Located south of Admiralty Inlet, the Hood Canal is one of four main basins of which the Puget Sound is composed. Located at the entrance of the canal is a sill that characteristically prevents movement of water into or out of the basin. The Hood Canal has an approximate water volume of 26.9km³ and is fed by many rivers including the Skokomish, Hamma Hamma, Duckabush, and Dosewallips rivers (Nelson 2003). Spanning roughly 110km the canal is relatively narrow averaging 2.4km in width (Khangaonkar 2013). Although the Hood Canal reaches depths of nearly 180m, the average depth from end to end is only 54m (Khangaonkar 2013).

            Due to the bathymetry of the Hood Canal – predominately the basin’s depths and entrance sill – the flushing rates are characteristically slow (HCDOP 2005). As a result, this basin of the Puget Sound is known to have low dissolved oxygen levels. The low flushing rate prevents colder, more dense saltwater from mixing with warmer, less dense freshwater.

            The University of Washington Tacoma’s 2014 Estuarine Field Studies students traveled to the Hood Canal, to observe and sample water, sediments and marine organisms on May 16 and 17, 2014.   The R/V Wealander was captained by Dave Thoreson. All students enrolled in the Estuaries Field Studies course worked as a research team under the direction of instructors Cheryl Greengrove and Julie Masura. Three TA’s also assisted in laboratory worked conducted at Big Beef Creek. The Wealander embarked from Seabeck Beach at 8:23 PDT on May 16. On the second day of sample collection, the Wealander departed from Misery Point at 7:51 PDT. Weather conditions varied from morning to afternoon on the first day of sampling; initially there was 100% cloud cover with smooth waters followed in the afternoon by sun and heavy winds. On May 17, the weather varied from sunny to cloudy with minimal winds. Samples and data collected on the Wealander were processed in the University of Washington’s Big Beef Creek cabins in a temporary lab. Data and samples analyzed included: temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, fluorescence/chlorophyll a, transmissivity, relative turbidity, nutrients, phytoplankton, and sediments/total organic carbon. The Hood Canal provided an opportunity for students to learn about water properties within a narrow canal that is notorious for low oxygen levels and high nutrient concentrations.