The Equipment

When we were setting up this project we visited the Friends of the San Juan Islands eelgrass monitoring team to see their set up. They also started because of concerns about eelgrass beds in their county, principally Wescott Bay where the plant disappeared a few years ago.

Jim and Tina showed us the open skiff they use and explained their equipment array and video mapping methods.

The red box contains the electronics for the video. Attached to the nav station are all the connections to integrate the navigation software and GPS coordinates. The cage with the white hourglass shape that Jim is holding is their tow fish. The camera - gray cylinder at the center - is protected by the cage and the hourglass shaped fin stabilizes the unit as it is pulled through the water.