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| Happy faces all around |
This Saturday I had the pleasure of working at the Kid’s Day
Festival at Red Rock Beach in Lynn. Early in the morning Jahari, Patrice,
Jennifer, Kimberly, and myself loaded into my car and stopped at the Courageous
Sailing Center. Our first order of business for this event was to collect crabs
from the traps we have at Courageous. We picked a few lucky green crabs from
the traps and took them on a lovely car ride to the festival. When we arrived,
we set up a large touch tank with the crabs we collected earlier. While Jahari,
Kimberly, and Jennifer were collecting ocean water for our tank, they also found
a handful of periwinkle snails, a few small hermit crabs, a small bright green
crab the size of a quarter, and a crab who had just molted. I had never seen a
freshly molted crab and was very excited to examine his soft exterior. We placed
the new-found creatures in a bucket next to our tank and soon enough, the
children came rushing in.
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| Patrice helping a little boy pet the crab |
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| Tiny green crab |
It was a very windy day, but the wind could not blow away
all of the excitement. There were bubbles in the air, balloon animals floating
about, and Disney songs pouring out of the speakers. Because our table was
right at the beginning of the park, we were constantly busy showing the kids
our cool collection. A lot of children loved the tiny green crab because he was
so small and had tiny pinchers. Still, there were many brave children who
jumped at the chance to hold a large crab for the first time. Even some adults
got over their fears and held a squirmy crab. We had a few crab races on the
table and the hermit crabs became bold enough to run around as well. One hungry
baby thought a periwinkle snail looked pretty delicious, but we saved the little
snail from becoming a snack!
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| Spiderman and a one-clawed crab |
Once we were done at the event, it was time to release the
crabs back into the ocean. A few kids volunteered to help us and had a great
time saying bye to our ten-legged friends. We also took a couple minutes to
explore the tide pools before it was time to head home. Even though this was an
event for kids, I had a fantastic time. I guess I am still a kid at heart!
Sea you out there,
Jennifer Leiendecker
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