Atlas8 min read
The Alaska Peninsula: Where Two Seas Collide over Kelp
An 800-km volcanic chain between the North Pacific and the Bering Sea — passes, salmon rivers, cold kelp forests on one side, sand on the other.
Jack Callum ·
Journal author
Jack Callum
Field Operations Lead
Jack runs Drifter fleets and dive crews on Tidewright restoration sites. His field notes are written on deck, usually still dripping.
92 articles by Jack
Atlas8 min read
Big Sur: Vertical Kelp Country on California's Wildest Coastline
A field guide to Big Sur's remote kelp forests: why the vertical coast grows them, how deep canyons feed them, and how anyone actually reaches them.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes, Humboldt Coast: First Season Learning From Chilean Divers
Tidewright's first Humboldt Coast season: working alongside local diver unions, learning huiro protocols, and finding out what the Chilean coast teaches back.
Jack Callum ·
Atlas10 min read
The Patagonian Channels: Kelp Inside Chile's Drowned Mountains
Inside Chile's Patagonian channels, the Andes go under the sea — and sheltered waters grow the most extensive giant kelp forests in South America, beside a salmon boom.
Jack Callum ·
Atlas9 min read
Clayoquot Sound: Kelp Beds Beneath the Ancient Rainforest
Fjords, surf beaches and kelp forests in one of Canada's most storied sounds — marine life, Nuu-chah-nulth stewardship and a famous conservation history.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: Refit Day — Taking Drifter 7 Apart to Find Its Faults
A mid-life refit of Tidewright's hardest-worked vessel: what two seasons of reef surveys did to Drifter 7, and what the wear patterns taught the design team.
Jack Callum ·
Farming9 min read
Working the Farm: Safety Gear and Exposure Protection
The PPE that keeps seaweed crews alive and working: flotation, cold-water protection, gloves, boots and exposure systems for all-weather farm work.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes10 min read
Field Notes: The Bay of Fires Baseline Survey, Day by Day
Six days on Tasmania's kelp front line: a day-by-day diary of the baseline survey that will decide where Tidewright's next restoration lines go.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Drifter Nine Goes Quiet: Finding a Lost Robot at Sea
Drifter Nine stopped phoning home mid-survey off Mendocino. Field notes on the search, the recovery at sea and what the fault log told us afterward.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: The March Canopy Census, Twelve Drone Flights a Day
Every March we fly every southern-hemisphere site at peak canopy. Twelve flights a day, dawn tides, and a data pipeline that turns pixels into a season's verdict.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: Mapping the Mendocino Canopy by Drone
A week flying multispectral drone surveys over Mendocino's recovering bull kelp: fog windows, canopy maths, and where the map still needs divers.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: The Buoy That Marks a Thousand Hectares
A Tidewright field note from Tasmania's Lumeriah Coast: anchoring a monitoring buoy over the thousandth seeded hectare, and what a big round number is actually worth.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes7 min read
Field Notes: What Hokkaido's Kombu Farmers Taught Us About the Harvest
A field note from Hokkaido's kombu coast: stone-beach drying, grading tables and the harvest craft that reshaped how Tidewright handles its own kelp.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: What the Holdfast Census Found in the Urchin Zone
Field notes from a winter holdfast census across a Tasmanian reseeding site: urchin counts on treated vs control transects, and what we changed for next season.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes7 min read
Field Notes: Pulling the First Holdfast Lines, Three Years In
The first Holdfast lines we ever laid are three years old and due for retrieval. What biodegradable seeding lines look like after three winters — and what they taught us.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: Sea Trials for Hull Nine
Four days off Fortescue Bay putting Drifter hull 9 through its first sea trials — what we test, what broke, and why the slow tests matter most.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: Spawn Night with the Kudjela Rangers
A Tidewright field note from Gulf St Vincent: collecting golden kelp broodstock by torchlight with the Kudjela Sea Country Rangers, two hours either side of low tide.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: Returning to Lofoten in the Dark Season
In eight weeks the light goes at 68° north. What Lofoten's first seeded lines did through their first summer, and the plan for going back in.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: Holding a Nursery Together Through the Winter Storms
