Jen The Mermaid

Hi everyone!

This week at Spectacle Island, I fished every day. Mind you, the most common creatures we catch are typically crabs, whether its from the trap or the kids fishing. Two out of the three days I went fishing were with our senior harbor educator Max. He's great with all the kids and can fix any problem with the rods. But he's no Jenn. Jenn is one with the ocean. Somehow, whenever she's in charge at fishing, we always catch cool things! For example, we caught a SKATE and all the kids went crazy. It took Kharliyah and I a long time to pick it up because it has a really spiky back. But it's belly is just like that of a snail...slimy.

The skate, me, and Kharliyah.

Now the skate was pretty cool, but then Jenn brought out her super powers. There was one boy who was having trouble reeling in his rod so I walked over to assist him. The rod appeared to be stuck on something. Probably some seaweed or a rock I presumed. I kept reeling and pulling, reeling and pulling. "Man he cast this line far," I thought. I was shocked once the hook began to surface. This kid had reeled in an entire crab trap!

Our ancient crab trap. 

I brought the trap over to Kharliyah so that she could help me untie and open it because there were so many creatures inside. As we were untying the rope, we noticed that the trap must have been down there for years because of how decayed that rope was. Once we got it open, we found two baby spider crabs, a couple green crabs and some baby flounder.

A tough day for this baby flounder.

The best part of the day for me was the catch that I made. When fishing started to slow down I decided to cast out a rod of my own. It went pretty far, so I was proud of myself. When I started to reel it in, I noticed it was pretty heavy. As it came closer and closer, I saw a bunch of seaweed on it and assumed that I just got it caught. But the closer it came, the clearer it became that I had a big crab on the end of it. As I was holding the crab I noticed it was in the process of giving birth. I felt so bad so I put her back in the ocean right away. 

My catch of the day!

Catch you next time

-Patrice