Let the games begin...

Today we woke up to more fog (surprise, surprise), however this didn't stop us from getting some work done at some bluffs close to the CNSC. This afternoon we had a successful string of hours of work at our site and were even fortunate enough to actually soak up some rays as the sun made an appearance! But to take a break from the description of sampling I'd like to tell you about another exciting event. As Erinn eluded to in her post yesterday, we held an event here at the CNSC on Thursday night: the first every CNSC Olymp-a-thon! As far as I know this is the first event of such science depth and athleticism to be held at such a site and the Planktoneers really have to thank our co-conspirator Kat as well as our planning committee for making it such a great way for all the researchers to mingle and show of their field work skills.

The event had several main events...

1) Wader Relay- this involved a team relay where researchers had to bike and run in hip or chest waders. In between each leg of the relay, teammates had to quickly transfer the waders from one teammate to another. This made for some crazy biking and interesting strategy.

Erinn completes a quick turn.

Brandon loses his waders during the biking leg.

Kuz is helped out of her waders.
Jess sprints towards the finish line, into the arms of the opposite team...

Me running in waders slightly too big for me.

Tom's gumby? legs.

2) The Great Daphnia Hunt- with only a bucket and 2 minutes, teams competed to find the most daphnia from a specified pool.

This turned out to be quite the serious event...

3) The Fieldbook Mosquito Clap of Thunder. Ummm need I say more?


4) Ptarmigan Round-Up! Not too many were ugh "successful" at this one (videos coming soon):




(thanks for Riley for this superb graphics job).

5) Down and Dirty- aka the great gummie worm search.



So overall it was a great time had by all, but I feel the need to recognize the teams here.

FIRST PLACE: Erinn, Avril, Tom and Brandon



SECOND PLACE: Jess, Carla, me and Kat



THIRD PLACE: Nick, Christy, Kuz and Shawn


And I'm sorry to our 4th place team and our distinguished judges Kristin and Jay as blogger won't let me add more photos!

Well until another day!