delight of his students, and me, Dr. Morejohn had somehow convinced then MLML Director Dr. John Martin that a three day cruise on “The O” was a necessary field component to the Marine Birds and Mammals class he was teaching that spring. While the cruise did provided Dr. Morejohn and I ample opportunity to find, identify, and share with the students a great variety of the abundant marine birds and mammals of the bay it also allowed Vic the chance to try and land a real prize, Carcharodon carcharias. Ever since the 1975 premier of Jaws that brilliant but very unsettling movie (I still hear that music every time I go swimming at night),   marine biologist at institutions all along the coast had intensified their interest in the Great Whites off California.

Prior to the cruise, Dr. Morejohn had gotten Ted Brieling, the Lab’s maintenance guru at that time, to mold several pieces of 3/4” rebar into a large single hook and a 3-barbed treble hook.   After steaming up to Año Nuevo in “The Rolling O” we started chumming and trawling a chunk of meat back and forth off the coast near the island. There was this constant tension on the boat between Dr. Morejohn and the skipper of “The Rolling O”, John Snodgrass, over how close to the shore we should be. Dr. Morejohn wanted to be as close to the shore as possible believing that increased our probability of attracting and hooking a Great White, while Capt. Snodgrass wanted to be well offshore so he wouldn’t snag our trawling hooks or worse, his keel.   In the end, Vic won out, but John was probably right as eventually we ‘caught’ something that straightened our single hook and later snatched our treble hook.

In the late afternoon of Day 2 a particularly unusual albatross started flying up our chum line. None of us could identify the bird so I hurriedly, and somewhat apprehensively given that I suspected he had brought his shotgun along, searched the boat to find Dr. Morejohn. After about 10 minutes of searching I gave up and returned to the fan tail with my camera to at least get a photo or two of the bird. Unfortunately, the unidentified albatross had skipped town. A bit later Dr. Morejohn surfaced, he had been napping in the captain’s quarters, and we all puzzled over what species he had missed. In my absence, one of the students had snapped a few photos of the bird and a few weeks later, after Kodak had done their thing, she handed me a few slightly blurry slides of our elusive albatross. After examining several sources we tentatively identified the bird as a Short-tailed Albatross and I sent off the slides and our observations to Dr. George Watson, an avian expert at the Smithsonian in DC. He confirmed our tentative ID which was quite significant since only a few hundred Short-tailed Albatrosses were known in the world at that time. This species, like all albatrosses, are very philopatric and after wandering far and wide for many years always return to breed at the colony where they hatched. Unfortunately for this species, their natal colonies were on Torishima, a small volcanically active island off Japan in which turn of the century eruptions had nearly extirpated these birds. This confirmation was very exciting and I wrote up a note on the sighting and submitted it to Western Birds with a copy of the photo. I was so proud of this note, my first ‘scientific publication’. Alas, the Short-tailed Albatross, like the Great White Shark trawling turned out to be a bust, as later another bird expert disputed the identification.

“The Rolling O” was not my favorite vessel.   At 100’, the Navy owned harbor tug Oconostota was the largest vessel in the MLML fleet back in the late-70s. Acquired on loan from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, this round keeled vessel was not at risk of flipping in heavy seas, but it constantly rolled in any seas.   For about ½ the students in our class, and their graduate student instructor, the constant movement of “The Rolling O” was not appreciated by our inner ears and it resulted in many a distressed stomach. Nevertheless, despite all the logistical challenges, disappointments, and gastrointestinal upsets, this cruise was one of my highlights at MLML and based on class evaluations it also was a huge hit for the students fortunate enough to be enrolled that semester. Dr. Morejohn was a constant fountain of information and entertainment at the bow, the fan tail, and in the mess.   The students saw over 70 species of birds, thousands of brown jellyfish, hundreds of deepwater fishes and inverts, a few secretive Harbor Porpoises, and large numbers of Blue Sharks, California Sea Lions, Harbor Seals. Elephants Seals, and bow riding Dall’s Porpoises.   While we never hooked, much less landed, a Great White I have often wondered whether that may have actually been a good thing. Imagine if you will “The Rolling O” doing its crazy topsy-turvy thing in 5’ seas as the crew drags a thrashing, teeth gnashing two ton Great White Shark onto the slippery fantail while a gaggle of slightly to very ill landlubber students mosh in for a closer look….. hmmm.

