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| No algal collecting trip to this area is complete without a visit to Seppings Island, which sports diverse algal floras separated by a rather dramatic cave through the intertidal zone. |
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| A peek at coralline algae with a splash of Codium in a Seppings' tidepool. |
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| Our collecting extends into freshwaters and this year we were fortunate to have Gerry and Lesleigh Kraft visiting us from Australia to share in our Vancouver Island collecting. |
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| The warmest spot in Bamfield - the deck of Rae and Louis' lovely home on Port Desire. As always, they graciously hosted all of the phycos in town during our visit. Friendship doesn't get any better! |
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| All of the phycos congregated for photo ops later in the evening... Most photos between this and the previous were deemed too risqué for general viewing. |
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| Dan and Gaz left their companions on Vancouver Island and headed north to Haida Gwaii. They started with some diving around Graham Island and collected hundreds of wonderful algal samples. Doesn't Dan look happy? |
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| The next stage of our journey took us into Gwaii Haanas where we were treated with exceptional hospitality by the Parks Canada team. Clint and Dan (a different Dan - small world), our official chaperones in the park, went above and beyond the call to make certain that our collecting trip was successful - we have never had such a support base in any of our previous collecting forays. We managed an immense quantity of work in our short visit largely thanks to these gents for their support and genuine interest in our work. |
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| Shooting the narrows in the Park to get to the best algal collecting sites - exciting times! |
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| Nowhere have we seen so many bat stars. Okay, they are not seaweed, but how can you walk by without taking a picture ... or two. |
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| These types of creatures often get your camera out as well. |
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| Collecting on Hotsprings Island was particularly welcome. Gwaii Haanas is, well, north, cold, damp - you get the picture. After wading around in the intertidal for about three hours, and with the prospect of 8-10 hours of specimen processing awaiting us on our return to Huxley Camp, this warm-you-to-the-bones experience was a definite perk. |
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| We ended our time in Haida Gwaii with some more intertidal collecting on Graham Island - with these beautiful Constantinea crowding the pools - off-gassing and preparing for our flight the next day. Great trip!!!! |
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