Crabs Galore!

What’s up,

The first week, accomplished! Working side by side with the Boston Children’s Museum squad for Save The Harbor Save The Bay was filled with funny moments, new friends, thrilling catches, and most importantly new learning experiences. My fellow team members and I pushed through the heat and frustration to bring fun memories and joy to the kids we taught to fish and hold crabs. Besides having to cut up gooey squid as bait for the crabs that lurked under the pier, I had a lot of fun and laughs and loved the smiles of each little kid I could teach or help learn.

Here at Save the Harbor Save The Bay we focus on a theme for each week, this week was marine life in the beautiful Boston Harbor. I personally never saw myself in a position where I would be fishing every day for my summer vacation, and now I wouldn’t want it any other way. Reeling in crabs all day taught me a couple things. First, they’re pretty sneaky and like to eat the bait but never hook on. Second, they have distinct body features to distinguish them by gender and type. Lastly, Spider Crabs and I are not friends!

Most of the Crabs around the Boston Children’s Museum are green crabs. Before joining the team my Knowledge of any kind of fish or marine life was very slim, now I’m soaking up any new fact that comes my way. Green Crabs are small little things, their shells about 3 inches wide despite being small they sure are feisty. Mature female crabs have a more red-orange undertone underneath, whereas male crabs are a bit paler. To tell them apart, female green crabs on their underside have a more round tail flap while the male has a more triangular-shaped flap.

My favorite part of the first week was Tuesday because I found myself very determined to catch these Spider Crabs that showed up. I spent hours trying to catch the big crab but to no avail. It was certainly playing games with me which got me super frustrated, every time I would reel it up almost breaking the surface it would unhook its pincher and fall back down. Although the nerve of that crab. Well, all I can say is, till next time, I will catch that Spider Crab!