A Courageous Sail

Hello Boston!

This week ended just as spectacularly as it began. On Thursday, I played sports at George's Island. A few boys were eager to play football with us while other groups were happy to bounce a kickball around in an attempt to keep it off the floor. After a while, we took a break to explore the dark tunnel again. Although there was no sighting of the Lady in Black, we did get scared by a few creepy campers.

Team sports at George's Island

Fitted in my life vest before sailing

On Friday, I had a bittersweet last day at the Courageous Sailing Center. Myself, Vince, and Qalid celebrated our last day by being part of a sailing race! I have never sailed before and was a little nervous about being hit by the sail or capsizing all together. I got placed in a small boat with five young boys and a sailing instructor. The boys were in second grade and full of questions! They wanted to know everything I could tell them about the harbor, the sea life, my life, and what its like in California. They taught me quite a bit too. It was fun to watch the boys scurry around the boat and working together to race through the harbor. When I wasn't ducking and avoiding the main sail, I was learning about how to steer the boat with the rudder. I also picked up on terms like "jibing" and "tacking." Those boys definitely knew a lot about sailing at such a young age. We came in third in the race but it was such a rush to glide with the wind through the harbor.

I am sad to say goodbye to the Courageous Sailing Center, but I made friends there and learned way more than I imagined I could.

Now I am off the check out the Seafood Festival!

Sea you out there,

Jennifer Leiendecker

Second time at Courageous!

Patrice actually kissing a crab!

Thursday I went to Georges Island where I did fishing with Patrice, Kharliyah and our senior harbor educator Max. This week we have not been catching as many crabs as we usually have which is unfortunate but today was a success! Most of the times the majority of the crabs we catch are through the crab trap, but today we only caught 5 from the crab trap and the rest where reeled up on the fishing rods! It was like every time you turned you saw a new kid reeling in a crab. I think the kids have gotten used to the crabs because now they just reach in the water with no hesitation or fear of getting pinched, which is good in my opinion. Even my coworkers have gotten a little too comfortable, like Patrice, as you can see in the picture below.

Today I went to Courageous Sailing Center and I did fishing with Ana while our senior harbor educator, Jenn, did fish printing with Qalid. We had 4 rods on the deck but the groups were pretty big so while some kids were busy taking turns using the fishing rodsI would take the other half of the kids that were waiting and play four square with them. I'm used to playing four square the normal way without any tricks or calling anything so I was confident that I was going to be winning, but I was so wrong. The kids are so clever with the rules that I could not keep up and ended up losing to 10 year olds! I was disappointed, but it was still fun. In between groups, when they were done going to both fish printing and fishing, we would bring them down to see the crab trap, we have two of them at Courageous. When we went down, the first one was empty, and when we went to pull up the second one it was stuck. Jenn could not lift it up and at first I thought that maybe she was just not strong enough so I tried and it really was stuck! All of us ended up pulling on it and eventually we were strong enough and pull it up together.

Me playing four square with the kids.

Sincerely,
Vince Vila

Sea Stars and Tunicates and Mussels, Oh My!

Our first sea star at Georg's Island

Wednesday and Thursday were another great few days spent on George’s Island. I was still on sports duty and spent the days gathering kids to play with us near the fort. On Wednesday, Kharliyah and Vince started a game of kickball while Patrice played football with a group of campers. Even adults were lured in by a friendly game of football leading to groups of campers playing island visitors. It was fun for everyone! After we were worn down from sports, we made our way back to the boat to find that our fishing group had come across a beautiful purple sea star! The kids on the dock gathered around as I taught them about echinoderms and how a sea star can grow an arm back if it loses one. “Just like a crab!” one child replied and told me that he had learned all about crabs while fishing with Save the Harbor that day.

Qalid helping a young sailor with fish printing

On Friday, I attended Courageous Sailing Center with Ana, Qalid, and Vince. We were teaching all new sailors today so we gave them a brief history of the health of the Harbor. We discussed Deer Island and played From Your Sink to the Boston Harbor which is an interactive lesson on the water treatment plant and all of its components. The kids couldn’t stop laughing at each other as they pretended to be a flushing toilet or a chlorine squirt gun. Next, we moved on to fish printing and fishing. All of the children loved poking and petting the flounder we were printing. They just could not believe we were painting a real fish! At the end of our lesson, we all walked onto the dock and pulled up our crab traps. One trap was tangled in seaweed and it took all four of us to pull it up onto the dock. It was the perfect opportunity for a sea shanty! Our traps were mostly full of feisty green crabs, though a mussel bed did start to form on the outside of one trap. I showed the children the byssal threads that were created by the mussels and showed the kids just how strong a mussel can be. We also caught a group of tunicates and the children enjoyed squishing those sea squirts. 

