LastDayOfSabbatical

Last day of Sabbatical

 So, just to catch you up.  Two weeks ago we had a splendid “dock party” for Siwash.  Here’s her cake made by the most wonderful bakers at Angel Maid in Culver City.

 It was all very festive, and yet sad.  We were at the dock that used to belong to my Mom and Dad, but that is now for sale.  Everything is in flux.  And yet somehow, all those present felt a palpable comfort in being able to gather and muse about this old boat that survives everyone.

Science is starting to ascend through all the bubbly stuff of life, as it reliably does.  Unanswered questions on several fronts still titillate my students and me. 

Here’s a cool one.  Kind of a research update from the weeks we spent on Catalina Island last Fall.

 Remember, if you will, that our hypothesis to explain the value of sensitization, the increase in defensive behaviors that we observe in sea hares following a lobster attack, is that this hypersensitivity helps protect the sea hare from future attack.  By the way, we got the original research, showing sensitization after lobster attack, published in a cool, highly visible journal, the Journal of Neuroscience.

http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/30/33/11028?etoc

 To me, this paper was fairly straightforward.  Entice lobsters to attack sea hares.  Separate them before too much damage is done, and then test the sea hares for enhanced reflex withdrawal.  No big deal, really. 

 But this paper has made more of splash than I ever thought possible.  Lots of folks emailed me to congratulate us.  The paper may get mentioned in other journals as a “hot” paper.  Pretty cool.  The best part is that the research was performed by so many students over several years.

Ok.  But showing sensitization still doesn’t answer the question of what good it does for sea hares!  Does it really help sea hares protect themselves from future attacks?  Well, Dan and John and I went back out to Catalina Island a few weeks ago and actually tested this hypothesis! 

We put out the same enclosure cages we used before.  Then we went back to the lab and marked sea hares with little plastic tags.  Then we gave half of the sea hares “standard” electric shock treatment to induce sensitization.  Then we planted sensitized and naïve animals in a cage.  Finally we did our usual dive protocol with bait sea hares in order to identify attacking lobsters.  We planted a hungry lobster in each of the two cages, and checked back in the next day to see which sea hares the lobsters preferred.  We hypothesized that the naive sea hares would be preferred because they were not pre-sensitized.

As so often happens in science, our hypothesis got roundly defeated.  Every one of the 5 lobsters that ate 1 or two sea hares consumed ONLY the naïve ones.  Previous sensitizing attack seems to make sea hares more, not less, vulnerable to subsequent attack.

Now dear readers, you can email me or post ideas to explain these results.  Clearly this professor has no clue what good sensitization is doing these slugs!

On this note, we end the sabbatical.  Perhaps I’ll continue with the Wright lab’s research adventures, but we shall see.

Thanks for reading this stuff.  Writing about research and life clears my head in ways I still don’t really understand.

 

 

Farewell

At my Mom's request, I moderated my Dad's memorial yesterday morning. Drank his bloody Mary recipe and saw all the old salts from his long life. Many, nay most of these old salts have lost other old friends, so they knew the routine, a lot better than I. I wasn't going to post another blog, but I forgot to sing this one last song, yesterday, so here it is.

Dad used to sing this, as well as other songs to us when we were kids. I've written it as I remember it, and sang it to my own young kids.

My father was the keeper of the Eddystone light,
He slept with a mermaid one fine night
And from this union there came three,
A porpoise and a porgy and the other was me.
With a Yo ho ho, and a Yo heave heave,
Such is the life on the rolling sea.

One night, while I was a-trimmin on the glim
Singin a tune from the veper's hymn
A voice from a starboard shouted "Ahoy!"
And there was me mother, she was sittin on a buoy.
The kind what guides the ships that sail,
Not the kind of a buoy what's a juvenile male.

"Now, what has become of my children three?"
My mother then she asked of me.
One was exhibited as a talking fish
The other served up in a chafing dish.
With a Yo ho ho, and a Yo heave heave,
Such is the life on the rolling sea.

