Field Notes

Hill Slough: 2023-01-03 16:20:00 (DOY 3)
Author: Daphne Szutu
Others: Joe

Summary: Storm prep, removed EXO for calibration, knocked EXO guard into the water--recovered with a telescoping rake!

2023-01-03
Hill Slough

Joe and I arrived around 16:20 PST. It was cold and overcast and relatively still. We’ve had two big storms in the last week (Dec 26-27 and Dec 31), and another big one coming tomorrow. More storms forecast for this weekend and next week, too. The water level was relatively high (couldn’t see the shape of channel at all), but we didn’t write down the staff gauge reading.

Today was a quick stop to remove the EXO and bring it back to the lab for calibration. We’ll be back for regular data collection on Friday and can deploy the calibrated EXO then.
Joe checked that the tower was on and the proper lights were blinking.

The CTD sensor didn’t seem to be working because its data was -9999 when we checked on the CR23X display. At first we thought it was because the channel system only had 9V after the recent overcast weather instead of the expected 12V, but the HYDROS21 manual says it can run on 3.6-15V. As Joe was fiddling with the lithium power pack inside, the CR23X display kept popping up with ‘Hello,’ so he figured there was a loose connection somewhere. We’ll work more on fixing it on Friday. Might need a bigger solar panel.

Sensors removed:
sn 22E106072
sn 22E100649
sn 22D102641
sn 22C103416

I removed the EXO guard and used the sprayer to remove as many shrimp as I could. Most of the shrimp were now much bigger, about the size of a split pea instead of a grain of rice. Still a few tiny shrimp though. There were also some insects that looked like roly poly bugs but I didn’t see any calcareous worms this time so cleaning should be easier this time around.

In my enthusiastic rinsing, I accidentally knocked the plastic guard into the water. In the truck we had a rake with a telescoping arm that extends about 3m (originally for use to clear weeds from ADCP Flo at Gilbert Tract). Joe got in the water with waders and the rake, but the water was too deep for him to get close enough to the channel to reach much ground with the rake. We then kneeled on the boardwalk and lowered the rake into the water to poke around from above. Luckily we hit the guard a few times, and the rake tines just happened to catch onto one of the holes in the guard. We pulled the rake and guard out of the water and then quickly shuttled everything back to dry land where I couldn’t knock anything else off the boardwalk into the water.

We left at 17:05 PST. We’ll be back on Friday.

0 photos found

4 sets found

20 HS_met graphs found