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Today Sue and I did our sampling from helicopter floats! Such an adventure. Some of the lakes Sue has included in her study are more isolated than the ones we have been using the canoe on and would be a 45 min hike dragging the canoe through the forest to get to them. So helicopter is our mode of transportation. Helicopters are soooooo expensive! Luckly the Lesack lab has a grant for helicopter time so we hopped onto a Long Ranger at the airport and off we went. The delta looks so unreal from the sky! Hundreds of lakes scattered around the muddy river. We went to 4 lakes today and collected our usual samples. The pilot kept the helicopter running while we climbed out onto the floats with our zooplankton nets, bottles, seives and long sediment pipe. The zooplankton towing was interesting. The pilot drove around the lakes in circles and we held our nets open dragging them through the water and pulling them up to empty all the "little guys" every now and then so they did not squish each other. I collected the water samples balancing on the floats and placed them into our trusty cooler in
the back of the helicopter. We then took core samples to dig out the clams from the sediment. I felt very nervous everytime Sue lifted the pipe high out of the water even though she was a safe distance from the blades. There are not that many clams in these lakes so this part usually takes of the longest. BUT the wind from the helicopter and being in the middle of the lakes keeps those pestky bugs away!!! YEAH!
Stay tuned for my hext helicopter adventure in the delta😊
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Dilio
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I LOVE YOUR PICTURES!!!!!! It looks like you are having such a fabulous time. I cannot believe you went in a helicopter! That is pretty much unreal. You are my helicopter idol. Don't let the mosquitoes bite you dilio. Miss you a lot.