Journals 2004/2005

Barbara Simon-Waters
East Carteret High School, Beaufort, NC

"Foraging ecology of Northern elephant seals" University of California, Santa Cruz July 11-21, 2004

Journal Index: July 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18       19 - 20 - 21

July 17, 2004

I slept in until 7:30am today and went to breakfast about 8:30am. Today, I am going to continue to explore the downtown Santa Cruz section and then meet Carey to feed LT and Forrest. Downtown Santa Cruz is wonderful-so many small, unique eateries with an outdoor café appeal, diverse shops, and musicians. There are manned tables to sign up democrats and manned tables to sign up republicans. It is warm but low humidity. Everyone is walking around all over the downtown section. I went into several world market type shops and clothing stores. I walked back about 1pm. I took a picture of the Welcome to Santa Cruz sign noting that its sister city is in the Azores.

I arrived at the Long Marine Lab about 3:40pm just after Carey. Saturdays must be bike day in California because there were so many people riding around. LT lost his "pill" so he will have to be drugged tomorrow and have it reinserted into his stomach. Forrest gobbled down 4kg of herring. The water temperature in the pool was 17.5C, over 1 degree warmer than yesterday. Carey said that they would do the insertion at 10:30am so I will return for that. I also took a picture of Carey in her ARMADA Project hat!

After leaving the lab, I turned on Bay Street and rode up the hill to the UC Santa Cruz campus. This campus is really spread out with all the buildings built amongst the trees, particularly redwood trees. On the way up there was a clearing with a great view of Monterey Bay with Santa Cruz below. I went down the hill and turned around, went back up the hill and pulled off on a dirt path to take pictures. No wonder real estate prices are so high up there. The view is spectacular. I found my way back to Bay Street and went back to my hotel. I am getting pretty good at remembering directions and finding my way around. Tomorrow I want to travel along West Cliff Drive after I leave the lab.