Post-Script: Six months after our cruise a 3m Great White was caught by fisherman and brought to the lab. Its stomach contained an intact adult harbor seal and Dr. Morejohn finally obtained the prized formidable jaws from a Great White.

By Roger Helm (4 February 2016)

“These suckers are HUGE” I remember my brother saying as he took pictures of me dissecting a female Great White Shark that had washed ashore opposite Año Nuevo Island in 1978. And boy was he right. While this shark was a bit over 5m long from the tip of her nose to the end of her upswept tail, she was 4m in girth at her pectoral (shoulder) fins. It’s a bit misleading to say I was ‘dissecting’ this behemoth. Each time I tried to penetrate the prehistoric placoid scale hide of her back and flanks with the sharp tip of my flensing knife the stiff blade bent like a bow. Lacking a chainsaw, I conducted much of my ‘dissection’ with a razor sharp axe.

After finally gaining access to her abdomen I sorted through the endless gobs of a shark’s liver to reach her stomach. As the contents of her stomach quickly revealed there is good reason that Great Whites make Año Nuevo and its large Northern Elephant Seal colony a favored stop on their great annual migrations. This gal had recently been feasting as her stomach contained several fresh massive pieces of a four- to five-year-old male elephant seal. Individual bites included: four 15+ pound pot roast-sized chunks of blubber and muscle; the left fore flipper, including scapula; the entire hindquarters including both hind flippers; and the head back to the 3rd cervical vertebra.   Together these pieces weighed well in excess of a hundred pounds and after digesting these huge meatballs she probably would have relished an industrial-sized bottle of Tums. While that ‘dissection’ was quite amazing to me, it really just serves as the preamble to my main subject, the story of Dr. G. Victor Morejohn and the Great White Shark Hunt on the Rolling O.

Between 1977 and 1978 I served as Dr. Morejohn’s Graduate Teaching Assistant for his Marine Vertebrates and Marine Birds and Mammals classes and as the marine vertebrate technician in the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories museum. In the latter position I traveled all over Monterey Bay to slice and dice stranded animals to obtain teaching and exhibit specimens for Dr. Morejohn’s classes. It was in early spring 1978 that I responded to a call to ‘dissect’ the Great White Shark. I still remember feeling the charge of Dr. Morejohn’s building excited energy when I shared my adventure and specimens with him a few days later. As a man deeply consumed by the natural history of vertebrates, Vic Morejohn always wanted to know, at a visceral level, as much as he possibly could about animals that fascinated him.

Even today whenever I think about him, the first word that comes into my mind is grok. Coined by Robert A. Heinlein in his 1961 sci-fi novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed and to fully grok something you had to consume at least part of it. Dr. Morejohn loved to deeply investigate, skillfully draw, and share his knowledge of the natural history of the animals he saw and captured. Also, like many classic biologists of bygone eras, he regularly savored the specimens he captured.

Similar to many in his fluid stream of Master’s students, I found Dr. Morejohn’s intensity, intellect, drawing skills, and consuming passion for understanding and teaching about the natural world a bit intimidating. However, when he got excited about something it was thrilling to be in his sphere of energy. Long before I finished relating my shark ‘dissection’ story, he had started formulating a plan to get the lab a real set of specimens. In his mind, MLML deserved far more than just the stomach contents and a few vertebra of a beach cast Great White Shark. Already his rivals at UC Santa Cruz had snared the jaws from the shark before they alerted their kid brother down the coast that a dead shark had washed ashore. What MLML really needed was to capture our own Great White Shark… and so began the G. Victor Morejohn Great White Shark hunt on the rolling O.

 

The follow up to this story will appear next week.