Tidewright field note from Lofoten: how a kelp nursery survives December — storm triage, line tensioning, and what three Atlantic gales teach a young crop.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes7 min read
Field Notes: A Ranger Knowledge Exchange in Lofoten
Four Kudjela sea-country rangers fly north to our Lofoten project. A week of sugar kelp, winter light, and two very different coasts trading what they know.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: The School Group That Met a Forest
Twenty-four fourth-graders, forty masks, and one restored kelp bay. Field notes from a Tinderbox school snorkel day — and why it matters to the program.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: Spore Season in Southeast Alaska
Tidewright field note: three September weeks on Sitka Sound collecting kelp sorus — the wild reproduction tissue that seeds every Holdfast line we grow.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
The Harvest Window: Fourteen Days to Pay for a Forest
Fourteen days, one weather window and a quota the reef wrote first — field notes from the harvest fortnight that funds a season on the Humboldt coast.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes7 min read
Field Notes: A New Urchin Crew's First Week on the Reef
Five trainees, two instructors, one Tasmanian barren. What it actually takes to turn working divers into an urchin-removal crew, and what the first week teaches them.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: A Morning on the Urchin Cull
Dawn on Tasmania's east coast: four divers, two hammers, and a barren the size of a football pitch. What an urchin cull actually looks like from inside the vis.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: The First Harvest in Lofoten
Eighteen months after Lofoten's polar-night seeding, the sugar kelp belt met its first harvest. Field notes from the week the fleet got paid in kelp.
Jack Callum ·
Careers8 min read
Marine Telemetry Careers: A Job Made of Tags and Pingers
What marine telemetry technicians actually do — tagging sharks and fish, running receiver arrays, wrangling detection data — and how to break into the field.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: Night Shift Under the Nursery Lights
A Tidewright field note from the Holdfast hatchery: the red-lit night shift, quiet alarms, and what 3 a.m. teaches you about kelp seed quality.
Jack Callum ·
Careers10 min read
Working at a Public Aquarium: Careers Behind the Glass
Aquarists, life-support operators, vet teams and educators keep aquariums alive. An honest map of careers behind the glass — and how volunteering opens the door.
Jack Callum ·
Careers9 min read
Working on a Research Vessel: Deck, Engine and Science Party
Three crews keep an oceanographic ship alive — deck, engine and science. Here's what each actually does, the tickets to get aboard, and the life at sea.
Jack Callum ·
Farming9 min read
Seaweed Farm Cooperatives: Sharing Risk on the Water
How seaweed farm cooperatives work — shared hatcheries, boats and marketing — the models that succeed, the governance that holds, and how to set one up.
Jack Callum ·
Farming9 min read
Safety on a Seaweed Farm: Boats, Lines, Cold Water and the Checklists That Help
A working-day guide to seaweed farm safety: the hazards that actually hurt people, vessel and line protocols, cold-water rules and the checklists crews should run every trip.
Jack Callum ·
Farming11 min read
Harvest Methods in Kelp Farming: Blades Up, Regrowth Down
Whole-line stripping, partial blade cutting, selective hand harvest and mechanical methods — how each kelp harvest method trades yield, regrowth and quality.
Jack Callum ·
Atlas8 min read
The Sonoma Coast: After the Bull Kelp
Sonoma's coast lost most of its bull kelp a decade ago. A guide to the collapse, the abalone closure, and where the forest is quietly returning.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: Tagging Giant Sea Bass off Catalina
A Tidewright field note: acoustic-tagging giant sea bass near the restored kelp lines at Catalina — and what the receivers heard when the giants came back.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: The Harvest That Paid for August
A ranger-led golden kelp harvest on South Australia's Gulf St Vincent just funded an entire seeding season. Field notes from the week the flywheel turned.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes10 min read
Field Notes: Five Days as a Trainee in the Holdfast Hatchery
Five days as a trainee inside Tidewright's Holdfast hatchery: spore releases, cold rooms, seeded lines and the unglamorous real work of restoration.
