Second morning in the field

After our glorious morning, sampling for my MSc student’s project, in Dulas Bay, we had two more sites to do. She did the second site without me that same evening, and we would go out again together in the Cefni Estuary the next day. Another 4:30 alarm! But again that went well. And soon Finley and I were on our way.

At the other two sites, the sampling locations were not far from the road. But here they would be! I had hoped we could borrow a vehicle from the school, as these are quite big, and you can just throw two bicycles in the back. But they were not available, so we had to go in my little Corsa. That can only reasonably contain one bike, so I had proposed a repeat of the Dutch way of getting to the far end of Newborough Forest I had practised with Martin: two people on one sturdy bike. I had made sure it was ready in the back of the car the day before.

Finley had never been transported, or transported others, like that. She chose to be on the back. Maybe for the better; I am certain I am heavier. But she took to it well! And we got to the end of the woods at a good speed. There we left the bike.

This time we had left the big GPS behind. We were going to do this with a handheld GPS. Would we find the exact position back? No. Was it time to abandon striving for perfection, and going for acceptable? Yes. But how many decimal places were the coordinates we were working on, anyway? Even with a sophisticated GPS you can only get to a position as precisely as the data quality allows you.

The sunrise was not anywhere as spectacular as it been the day before, but we still got some nice skies. And the area was completely deserted! We had the whole place to ourselves.

It was a bit of a faff to find the locations back, but we did it. Sampling completed! And then we had a new mission: drive to the garage where Finley's van was. It was ready for her, but public transport in this area isn't impressive, so we couldn't let an opportunity of being able to tag that onto a car-facilitated field day slip. So not only had we finished the sampling; she also had her range of movement back! Success!