Puerto Montt is surrounded by farmland, volcanoes, and fjords, with the Andes looming the distance, making for amazing views on our flights in and out. Photo: Heather Fulton-Bennett
In early January of this year, I boarded a plane bound for Puerto Montt, Chile. It was my first time to South America and my first time crossing the equator. Though Chile is an amazing vacation destination, I was headed there for an even better purpose - research! Myself and five other MLML graduate students were fortunate to have the opportunity to take a ten-day intensive field course at the Universidad de Los Lagos in Puerto Montt. The course, Global Kelp Ecosystems, is taught every three years in partnership with MLML and the Universidad de Los Lagos. Five instructors co-teach the course, including Drs. Michael Graham and Scott Hamilton of MLML, Dr. Alejandro Bushman from the Universidad de Los Lagos, and Drs. Silvain Faugeron and Alejandro Pérez-Matus from the Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile. In addition to MLML students, four Chilean graduate students and one French graduate student studying in Chile also took the course.
The 2015 Global Kelp Systems class in Pucatrihue, Chile.
After a day-and-a-half of travel with an unbelievable amount of luggage (including dive gear) we all arrived in Chile.
There are few times that I would willingly wake up while it is still dark outside. The day of our ichthyology field trip aboard the R/V Point Sur was one of those days. Not only would it be my first time aboard the Point Sur, it would also be my last before its retirement after 28 years of service at Moss Landing Marine Labs. Suffice to say, I was pretty excited to have this opportunity.
Regular 4 a.m. wakeup calls are brutal even for the coolest fishing survey. Once the boat is steaming towards our destination, very few things can come between me and my precious snooze time. But this morning I heard words that had me on my feet in a hurry: “Killer whales!”
Science crew and volunteer fishermen alike clamored onto the deck and pressed ourselves against the boat railings, scanning the early morning horizon as our captain maneuvered us in for a closer look. Suddenly we saw them – two black jackknives of dorsal fins appeared over the rolling swells. We spotted two small orcas (another term for killer whale), their heads surging forward through the waves. Their characteristic white eye spots stood out like warpaint in fearsome contrast against their sleek black bodies. I watched in disbelief and euphoria as their heads broke the water’s surface once, twice, and again before they disappeared from sight.
Photo by Chad King (SIMoN)
Since I wasn’t able to snap a decent photo of my own, this one is courtesy of SIMoN and the Monterey Bay Sanctuary, who generously host a marine photo library for public use.
Though orcas are found in all the world’s oceans and are not unheard of in Monterey Bay, to actually see them here is rare and really quite special. Orcas are voracious hunters – as far as their prey are concerned, they earn their nickname, “wolves of the sea,” and probably the Latin meaning of their scientific name, Orcinus orca: “from hell!” Orcas near Monterey, like the ones I saw, sometimes hunt gray whales passing through on their migration from Mexico to Alaska with their new calves (ie, easy targets).
But even their ruthless reputation just added to my enthusiasm, which somehow always gets the best of me around whales and charismatic wildlife. Cheering and clapping at the sight of my first orcas, I threw my fist in the air and shouted “Jump!,” – you know, like in Free Willy? Apparently these orcas had never seen the movie, since they missed their cue.
Still, it was a good miniflashback for me, remembering how I used to dream of being like the kid in that movie, who lived by the ocean and got to spend time with awesome marine life, lucky duck. And now I am that kid, getting to see the real deal on days like this, roaming free. Such sweet job perks even make the 4 a.m. wake-up call worth it – at least until tomorrow morning.