Jack Callum ·
Explore9 min read
Underwater Camera Gear Basics: Housings, Ports and Strobes Without the Hype
Underwater photo gear without the hype: how housings, ports, domes, strobes and trays actually work, what to buy first, and how to keep salt water out.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: The Storm Damage Report We Didn't Want to Write
A February storm took eleven of sixty seeded lines off the Mendocino coast. This is the honest write-up: what failed, what it cost, and what changes.
Jack Callum ·
Careers9 min read
From Citizen Science to Career: Turning Volunteering into Work
Citizen science is a genuine on-ramp to paid marine work. How to choose programs, build evidence of skill, and convert reef volunteering into a career.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: Counting the Urchin Front
Join Tidewright's dive survey team as they count an advancing urchin front on Tasmania's coast — the methodical, cold, essential math of kelp restoration.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: When Drifter 7 Came Home
After 90 days alone on the Great Southern Reef, autonomous vessel Drifter 7 returned with 4.2 million images and one bent propeller. This is its story.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes, Mendocino: Diving the Urchin Barrens
A Tidewright field note from California's north coast: two weeks inside a purple urchin barren, counting what kelp loss looks like and planning its way back.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: The Settlement Plates We Bolted to a Barren
What settles on an urchin barren, and what survives? We bolted ceramic settlement plates to Mendocino reef to find out — before and after seeding.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes, Tasmania: First Light on the Holdfast Lines
A Tidewright field note from Maria Island, Tasmania: deploying Holdfast seed lines onto heat-struck reef at dawn, and what we found three months on.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: First Canopy at Stumpy's Bay
Seven months after seeding, the first kelp canopy breaks the surface at Stumpy's Bay. Tidewright's crew logs the milestone — and what it actually means.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Five Years, One Transect: What Staying Still Teaches You
Tr L-7 is a single 30-metre transect off Tasmania surveyed every month since 2021. Five years of unglamorous re-measurement turned out to be our sharpest instrument.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
The Night the Power Failed: Holding a Kelp Hatchery Together in Tasmania
A mains failure at 2 a.m. puts a Tasmanian kelp hatchery's season on a countdown. Field notes on triage, generators and the order in which things die.
Jack Callum ·
Careers8 min read
Marine Restoration Technician: The Hands-On Job Rebuilding Reefs and Forests
Restoration technicians do the physical work of rebuilding kelp forests, reefs and seagrass beds. The skills, tickets, employers and routes into the trade.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: Storm Season on Catalina
A Pacific storm season tests Tidewright's Catalina restoration site. Field notes on survey dives between swells, storm-torn kelp, and which Holdfast lines held.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes10 min read
The Gear Graveyard: Every Prototype That Sank, Snapped or Tangled
A respectful tour of Tidewright's failed hardware: flooded hulls, fouled reels, an anchor that walked, and the eleven lessons that built the working fleet.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: Week One Seeding the Tinderbox Reefs
Tidewright's field crew logs their first week seeding Holdfast lines at Tinderbox, Tasmania — survey dives, southerly swells, and 40,000 metres of seeded line.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: First Soundings on a New Atlantic Site
Ten days scouting Nova Scotia's eastern shore for what could become Tidewright's first Atlantic restoration site: sonar, charts and community halls.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: Mendocino, Second Season
Two growing seasons after the barren survey: the first bull kelp fronds are up, the urchins are walking back in, and the blocks are holding. A field note.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Second Season in Kushiro: What Year One Taught Us
Kushiro's second kombu seeding season changed almost everything from year one: timing, donors, dive inspections and the local farmers' verdict. A field log from Hokkaido.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: Reading the Winter Swell on Mendocino's Barren Edge
A Tidewright field dispatch from Mendocino's winter monitoring season: working the barren-edge transects in the windows between storms.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
The Site We Left Alone: Why We Don't Seed Every Reef
A Tasmania survey block scored high on every restoration metric and we still walked away. On suitable habitat, restraint, and the reefs that don't need us.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
The Storm That Ate Line Twelve: Salvage, Lessons and a Better Anchor at Mendocino
Of eleven lines the February storm took at Mendocino, Line Twelve earned its own note: a two-day salvage, a pinnacle that adopted it, and the anchor that came next.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
When the Canopy Came Back in Summer
A field note from the Mendocino coast: the morning sonar and diver eyes confirmed bull kelp canopy over our first seeded corridor, and what that number means.