[For more stories about G. Victor Morejohn, please see the past blog posted at this site]: https://mlml.sjsu.edu/2015/12/03/g-victor-morejohn-one-of-a-kind/

By Jim Harvey, Lynn Krasnow, Erica Burton, Greg Cailliet, Heather Fulton-Bennett, Ryan Manzer, Alex Olson, Melissa Nehmens, and Heather Kramp

Since the inception of MLML, the students, faculty, and staff have sponsored an Open House. On 29 April 1967, one day after the dedication of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, 500 people showed up for the first MLML Open House. We have doing it every year since, no matter whether we had a real marine lab (the trailer years) or not. It is one of the great annual MLML traditions. Every year a student committee is formed, plans are devised for who will organize and cook the food, who will be responsible for parking, who will organize speakers or the bake sale, and a group of talented souls (or soles if it is about fish) start the process of developing the puppet show. Most everybody pitches in, and it shows. It truly is a MLML community event. It is remarkable that a research and teaching facility would open its doors so openly that almost all the spaces are on show. In recent years we have had 1,500 to 2,500 of the public attend Open House during a weekend.

Jim Harvey (1978): Every year the Vertebrate Ecology Lab would put out skulls, skins, baleen, videos of research, posters, and some kid-friendly activity. Some of my favorite activities meant to teach something were: (1) an insulated glove so the kids could stick their hand in ice water and understand what blubber does for a seal or whale; (2) a rake used to collect plastic krill in a bucket so they could visualize how baleen works, or (3) a transmitter on a small dog running around through the building so the kids could practice radio-tracking. The Vert Lab during Open House was pretty much the same for many years until some kid I recognized from the previous year, took a spin through the lab and within a minute exclaimed: “It’s the same as last year”. I was ticked off, so the next year we made a humpback whale head through which you entered into the lab and into the belly of the whale with ribs, entrails, and all. Never saw the kid again.

Lynn Krasnow (1978 ): I have my favorite memory from circa mid-1970s. Remember the holding tank outside the old lab? Divers loaded it up with all kinds of inverts and small fish and grabbed things to show people during open house. Monica Farris picked up an Aplysia (sea hare) to show my parents and of course it just sort of collapsed in a gelatinous heap on her hand. My mother said something like "ugh! what purpose does that have?" Monica: "What purpose do you have?" My mother (haughty voice): "I have two children!" And Monica scores the touchdown with "this has millions of children."

 

Erica Burton (1999): During the ‘homeless’ years in the Salinas trailers, the thought of an Open House was daunting. “What do you mean we’re having an Open House? We have no House.” It didn’t stop the spirited faculty, staff, and students. As the saying goes, “If you build it, [they] will come.” Large tents were erected, electricity was plumbed, tables and chairs were hauled in, food was prepared in cold, dark, small spaces, exhibits were created, puppets were plumed, and They came. Open House during these years was not only an opportunity to showcase MLML science, but also an opportunity to garner community support for rebuilding the lab near its former location. Bumper stickers, pins, hats, and t-shirts were worn promoting the rebuilding of the lab. And we did.

 

Greg Cailliet (who knows): Well, I have been involved in so many open houses since I started at MLML in 1972 (even longer than Mike Foster, but not Bill Broenkow) that I cannot count them or recall a whole lot about them. But I do know that the students, staff and faculty work very hard to clean up the facilities and prepare the labs and classrooms with interesting and informative exhibits. The Ichthyology Lab has always been active and is known for years of fish printing for kids, fish identification exercises, and microscope set-ups involving feeding habit analysis, age and growth with bony fish otoliths and elasmobranch vertebrae, and reproduction studies of fishes. More recently, students in the Pacific Shark Research Center have been active displaying sharks and rays. In some years, we have been lucky enough to collect large fishes like Opah, Tuna, Louvar, Bat Ray, Leopard Shark, Spiny Dogfish, Angel Shark, Rattail, Chimaera`, and other interesting fishes – often they were kept on ice and even dissected to show the public morphological adaptations.

I recall one Open House that we had at the shore, even though we were still in the Salinas Trailer Park facility, in which faculty volunteered to be the target in a dunk tank to raise money for the student body and lab in general. For those us who volunteered, it was quite a shock when those who were interested in dunking us (often students, but others from the faculty, staff and public also joined in) actually hit the spot which forced us to drop down into a cold tank of water. That was when my wet suit still actually fit! It was good, clean fun and even made a few needed bucks.

