Beneath Pacific Tides: Sharing tales from CalCOFI at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum

In January, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum in Oxnard, kicking off their 2026 Invited Speaker Series. In my talk, “Beneath Pacific Tides: Tales from over 75 Years of Ocean Observations in California,” I took the audience on a journey through some of my favorite stories from CalCOFI’s decades of ocean research. I began with the story of sardines, a great example of how even the smallest creatures can tell the biggest stories. Sardines are tiny fish that have shaped entire ecosystems and fisheries, and their collapse is the reason for the start of CalCOFI.  From there, we explored how CalCOFI helped to understand El Niño, revealing how the ocean’s changes ripple through marine life and coastal communities.

The final tale was a deep dive into water quality and pollution, featuring a biological “who-dun-it” told through the diets of seabirds. I also shared the incredible organisms we sometimes pull from the deep, like the Pacific blackdragon, and highlighted some neat animals we often see in transit – lightning-fast minke whale, the globe-trotting arctic tern with its record-breaking migration, and the gentle giant basking shark, a massive filter-feeder second only to the whale shark.

It was a lively night, with around 75 curious minds in attendance, and the discussion afterward was just as engaging as the talk itself.

It was a night of curiosity, wonder, and stories from beneath the tides—moments that reminded us why the ocean continues to inspire awe and discovery.