extreme heat

We started off this week by kayaking in the Four Point Channel, with the extreme heat bearing over us the past few days, the refreshing water breeze was a nice change  to our daily routine of staying in the sun. We ended up using this experience as a time to help clean up the harbor ourselves. We managed to fill two whole trash bags from the trip alone.While this week was hotter than the previous ones, it did not stop the kids from enjoying themselves in the heat. An exciting week was planned out for them, with a fishing trip on Wednesday that had to be rescheduled to Thursday. Nothing really exciting happen that hasn't happened already. We caught a few fish here and there, nothing too major besides the usual skate. We were able to catch a ton of crabs, which were then put on display at the touch tank! By far, the most exciting thing to happen was the fishing trip, but with the weather not looking too good, the odds of us enjoying it were not high. To my surprise, it ended up being a very enjoyable experience. I ended up learning quite a bit about the kids from the fishing club and even though we did not catch a lot, the trip was interesting! There was this one lucky kid, who managed to catch up to 5 crabs with one piece of bait. While most kids were not able to collect anything, the enjoyment of being out at sea and trying to catch something was more than enough for them.

The Boston Harbor is one of the cleanest urban harbors in the country. Everyone is familiar with how clean the harbor is right now, but not everyone knows that about 30 years ago, that same harbor was a complete mess! If you were to fall into the Boston harbor you would need a tetanus shot because of dirty water used to be. There was so much trash in the water you were able to walk across the harbor without getting your feet wet. Eventually people started to pile up all their trash in one spot that would soon be called Spectacle Island. After awhile, the pile of trash became so huge that a bulldozer ended up falling inside the huge pile of trash. In order to get rid of this, the people of Boston used a method of getting rid of things they didn't like. By burning it! Whoever thought this was a good idea was not thinking clearly. The result was a huge flaming piece of garbage in the middle of the harbor alone. There was so much trash it ended up burning for 10 years.Sailors would navigate to Boston by the stench alone. After the fire went out, they use the leftover dirt from the big dig to fill Spectacle Island !  Now the island went from being a flaming pile of trash to a huge tourist attraction.To this day, you can still find pieces of glass on the beach from all of the burnt trash! So come down and visit, maybe you will be lucky enough to find the lost bulldozer.

-Albert