 

Heather Fulton-Bennett (current student): While directing parking doesn't sound the most exciting, one of the best parts is flagging down residents and visitors to Moss Landing who otherwise had no idea about Moss Landing Marine Labs. It's great to get someone who may have been in town to fish, antique shop, or eat at Phil's to stop by and learn a little about us and marine science. The Phycology Lab's kelp forest displays fresh intertidal and subtidal seaweeds, allowing visitors to learn about intertidal zonation as well as the wide variety of products seaweeds are used in. One of the highlights for kids is the ice cream table, handed out along with the knowledge that most ice creams are full of seaweed extracts, and no one can taste it at all!

 

Ryan Manzer (current student): For the past open house my oceanography colleagues and I decided to go all out and some even constructed a mock up of the bow and stern of the recently departed Pt. Sur through which visitors would walk to get into the Oceanography classroom and our exhibits there.  For my part, I utilized the Matlab skills I had learned in the MLML Data Modeling class to develop a user interface that presented visitors with a bathymetric map of the Monterey Bay with locations of CTD casts highlighted in addition to a control panel and plotting frame for plotting data.

Users selected the location they were interested from a drop down menu and the variable of interest and clicked the "Start Cast" button.  I animated the plotting of the data so that it more accurately reflected what researchers see when making casts in real time.  The color schemes and interface style were modeled after the software actually used by the marine science tech on the Pt. Sur.  While it seemed a little silly to me when first presenting it, these plots and the questions they prompted from visitors gave a very clear picture of some of the research physical oceanographers do and how it can apply to others.

One of my favorite moments occurred when a sharp eyed visitor spotted an odd feature in the O2 and temperatures plots near the bottom at a couple sites near the canyon and asked us "what is going on there?".  After Jason and I puzzled over the plots and referenced some other sample locations we had to admit we didn't know.  After a few minutes speculation with the visitor wherein we all suggested potential drivers for the results the visitor left with a much better understanding of how and why we study the ocean.

 

Alex Olson (current student): As a volunteer diver at MLML for Phycology students, I went to an Open House and discovered that there was so much more to this place than algae (Algae are still cool!). I never really thought there could have been so many niche areas of research under one roof. The do-it-yourself wandering tour around the labs inspired and stoked my curiosity. Fast forward to 2014. My first Open House as a student found me staging visitors for a tour of the Pt. Sur at the gate to the dock. While waiting for the next 15 min tour to start, my job was to answer any questions visitors might have and show off the exposure suits that we carried with us on research cruises. Also known as "Gumby" suits, these thick neoprene suits are designed to keep the inhabitant warm and dry whilst floating in the water and awaiting rescue after abandoning ship. It being a warm sunny day I didn't think about actually getting into the suit, but just refer to it in my spiel about the ship and how great MLML was. The suits were unfurled on the hot cement, arms out, almost like crime scene chalk drawings. Sure enough, someone in the first group asked how they exactly work and if I could demonstrate.

You know that guy who holds the door open for someone, but gets stuck standing there for everyone else filing through?

I was that guy....with a Gumby suit.

I kicked off my shoes, slid in legs first, and scooted on my butt until I got waist deep. Then I stood up, put my left arm in the sleeve, pulled on the hood, slipped in my right arm, and pulled the zipper up until only my eyes and nose were visible. Ta daaah!  "That, folks, is how you get into a Gumby suit!"

The whole day was a repeat of that first group. Visitors slowly trickled in, asking for demonstrations, to the point where I was just getting into the suit whenever a new gaggle of people came by. I must have jumped in and out of those suits at least 20-25 times. I was a borderline sweaty mess, quietly hoping for some cloud cover or an end to the stream of visitors. It was only in the second half of the day when I had a small stroke of genius, realizing I wasn't the only body standing on the cement dock. I supervised suit donning for a variety of sized people, some disappearing in the suit, others turning the same red suit color as they pushed the seams to their limit.

It was a truly rewarding experience. Not only did I lose a few pounds of water weight by the end of the day, but the people's fascination of the lab, its ship and even the comfy Gumby suits, was a validation of my return to this place as a student.

