Kelp Visit

 

Josie with a dried Bull Kelp stipe

As I mentioned in an earlier post (click here for post) my sister's friend Josie visited Kodiak to get a feel for how Bull Kelp is doing around the archipelago.  She talked to various locals and got a feeling for the local story.  And out at Lipsett Point her and my sister snorkeled for a few hours and examined the kelp close up.  Nora and I floated around in kayaks on the surface and provided back up.  The current was actually pretty strong too - so we had to make sure they did not get too engrossed in the kelp and get swept away!

All of these pictures are of the underwater kelp beds that they took while snorkeling.  I have a few more posts later that show our activities on land and water, and even some more of them actually snorkeling.  

This year we noticed that in contrast to 2 years ago (click here for 2020 post) there is now very little bull kelp to the south of Lipsett Point.  The main kelp bed is now to the north and east of the point.  We also noticed that the Giant kelp seems to have expanded its range into the deep water on the south side of the point and we even saw a few plants to the east of the point.  The bull kelp on the north side also still extends into remarkably shallow water.  

We are not sure if this is a cyclical phenomena or if the Giant Kelp is expanding its range. Also while flying around to and from our bear viewing to the Alaska Peninsula we saw that giant kelp is far more widespread than I had thought.  Basically we need to keep observing the kelp around Lipsett Point and get a better handle of the interplay between the 2 species - we need more data points to really say anything meaningful.  But this is a start, and the kelp underwater sure is beautiful!

Patrick

Baby sea star starfish

Giant and Bull Kelp side by side