Newport, OR - Marine Science Center

Boy, did we choose the right day to go along the coast from lighthouse to lighthouse to beach to hike yesterday. Today dawned cold, damp, windy and not at all a day you’d want to walk a beach or tide pool or be outdoors. We even had dime sized hail.

Today is a day for the Hatfield Marine Science Center and - I hear that they will be feeding Wanda, the octopus, at 1:00. We hung around the RV for a while: Gary doing laundry and Nancy blogging. Then at 12 we walked over - right across the parking lot from where we are staying.

When we got there we saw that there was a special show on fossils. Cool. I’ve seen fossils but, since I grew up in Iowa, I really hadn’t seen a lot nor really though much about them. Later I was in a museum store somewhere and they actually had fossils for sale. Buy a fossil? I thought fossils went to museums - I thought they were a part of our cultural history. I didn’t know you could collect fossils. I didn’t know that they could be found all over. I didn’t know they were a dime a dozen. I have since seen lots of fossils for sale but always remember my first sighting of buyable fossils. But here were a number of individuals who hunted fossils, bought and sold fossils, had collections and actually discovered new species and displayed their fossils at the Smithsonian. Wow. We asked one guy where he found his fossils and he told us ‘between the ocean and the shore.’ Pretty coy he was, not wanting to let us in on his secret places.

Here’s an amateur archaeologist who, while hiking with friends, saw a group of people digging. She left the hike, decided to stay and, after helping the others for a few hours, she felt a rough edge of something. She called some others over and they told her how to dig out a fossil delicately. Look what she found! And, now she’s hooked.

Here are some other fossils that her group has found. Pretty impressive.

Here is the story of a fossil that one guy found that turned out to be a new species of early crocodile. He wrote his PhD paper on it, traced its ‘family tree’ and made a big splash in paleontology.

Here are the fossils he found that he deduced his Thalattosuchia from.

Ah, but the octopus feeding was at 1 pm and we heard the crowd gathering at the tank. The volunteers rolled the lid off, got the food ready but, when they put it in, Wanda was shy. She wouldn’t come out for anything. She’s only been at the Science Center for a while and isn’t used to being fed and having to eat in front of a crowd. Maybe later. But then, who wants to eat as a performance?

However, if you want to watch Wanda in her tank and maybe get in on a feeding, you can watch the Octocam at www.hmsc.oregonstate.edu/visitor/octocam.

We learned that male octopuses die right after they impregnate the female and the female dies approximately 6 months after she gives birth to here 80,000 eggs. Each egg is about the size and weight of a grain of rice. For those 6 months she protects the little octopuses so fiercely and so completely that she does not eat and usually dies of starvation. Of all those 80,000 eggs, probably only 2 will survive to adulthood, since there are so many predators in the ocean.

We met a young woman who had a degree in Marine Biology who, after a job monitoring a fishing boat in Alaska is back down here as a dental tech looking for a job in her chosen field. Let me describe her first job to you:

        You will be on the ocean in Alaska which will be cold, windy, wet and you will be the only female on a fishing ship with no private bedroom and no private bathroom. Your ‘house’ that you will share with 6 others will only be 50’ long and will rock and roll 24-7-365. Sometimes there will be an especially big wave that hits the boat so hard that you will be tossed with 2’ of air beneath you. There will be a strong fishy smell the entire time. In your 3 months on this job you will be transferred often, sometimes after only a week on a particular boat. No one will like you since you are really kind of an inspector to make sure the boat catches only what it is supposed to and in the way it is supposed to. Sound like fun to you? Want that job? We spoke with a young woman who had taken that job, found it interesting but is back down here as a dental tech.

The Science Center had a piece of a dock which had floated in from Japan after the tsunami hit in 2011. It was found on Agate beach, a mile north of Newport in 2012.

Here’s what it looked like when it was found. Afraid that it might have lots of invasive species, they cleaned it thoroughly before they put it out for display.

There was also a Harley Davidson in a crate which floated over from Japan to British Columbia in April of 2012.

Marvelous museum. There was a wealth of information here: info on invasive species, on how ships transport millions of little aquatic things from port to port all over the world in their ballast and then empty the ballast when they load up. We certainly learned a lot and enjoyed our time here.

Back at the RV, we found our neighbor cooking up some Dungeness crabs he had just caught off the pier. (Note where his wife is sitting in the rain since they had what is called a teardrop trailer.)