Melissa Nehmens (current student): One little girl sticks out in my mind because she was rather comfortable with the idea of “sleeping for a long time,” which her father mentioned was to be attributed to Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. In her questioning about the shark embryo that she was holding in a jar filled with ethanol, we seemed to have a persistent disagreement as to whether or not the baby, as she called it, would ever wake up. A rather large disconnect in the implied meaning versus explicit meaning of “sleeping forever” seemed to be our hang up, which I only realized after some time. A circular conversation of why’s from the little girl and tip-toed answers from myself really emphasizing the forever part of sleeping seemed to be going nowhere. The parents looked on with smiles, slyly laughing to themselves at my discomfort, and finally gave me a nod to deliver the truth. It was met with a simple “oh” and a furrowed brow, followed by another question which I could see her formulating on her face. “So the baby isn’t going to wake up?” I replied with a no, and from there a new line of questioning began. It was the best conversation I have ever had with a three year old.

 

Heather Kramp (current student): For the past three years I've set up the most beloved, and most dreaded, activity in the Ichthyology lab, fish printing. We repurpose class research cruise specimens and left over thesis samples as art. A table in the corp yard and kids get to pick out a real, dead fish from a cooler. My favorite part of this experience is letting kids know they can pick up the fish and watching their reaction. Most kids are thrilled. Most parents are not quite as thrilled. Next, kids slather on some paint and press a piece of paper on top. The paper is peeled back and, hopefully, a nice impression of the fish is left behind. Kids ask so many questions about where the fish come from and what they eat. Lots of fish "petting" occurs and so many fish eyeballs are poked. My favorite kids are the serious painters. They take their time with every brush stroke and really get into their masterpiece. For the few kids that don't want to touch real fish, rubber ones are available because everybody loves to paint. Rows of fish prints dry on clothesline all weekend long. Kids just love fish printing. But, standing in the hot sun and trying to manage five little painters at once can be a huge challenge. Kids have to be gently encouraged that much, much less paint makes for a better print. Each year at least a handful of pint-sized Jackson Pollock impersonators show up. By early afternoon paint colors have been mixed together and the fish are gooey. First year students often walk away shell-shocked after a couple hours at the table. When the last guests leave we're exhausted. But, there's usually enough energy left for us to do some fish printing of our own. Student works of art adorn the Ichthyology lab walls year-round.

By Kenneth Coale (13 January 2016)

The thesis defense of MLML students requires an oral presentation of their research project including an introduction, materials and methods, results, conclusions and acknowledgements… followed by a closed-door conference with their thesis committee. With a favorable outcome of this conference, the requirement of their culminating experience is fulfilled. I hope to hear about these experiences in following posts.

As an advocate for student mentorship, and, in spite of my great respect for the scientific process, the acknowledgement section is where we find out how MLML touched their lives, shaped their experience, helped them through a trying time, and exactly where when and how their committee friends and family, instilled in them the confidence (and resources) to perceive. I live for this. Their acknowledgements usually run the gambit through their thesis committee members, their cohorts, funding agencies, the library and administration and their family, dog and boyfriend. Yet, unlike any other institution, the acknowledgements always include the Shop Guys. What?   I have been to many defenses at other institutions and no student ever recognizes the facilities staff. At most other programs, they usually tell students what can’t be done rather than what can be done. Normal facilities staff are successful when no-one notices what they do (lights on, temperature OK, no roofs leaking).   You never, ever, hear a student at SJSU recognize the “Facilities, Development and Operations” department, you never hear a student at UCSC recognize the “Louis Fackler Central Facilities” staff… but at MLML it is different. Perhaps we are closer to the ground. Perhaps as a small laboratory, removed from large institutional support, we are very much more in touch with our physical mortality. Perhaps, when faced with the challenge of actually doing something new in the real physical world, the students have few places to turn. This is where the Shop Guys step in.

These are the people who know how to get stuff done, in the physical sense. They live at the interface between knowing and doing. They may not know too much about genomics or oceanography, but they know everything about the coding and operations of physical systems, fabrication and repair. Particularly in marine sciences, there is an intersection between the academic and the physical, when it comes to the following problem: How do you take what you know in your head (as many students experience) to something you can hold this in your hands (as all students need to do)? To the Shop, the faculty send them. It is there that the Shop Guys try to understand just what the students are trying to do and either teach them how to build it, or build it themselves, and in many cases, do what the faculty can’t. In addition, that’s where the tools are, that’s where the materials are, that’s where the knowledge is to use the tools on the materials.

