Crazy Camp Harbor View

Hello again fellow adventurers!

 This past week had the opportunity to do something I had not done in the past two years of working at Save the Harbor: I got to spend a day at Camp Harbor View! From the beginning of the day to the very end, the campers and counselors of Camp Harbor View are overjoyed at the opportunity they have to attend camp. With bright shining faces and loud chants, the campers arrive in the morning ready to discover new and exciting things they've never seen or done before.

The Grand Crab Hotel!

One of the biggest conundrums at the camp in past years has been how do you keep the sand on the beach? While this may seem like a weird question, Long Island has had trouble with erosion and the recession of the beach. In order to combat this phenomenon, Save the Harbor has developed a couple hypotheses to test out this summer. The first is that by clearing a small section of beach of all periwinkles and Asian shore crabs, hopefully algae will collect on the rocks and eventually act as holdfasts that will prevent recession of the sand on the beach. With the help of some of the campers, every day we will be removing these organisms in order to test our hypothesis. This past week the campers were a great help! But of course, all work and no play makes for dull campers, so the campers came up with a creative way to relocate the crabs and periwinkles. A group of campers constructed a "crab hotel" out of rocks, complete with a pool, rooftop hangout, and even rooms for each crab we found.

The day ended on a high note when the fishing club joined us on the dock. Having been placed underwater days earlier, we pulled up our crab traps to find a slew of rock crabs and one giant spider crab! It was hilarious to watch the kids' and even counselors' looks of terror as we pulled the crab out and passed it around for everyone to touch. The real excitement came a few minutes later, when one of the kids who was fishing on the dock landed a Striped Bass! While it wasn't a keeper, it was as exciting for me as the kids because it was the first time I've helped catch a striper! I'm confident that there will be many more striper to be caught this summer, and I'm hoping one will be a keeper!

The first of hopefully many more to come!

Until next time, keep on exploring!

-Luke