Just keep fishin

As the summer goes on, the weather tends to exponentially get hotter. However, before we enter the month of August, the returners get to tell the new comers about "the itis". The Boston sun can be scorching hot at times, draining the energy from Save the Harbor employees as we try to run sites. That weather worsening has repeatedly proven to fail in bringing us down, because Save the Harbor is full of workers bursting with energy all the time. During the second week, as my group and I began to fish on the ocean, the weather was straying away from what would be giving a lot of people the "itis". This sickness was nowhere to be found during this 60-70 degree week for work.

On Monday, we had our scheduled work meeting in which we spoke about many topics. We begin the week by reviewing our theme: Marine Life. This week we went fishing down at the Four Point Channel, but our trip ended early. The rain, and predicted thunderstorm was too unsafe to work in, and we were sent home early. However, this got us ready for Wednesday, where we got ready to go fishing with Charlie on the Belle. The Belle is a boat Save the Harbor has access to through the generosity of a great captain named Charlie. Every year we are on his boat multiple times, fishing out deep in the harbor, jamming out to NSYNC as we enjoy the ocean breeze on our way back to the city. We caught a lot of crabs, some on the rod and a lot through lobster traps. Albert did the classic lobster trap demonstration and instead of lobsters we saw the abundance of crabs. As we were out fishing Ty flexed with her first catch being a Skate. I caught a skate as well, but eventually Ty and Mikey both caught fish! Skates are cartilaginous fish that resembles that of a stingray. It's flat body and fins allow it to coarse over the ocean floor looking for prey like small plankton and fish. However, it protects itself with sharp rough skin all along its body, and a similar tail that can be used to strike a predator.

The best catch of the week was Ty catching a black sea bass. This dark fish is patterned with blotched light spots, but is mainly dark brown, almost black. This body is the same all throughout. A lot of people hunt this fish because of its prominent spot in the fish industry. This east coast fish eats similarly to that of a skate; small phytoplankton and other fish. This fish is primarily located along the east cost, trailing from the cape all the way down to the gulf of Mexico.

Charlie's boat gave me old summer vibes, the energy, the smiles, the joy. The trip proved the me that this summer can't be all that bad. If we can still go out and have a blast fishing with each other, listening to music on the Harbor water, there is not much more you can ask for.

See ya,
Qalid Hassan

The Crabs we caught 

Fishing With The Homies