There are many stories about the shop and projects that have been built there. An earlier story reported by Susan Coale recounted the handy work of Ted Brieling, who, becoming sick of fixing mud-clogged outboards and rescuing students stuck in the mud, built the flat-bottom “Slough Boat”, that has lasted now over 40 years. The recent Marine Superintendent, Murray Stein, was so enamored with this boat and its story that he began a renovation project on the original hull…still in service today.

Geology student Carolyn Greene was frustrated by the lack of coring equipment available to reconstruct the deposition history of the nearshore environment and the transport dynamics of the canyon. So, she built her own gravity corer. Learning how to arc-weld and cast lead weights, she built a 400 lb, 10-foot corer that has been used ever since. This corer was recently refurbished for the NSF Eager Program teaching new faculty how to become Chief Scientists. It is rumored that the former captain of the R/V Cayuse (Mike Prince) was so smitten by Carolyn’s “hot metal work” (and can-do attitude), that they were married and raised two grown children before the heat dissipated.

 

Phycology student Catalina Reyes was trying to attribute algal cover to bottom type throughout Elkhorn Slough. She first tried diving and running transects throughout the slough, but this proved too cumbersome. She and Aldo De Rose came up with an underwater camera tripod (TIG-welded from stainless steel), that could be used to take quick pictures of identical areas from a boat throughout the slough.

Chemical Oceanography student, Rusty Fairey, TIG welded an aluminum frame and pneumatic compression system for obtaining millimeter-scale resolution in pore waters from along the continental margin. The gradients obtained were used to calculate the flux of metals, oxygen and nutrients from the continental margins and Monterey Bay. This device, for a short time, was the preferred method for porewater sampling by state agencies.

All the MLML VERTEX Particle Interceptor Traps (affectionately known as the PITS) were constructed by MLML students and technicians (Sara Tanner, Craig Hunter, Mike Gordon, Madellain Urrere, Susan Coale, Steve Fitzwater, Merrit Tuel, Dale Hebble and others) using the shop. These became a standard for the measurement of carbon flux in the world’s oceans.

Chemical Oceanography student Wesley Heim, developed a polycarbonate sampler (“The Sludge-O-Matic”) that would sample the upper ½ cm of the sediments. This device could be remotely deployed by line, or used by hand (SCUBA). Superficial sediment samples were used to map mercury species and fluxes throughout the SF Bay/Delta complex.

Physical Oceanography student turned technician, Mark Yarbrough, first built his own CTD rosette in the MLML shop as part of the VERTEX program. The design and performance characteristics were published on the cover of Marine Technology magazine. After suffering too many seasick days aboard the Cayuse, Dr. Broenkow turned to optical oceanography. When this occurred Mark built the first marine optical buoy, in the shop at Vertin Avenue, that could be used to calibrate ocean color-sensing satellites. Mark grew the program into what is now known as MOBY, relocated to Oahu, and is now providing vicarious calibrations for all orbiting ocean color sensing satellites and employs many people some of whom are former MLML students.

There are many other creations that emerge every year from Halloween costumes to benthic flux chambers and 90% of all creations are built with schedule 40 PVC. Yet, with new interest, a course is now taught in Marine Fabrication where students are taught how to use all the machinery in the shop. From forklifts to the lathe and mill, students are now putting together Vibracores, fixing Multicores, fabricating microspears, and working on a variety of their own projects. They also tour A&S Metal Recyclers. “If you are going to be in academic construction…” says their instructor, “you’re going to have to learn how to dumpster dive”.

Many students pass through or use the shop during some part of their study. Some use it as a place where they can find materials for their project (note: There are no “Scraps”, ask before you use,,, and oh yea, clean up your mess and, BRING THOSE TOOLS BACK!). Others are looking for advice. Everyone finds something, even barbecued venison from time to time. All are welcome and some find a new skill. Mostly, they connect with the physical world and know a bit more how to be “Shop Guys” themselves.

