Big catch at the fishing derby!

Welcome back blog readers!
     This week was yet another week on All Access Boston Harbor (which I originally thought was All Access Boating), but this week we were at George's Island. Instead of formerly being a trash dump (like Spectacle was), George's Island houses a fort used during the Civil War to hold war prisoners. David likes to tell the story of the "Lady in Black", the story of a Southern soldier's wife who snuck onto George's Island to free her husband. The Lady in Black disguised herself as a man (because there were no women on the fort), stole a boat, and upon arrival at the fort, whistled a tune that she knew her husband would recognize. They both realize each other is at the same place, and plan their escape. They make it to a tunnel in the fort when they are confronted by a Northern guard. The wife is armed and fires on the soldier, only to have her gun backfire and kill her husband. After her capture, the wife asks that she is executed as a woman; the Northern troops do not have women's clothes on the island, so they do their best to cover her up in black drapes, hence the name "the Lady in Black." David then tells the kids that the Lady in Black haunts the Dark Tunnel in the fort, which immediately makes it the most popular place with the kids on the island.

     The highlight of this week was definitely the fishing derby we held on Tuesday. Everyone got up early (as fishermen do) to meet up at Fan Pier, split into groups, and cast off for a morning of fishing. I was on a boat with Cpt. Tony and his son Tony Jr. We had some luck catching mackerel off the Nahant coast, but apart from those and a few pogie fish we didn't catch anything. The winner of the derby needed to be a "keeper" fish, big enough to take home and eat. It was only at the very end of the derby that anyone caught a keeper. Bruce had put one of our mackerel on a line while everyone was docking and quickly called for a JPA to go help him, which I rushed over to do. Together we landed a 28.25" striped bass, big enough to win the derby. I was crowned the winner of the derby (even though I thought Bruce deserved it more) and was filmed for the Boston 25 news channel. I still can't find the footage on their website, but if any of you readers can I'd be very grateful.

The derby-winning fish

Me with the trophy

Group picture with the fish

     Wednesday was a particularly interesting day because we had a guest speaker talk with us for an hour: Nick Martin, the Director of Public Affairs & Communications at Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Northern New England (despite the very long title Coca-Cola has given him, he is very modest). Nick talked about his background in public relations working in Mayor Menino's campaign staff, and working as part of the Boston Public Health Commission to mitigate the aftermath of the Marathon Bombings. He's the sort of guy that has done hard work to get to where he is currently: he went to Dartmouth to study government, worked in the public sector, networked, then took a risk in going into the private sector and learned what he needed to along the way. I'd be grateful to achieve half of what Nick has achieved. Nick gave some interesting advice on how to approach college: trying new things and studying abroad were the most important things to do in his mind. I always love listening to the guest speakers Save the Harbor brings in, and I hope I get to listen to another one during my last week of work next week.

Song of the week: Natural by Imagine Dragons

See you in the next blog!
     ~Colin McRae