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 Notes
Dispatches from Tidewright’s own restoration sites — what the crew saw, measured and learned on the water. (Tidewright’s own stories; fictional.)
85 articles
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 Notes7 min read
Field Notes: Counting the Cormorant Roost at First Light
Before the drones fly, Tidewright's monitoring crews count the cormorant roost by hand at dawn. Here's why roost counts still beat satellites for kelp-forest health.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
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 Notes6 min read
Genetic Swab Week: Two Hundred Blades, One Freezer
Once a year we swab restored and wild kelp beds across Tasmania for the provenance program. Two hundred blades, five sites, and what the lab read in them.
Dr. Elias Brandt ·
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 ·
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 ·
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 ·