Jack Callum ·
Atlas9 min read
The Aleutian Islands: The Wildest Kelp Frontier in the Pacific
A Coastal Atlas field guide to the Aleutians — the Pacific's most remote great kelp forest, its weather, its war, and how to get there.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Spore Season: Collecting Two Weeks of a Forest's Future
A field note from our Tasmanian nursery: two autumn weeks diving for fertile giant kelp blades, racing spores to tanks, and banking a forest's next generation.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Training the New Dive Crew: A Fortnight with the Kudjela Rangers
Two weeks in Tasmania building the Kudjela Rangers' dive survey crew: skills assessments, safety drills, and the moment a new surveyor out-dove her instructor.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes5 min read
Drone vs Diver: A Week of Matched Canopy Counts
For one week at Tinderbox we counted the same kelp canopy twice — once by drone, once by diver. Here's what each method caught, missed and taught us.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Hatchery in a Hailstorm: Saving a Season of Seedstock at Triabunna
A Tidewright field note from our Triabunna hatchery: when a freak hailstorm killed the power mid-season, the crew had eleven hours to save a year of kelp seedstock.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
The Long Fog: Summer Operations in Mendocino
A field note from three fog-bound months on California's north coast: working around the marine layer, and why the fog and the kelp are the same story.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: A Week with the Kudjela Sea Country Rangers
Five days on sea country with the Kudjela Rangers off Tasmania's east coast: eDNA sampling, seasonal calendars, and what genuine co-management looks like on the water.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
The First Transect After the Storm: Notes from a Mendocino Monitoring Dive
After the February storm that took eleven seeded lines at Mendocino, the first formal belt transect told a calmer, stranger story. Notes from the dive.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Line Fourteen Tangles: A Storm Lesson in Line Design
A southerly storm wrapped two Holdfast lines into each other off Tasmania. The dive to untangle them — and the line-spacing rule that came out of it — from the field log.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: Sounding the Edge of a Barren
A Tidewright field dispatch: transecting the moving edge of an urchin barren by Drifter sonar and drop camera, and deciding where next season's Holdfast lines go.
Jack Callum ·
Atlas10 min read
The Moray Firth: Dolphins, Salmon and Kelp on Scotland's Shoulder
Scotland's Moray Firth is famous for its resident bottlenose dolphins, but its quiet kelp fringes, salmon rivers and tide races reward a closer look. A coastal atlas guide.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: Midnight Satellite Pass — Verification Night at Canopy Ledger
Once a season, Tidewright's canopy maps get their night of judgment. Field ops lead Jack Callum logs a verification night inside the Canopy Ledger.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
The Battery Swap: Powering a Survey Fleet by Hand
On Tidewright's solar-electric survey vessels, the battery pack is payload and lifeline at once. A field log of at-sea battery swaps — and what they taught the design team.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes5 min read
The Urchin Weigh-In: Three Tonnes and a Turning Point
Every autumn we weigh the urchins culled from the barren edge at Boomer Bay. This year the scales told a different story — and changed next year's plan.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Training for the Dark Months: Sea-Ice and Low-Light Operations at Our Lofoten Site
Before Tidewright's second Lofoten winter, the crew trained for sea ice, four-hour twilight and frozen shackles. Field notes from the course we built.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: Why We Lay Lines at Forty Degrees
Why Tidewright crews seed Holdfast lines at forty degrees to the prevailing swell — the fieldcraft, physics and early failures behind a deceptively simple rule.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: The Tide That Took Line Seven