Well the moonlight flashed in her seaweed hair.
When I looked again, my mother wasn't there
A voice came echoing out of the night,
"To Hell with the keeper of the Eddystone Light!"
With a Yo ho ho, and a Yo heave heave,
Such is the life on the rolling sea.

Lot's of good photos of my dad's life, gleaned from the myriad albums. Here's him and Mom after winning Transpac in 1955.



Here's the Psyche crew too. Note the similarity in the grins of father and son (I'm the second from left).

TranspacBlog II-28: Crossing tacks

A most amazing race, indeed. The race is over, and we STILL keep running into Farfar. Last night the Psyche crew (not Charlie) and friends enjoyed a luscious dinner party at the Outrigger Canoe Club, right on the Diamond Head side of Waikiki, courtesy of our captain, Steve Calhoun. His generosity overflowed. While we drank our Mai Tai's at sunset, the canoeists were racing down the waves and putting their outriggers away against the wall right next to us. A beautiful tropical sunset, not at sea, but over the hills around Pearl Harbor.

While we stood around enjoying absolutely sumptuous hors d'oeuvres, who should walk in, but the crew of Farfar and their friends. Looking smart and trim, with beautiful wives/girlfriends, we all guffawed and growled, and shook hands yet again. Vonnegut talks about people in your Karass, and how you can't control it. That's the Psyche and Farfar crew. I wonder how many years we will continue to cross tacks.

Then we sat at a long table in the sand, and ate the best meal I've eaten in a very long time.

I am STILL rocking, 30 hours after the race. My muscles are sore all over from the winch grinding and just holding on, in that rocky rolly sea. The callouses are starting to peel off my hands.

I can't help wondering how I would feel about this race if we had sailed 10 minutes slower across 2+ weeks, and lost to the Farfar crew. It is hard to imagine. But I THINK by this long afterward, I'd be getting a sense of perspective.

Bird (my love who came to greet me) and I are sitting in our room in the Bamboo right off Waikiki, considering that we have NO plans, no watch system, no must do, no nothing. It is a real vacation. My colleagues at Chapman call the race a "sailing vacation". Our college president runs in marathons. I'm doubting that his colleagues call it a "running vacation", but maybe they do.

My dad's death memory comes in waves now, not often, but often enough. An emptiness hole feeling that comes to a peak and then dies down over the course of a few minutes. We will be having a memorial service on the 4 August. There will be a gazillion people there; my parents are incredibly social animals, and they've had a pile of years to accumulate close friends. My mom chose the yacht club to honor the primary avocation of my dad, i.e., sailing. I am truly looking forward to hearing from all these old friends, whose stories and humor will help me transform this hole to a fabric of shared memories.

So, that is the last transpac blog. I guess we'll let this series of blogs stand for a while to accumulate your comments. Also, please feel free to comment or email me at wwright at chapman dot edu. Like two years ago, I feel a sense of gratitude to those of you who have told me what fun you had reading the blog. Knowing that you were reading it made it very, very fulfilling to write.

Dad

Dad 50
Originally uploaded by Sticky Tiny

TranspacBlogII-27D: WE WON!!

Last email (sent the day after, but you can read it for effect) found us with a big question mark.

Farfar racing along to save her time. We struggling not to let them do it.

Beautiful moonlit night. Smooth sea. Wind, 18-24 knots. High tension on board. To sail all this way and not be able to beat them, had us all dry mouthed. The focus of the last 6 hours of the race was downright unhealthy (in the long run).

We realized that what made us fast on that point of sail was the "trimmer", the person on the spinnaker sheet. Andrew and Charlie traded off. They know when to trim and how fast. They caught bunches and bunches of spinnaker collapses. Each collapse is probably worth 10 seconds; too many and we lose.

We Won.

We did it. We saved our time. 9 minutes (90 spinnaker collapses; 40 spinnaker changes; an hour on the wrong jibe), after more than two weeks of match racing.