Overall, it was another successful week with Save the Harbor, Save the Bay! I can’t wait to do it all

again next week.

Sea you out there,

Jennifer Leiendecker

Flash back Friday

Friday and we are back at the Courageous Sailing Center! We switched things up a little instead of being stationed to do fish printing I was fishing. After doing our opening activity we split up into groups. As I'm asking the kids questions about what we were using for bait, flounder, and what were some fun facts about the fish I started to feel like I recognized some faces. That didn't actually make sense though because it was a new group of kids. As we are fishing a girl, about 10 years old started asking me some fishing questions but then started to just stare at me. Then she asked "Do you work at the club?"  I just kept staring at her and asked what?! She just kept repeating the same thing, that I look familiar and she thinks it's because I work at "the club". Apparently she meant the Boys and Girls club, so that couldn't be it, I asked if she danced, thinking she could be one of my students but that wasn't it either. She took off her glasses and said 'These are new, maybe you'll remember now." I laughed thinking glasses don't make that much of a difference but the second she took them off I screamed Maggie!!! She looked shocked that I knew her name and then I said you went to Piers Park two summers ago and that is where I was stationed! Then she remembered going kayaking with me every day and me attempting to beat her, and the rest of the kids in all our field games. I was impressed and touched that she recognized me, it shows how children really remember and appreciate all that programs and staff from Save the Harbor.

Piers Park Summer 2015

Courageous Sailing Center Summer 2017

Catch ya later,
Ana

First time fish printing!

Friday I went to Charlestown's Courageous sailing center and it was a lot of fun. I also tried fish printing for the first time, something I had never done before! We had 2 fish we used for fish printing, one is real flounder and the other one is rubber replica of a flounder. Patrice doesn't like to touch the real one so Friday she was helping the kids with the rubber one while I showed them how to print the real one. Some kids, like Patrice, did not want to touch the real one while others were brave enough to fish print with the real fish. Everyone else was scared, I think they thought the fish would magically come back to life. We also showed the kids how to make and use Secchi disks to measure water quality. I was surprised by how many of the kids already knew what they were and what they are used for because prior to this day I had never heard of one before!

Children from the Courageous Sailing Center showing off their very own Secchi disks.

This weekend I spent the day at Winthrop Beach fish printing with kids at the Winthrop Family Day. The beach was beautiful and the people on it were very nice, they provided us with food and much more. The kids that came to fish print were mostly very young and were not scared at all of the real fish. In fact we only used the rubber fish about two times because for the most part everyone was very interested in getting hands-on with the real fish, that made me happy!

Fish Printing at Winthrop Beach

Until next time,
Vince Vila

With this Fishing Rod in Hand, I'm going to be a Fisherman!

Me instructing a young camper on how to side cast.

George's Island this week went by swimmingly. My team and I went back to the drawing board after the hectic day we had earlier in the week and decided to bring more fishing rods with us to the island so that more people would be able to spend time fishing. Through my instruction on casting techniques and some helpful fishing tips I was able to impart to them, the young children really seamed to get the hang of it! Again, it was a crab-heavy week as far as our catches go, but as promised, we did catch something with a lot less legs than the typical crab; one of the kids fishing along the dock reeled in a sea quirt! Neither I nor the kids were familiar with the species and so we turned to a field guide that was on hand and was able to identify it as a club tunicate. The kids were fascinated by the sea squirt's amorphous body, and definitely were surprised by the stream of water I squirted them with by squeezing on it.

On Friday I was posted at the Courageous Sailing Center in Charlestown right there in the navy yard. The weather was cloudy and rather chilly so my team and I spent most of the time under one of the center's tents, teaching them about water quality. We introduced them to Secchi disks, an instrument used to test the quality of water. The kids rejoiced in designing and creating their very own replica Secchi disks out of plastic straws, string, and cardboard and even took to the water to test their new creations. Our Save the Harbor team had constructed one using one method, but I was surprised at all the different ways the children were able to come up with make their own! One girl was so impressed with her disk that she tied it to her glasses and began walking it around as if it were her pet. Fishing off the pier was admittedly unsuccessful, but a number of the participants had never fished before and relished the opportunity to cast a fishing line into the water in hopes of hooking a big one. Hopefully next week will bring with it some scaly, finned fish for us to catch!

The Courageous crew sporting their Secchi disk creations!

Until next time,
Maxwilliams