Shop Guys:

John Bell, Shop Support

Ted Brieling, Boat Builder, Rancher

Ken Delops, Electronics/Radio Tech.

Robert Cayce, Electronics Tech.

Tracy Thomas, Captain of R/V Rickets, Shop Support

Preston Watwood, Shop Support, Farmer, Outboard Engine Repair, Agricultural Test Manager

Larry Jones, Educational Facilities Manager, Singer, Songwriter

Ralph Dzuro, Electrician, Factory Worker, Storyteller

Aldo DeRose, Agricultural Fabrication, Welding, Metalwork, Politics, Storyteller

James Cochran, Corrections, Hunting, Construction, BBQ

William Cochran, Fishing Industry, Community Enforcement (unofficial Sheriff of Moss Landing), Pumps and Motors.

Barry Giles, Aquarium Systems, Mideast Desalination, Sustainability

Gary Adams, Food Processing, Mechanical Systems

Kris Machado, Electro-Mechanical Systems, Fabrication, Restoration

Bill Watson (honorary mention), Electrical Engineer, Fabrication, CAD design, Musician.

By John Heine  (17 December 2015)

I came to MLML as a graduate student in the Fall of 1979. The first semester there I took the Marine Science Diving course taught by Gary Ichikawa and Bob vanWagenen, both graduate students. The next summer the lab sent me to a NAUI Instructor Training course at SDSU, and I took over teaching the Marine Science Diving class after that.

The Diving Safety Officer duties at the lab during this time were shared by Drs. Michael Foster and Ann Hurley. I became appointed to that position on a part-time basis in 1982, after I finished my master’s degree, and became full-time in 1985. There is a long list of teaching assistants that co-taught the scientific diving course with me during the “middle years”. These include Guy Hoelzer, Don Canestro, Sean Wheelock, Marc Slattery, Jim Weston, Peter vonLangen, Nicole Crane, Clare Dominick, Diana Steller, Matt Edwards, and Jason Felton (apologies to those not listed!). There is also a long legacy of graduate students who used scientific diving for their theses. Many have gone on to successful careers in academia, government, and private industry.

One of the earliest projects that I became involved with was one that Mike Foster had with a grant from the California Department of Fish and Game to study the potential effects of sea otter foraging to the north of their current range at the time, which was roughly Monterey Bay. Mike asked me to head up the field component, which meant assembling an eight person dive team to do the subtidal sampling between Santa Cruz and Ano Nuevo. This might be a little more difficult to attempt these days with the increased populations of white sharks in the area!

We left Moss Landing Harbor very early in the morning aboard the R/V Ed Ricketts, captained by Mark Carr. We would usually do two or three dives to a depth of 60 feet, doing transects to count invertebrates or doing random point contact quadrats to estimate the percent cover of the algae. The US Navy decompression tables served us well, and there were no shark attacks. Also, skipper Mark Carr kept us entertained using the underwater speaker/diver recall to play KPIG!

There were a number of other projects that used the diving program during these middle years. Some that come to mind include MOBY in Monterey Bay and Hawaii, VERTEX, the Benthic Lab cruises in the Arctic, various NURP projects at Catalina Island and the Big Sur coast, projects in Antarctica with Jim McClintock and the Benthic Lab with John Oliver and Stacy Kim, NURP-funded rockfish tagging and tracking with Rick Starr, and many graduate student projects around the globe.

I did many cruises with the MOBY group in Hawaii, installing and retrieving the large optical instrument, and conducting calibrations on the light collectors (see Fig. 3). We had a lot of fun and saw some interesting creatures underwater, including mahi mahi, a pilot whale, and white-tip sharks that scared an unnamed diver from the Physical Oceanography lab clear out of the water!

During my tenure there at MLML the diving program improved with the acquisition of many new small boats, a new compressor and nitrox blending system (thanks to a facilities grant from the NSF), underwater imaging systems, and improved collaborations with local researchers. I left the labs in 2002 to pursue other opportunities, and the diving program was left in the capable hands of Dr. Diana Steller, whose blog on the “recent years” will be appearing soon.

 

Happy 50^th Anniversary to MLML, who anyone that has ever been involved there, whether student, staff, or faculty, knows what a great institution it truly is!