I can't imagine any other set of opponents grappling for that long.

At the welcome party, we talked with the father/son pair (Mark and Peter English) of the four crew on Farfar. They were just as keyed up and stressed as we were. Bottom line is that we made each other's experience incredibly intense. Take away Farfar, and the race was a mellow slow passage. Add them back in, and we had the experience of a life time. I don't know if any of them or their friends read this blog, but I want to thank them for basically kicking our butts. We saved our time, but they beat us to the barn. But we still...

WON!

Such a crazy scene at the dock. The goofy Psyche crew and their loved ones. Surprises. Charlie's family showed up unannounced (they couldn't stay away). Tom Jorgensen and son Rob flew over just to see the scene. Press people wondering how we did it.

But here's the big thing. My sweet Bird came with layer upon layer of leis. I finally got to experience a little piece of those old black and white photos of my dad in Honolulu, after having won all the trophies and breaking the record in 1951. Leis up to my chin, as happy and relieved as ever could be.

I'll send one more blog tomorrow from our hotel.

Ta Da (Hawaiian for seeyalater)

TranspacBlogII-27C: Farfar Sighted?

Just charging along the north coast of Molokai. Green lush, waterfalls, stark, lonely.

Each of us taking 15 min steering turns, trying to break our records. Nobody does, but everyone is having fun. Gusts of 24.

But we are always looking at the horizon, trying to find Farfar. Which of us is going to be the Division 6 winner, and which will be second?

Oops, there's a white light in front of us. I think it is them. Steve says no.

If so, they are ahead, but within handicap reach. Jim thinks it is them.

We are listening to the radio, where we should hear them give their 25 mile check in. We have 10 miles to go to our 25 mile check in. We think we can cover 9 miles.

If that IS them, then they shouldn't be more than 5 miles ahead. We can cover that, unless the wind shuts off.

The suspense is KILLING us.

Farfar just called in. Asking whether Psyche has checked in.

Transpac says no. Farfar says thank you.

We call. Farfar gave their 25 mile check in 30 minutes ago. We are behind them, but can we save our 70 minutes?

We checked in 56 minutes later. That leaves 14 minutes!

If we can keep them from stretching their lead by 14 minutes, we can do it.

Aaarggh, is the wind dying? If it does we're doomed.

I'm sending this to you all, and I'll write another one from land tomorrow.

Sara, my daughter. I want to thank you for relaying all of these messages, and posting them on the blog.

Thanks also, to all of you who sent us your well-wishes.

Ta Ta (Hawaiian for seeyalater)

TranspacBlogII-27B:Delayed Gratification

It is 8:31 PM, California time, making it 5:31 in the afternoon here in Hawaii.

Our present updated ETA is around midnight.

We jibed our way toward Molokai all morning. We barreled through a particularly long and rainy squall, and when it cleared, viola, there was Haleakala, the volcano of the island of Maui, rising up out of the clouds. We are presently sailing down this amazing coast. Charlie says that it has the highest sea cliffs in the world, even higher than the cliffs of Dover. Unbelievably high water falls. Molokai was a leper colony back when, and the entire island has remained pretty much off limits ever since. Not sure why that is now. Kaleapapa point is where the colony once was. Charlie says there is a great surfing spot directly inshore of us, but you have to come in by boat. Most every day the trades are blowing, but when they aren't out goes Charlie looking for some uncrowded tubes.

Still no Farfar sighting. She checked in for the 100 mile check in earlier than we (by the equivalent of 3 miles), indicating that she is still slightly ahead. We thought they would aim their boat for the island of Molokai, and we would see them here. The intensified trade wind along this north coast of Molokai is world famous, and most sailors come in close to Kaleapapa. We are just about to pass it as I write. The wind has increased to 18-20 knots, hardly the 35 knots we got last time we were here. But HOPEFULLY, it is enough to slide us past Farfar. We think we will sight them in the Molokai channel, but who knows.

One more update to come.