A September swell off Hokkaido took one Holdfast line whole. What losing Line Seven taught us about anchors, graceful failure and honest reporting.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: First Lines in Lofoten — Seeding Sugar Kelp Through the Dark
Tidewright's northern-most program seeds sugar kelp through Lofoten's polar night, working from fishing boats at 68 degrees north. A field operations log.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: A Sunflower Star Back on the Quadrat
A Tidewright dispatch: the first sunflower star recorded on a long-running transect since the wasting years, and an honest crew argument about what one animal means.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: A Year at Tinderbox — The Little Bay That Grew Back in Public
Twelve months at Tidewright's most-watched restoration site: a school snorkel program, 400 volunteer dives, and a kelp forest visible from the walking track.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes9 min read
Field Notes: The Day the Otters Came Back
Two years after Tidewright reseeded an urchin barren off the Monterey Peninsula, a raft of sea otters moved in. Field notes on what that return really signals.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: The Tide We Missed (and What It Taught the Schedule)
Tidewright's field team missed a spring-tide outplanting window at Lumeriah Coast. This is the honest decision log, what it cost, and the checklist it created.
Jack Callum ·
Atlas9 min read
Orkney and Shetland: Kelp at Britain's Northern Rim
Orkney and Shetland hold Britain's most exposed kelp forests: tide-scoured channels, otter-rich shores and the sunken fleet of Scapa Flow. A coastal atlas guide.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes8 min read
Field Notes: What Drifter 12 Found Off St Helens
A routine survey sweep off Tasmania's northeast turned into the discovery of the season: wild giant kelp recruiting on a reef the charts had written off.
Jack Callum ·
Careers8 min read
Working at a Marine Research Station: Jobs at the Edge of the Map
Marine research stations need skippers, technicians, cooks and managers as much as scientists. Here's what the jobs are, what they pay and how to get one.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes6 min read
Field Notes: The Seedlings' First Winter
A newly seeded kelp bed meets its first storm season. Notes on depth, spacing and which lines came through the winter with their heads up.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes6 min read
Field Notes: Showing the Forest to the Council
Four councillors, one RIB, two spare wetsuits and a young kelp bed. Notes from a field day with the people who sign our permits.
Jack Callum ·
Field Notes6 min read
Fogbound: Surveying a Reef You Cannot See
Three days of camanchaca fog shut down every camera we own on the Humboldt Coast. The survey didn't stop — it changed tools. How to work a reef blind.
Jack Callum ·
Atlas8 min read
Scotland's Sea Lochs: Kelp Where the Mountains Meet the Tide
A coastal atlas guide to Scotland's west coast sea lochs: sheltered kelp forests, tidal rapids at loch mouths, maerl beds and how the voes shape what grows.
Jack Callum ·
Farming11 min read
Safety on the Lines: Building a Real Safety Culture on a Seaweed Farm
A safety culture beats a safety manual. How seaweed farms build one — near-miss reporting, toolbox talks, stop-work authority and learning from small boats and cold water.
Jack Callum ·
Careers8 min read
Becoming a Sea Country Ranger: Custodianship as a Career
How Indigenous sea country ranger careers work: what rangers do, how ranger programs are funded, the skills involved, and how to find ranger group jobs.
Jack Callum ·
Careers11 min read
Seasonal Field Work on the Ocean: Getting Paid to Be Outside Before You're Hired
Seasonal field jobs — survey assistant, deckhand, monitor, volunteer-to-paid — are the real bridge into ocean careers. Where to find them and how to use them.
Jack Callum ·
Careers11 min read
Becoming a Fisheries Observer: The Hard Job That Keeps Fisheries Honest
Fisheries observers collect the data that quotas, closures and stock science stand on. What the job involves, how to get in, and who it suits.
Jack Callum ·