Views from the 617

VIEWS.

What a beautiful day in the neighborhood! It was a lovely Monday morning in Boston along the Charles River. Quiet and bright, the perfect day to go paddle boarding. Upon our 8:30am arrival we received good news from our partner, Molly, over at Community Boating that we could go paddle boarding today. We headed downstairs to sign waivers, get our guest passes, and headed out on the dock. Molly gave us a short demo on how to get into the water, onto the board, and how to paddle then she helped us pick out the proper board to go out on the river with.

VIEWS.

I chose a red board and our senior harbor educator Max kindly helped carry it down to the water for me where I steadily kneeled onto it and gently pushed away. We paddled out towards the river sticking fairly close to the shore. The view exiting the lagoon was so amazing I could have cried. The skyline was breath taking; the sky clear blue without a cloud in sight; the water as calm as ever as if it were untouched; and the ripples from my paddling cylindrical and hypnotizing. I soaked up the sun rays and captured every image in my memories. The views we got from there were everything to me.

I am so grateful to be apart of the All Access team and to be able to travel to different sites such as Community Boating Inc., this is a great job. It was my first time paddle boarding on the Charles and I'm sure it wont be my last, the opportunities are endless here at Save the Harbor and the learning is hands on. I listened as Molly explained what kind of fish and animals you can find in the Charles to some of the CBI students. Along our little journey in the river and the lagoon we saw ducks, geese, loons, and different types of flowers. At some point I am pretty sure the loon was following me. It would dive under for 15 seconds and reappear closer and closer to me and my paddle board, scaring me away rather than I scaring it off. The experience was unforgettable. Wait! Did I mention Max took an unexpected dip in the river? Because that happened!

To more adventures & more breath taking moments

-Khar

Rained out Monday

Rainy views from the Charles.

It was a wet and cloudy Monday morning at Community Boating, but that didn't stop us from going fishing. Instead of using hand made bait like we did on Friday, we went searching for worms. It was hard but possible, we found a couple and hooked them up while the rest of the rods were equipped with lures. It was a quiet morning but the fish were out there somewhere. We had a small morning class so there were enough rods to share with all the children and our staff. I almost had something! The rush of excitement I felt made me eager to continue fishing. For a brief second I felt a tug on my rod but it let go :( boo hoo. We spent a good half hour fishing and wrapped it up to get ready to meet our next class.

Save the Harbor Flat Boat, brought to you
by yours truly: Kharliyah & Henry.

We spent the second half of the day inside making boats, singing sea shanties, talking about the journey of water from our homes to the harbor and learning from each other. First we started off introducing ourselves and sang Haul Away Joe. We played tug of war to symbolize the importance of teamwork on boats and created a verse to sing in Haul Away Joe, which was not easy. The environmental science instructor, Molly, allowed us to create a boat made of clay to see whose could float and whose could hold the most weight. Through our activity and investigation we learned that flat boats could easily hold the most weight. We tested the weight by adding marbles inside; one team got all the way up to 65 marbles to stay inside before the boat sank underwater. Save the Harbor's boat got 22 marbles. Creating boats was personally my favorite activity and I learned a lot from it!

Stay tuned for next time,
Khar

Squeaky Clean Environment

A picture of the moon jelly I spotted
in the channel!

Friday's at the museum are great days to work on your fishing skills and becoming patient. This Friday was a long day at the Children's Museum, filled with fishing and the touch tank filled with green crabs. We had many young children from the ages 7 years and under excited to fish with us on the dock. Every now and then we had them pulling up crabs and adding to our touch tank. They got super creative with me and added beautiful art on the walkway. As we fished I spotted a moon jelly in the water, it was super small and didn't do much but the sight of it was enough to get the kids bubbling.

They also took notice of its small amount of movement, and also oil in the water which lead to me explain to them how important it is to throw away our trash, recycle, and not litter into the harbor.

Our colorful decorations
on the Children's Museum
pier!

Adding to that, this Monday at Community Boating on the Charles we helped clean up trash around the area. Much like our harbor, it has been dramatically changed to help better the environment and provide activities to young children and adults alike to participate in on the river. The river used to be heavily polluted due to dumping in the Charles from the growing city around it. We assisted our site partner, Molly, with her environmental class to test the pH of the water, salt content, visibility and more. Then we walked along the river searching for trash and cleaning it up. On the way we spotted a baby turtle, some fish, and ducks swimming happily in the river. 

All Summer 17

-Khar

Something New

Hi everyone,

Its Andrea back again. This past Monday and all the other past Mondays, I have been at Courageous Sailing center in the morning and Community Boating Sailing center in the afternoon. Every other day that I am at All Access, David Coffin always tells everyone to "do something new today that we have never done before." With that being said, when I was at Community Boating on Monday, I did something new for the first time in my three years working here. I used live worms as bait for the first time. Past years, Sam had used worms as bait but I never touched them because I was not brave enough to do so. This summer since I am the one running fishing most of the time, I got over my fear of touching the worms to use them as bait. Harry who is the Instructor for the Environmental class, is a pro when it comes to using the worms for bait.

When we first started going to Community Boating, Harry would always say that our fishing rods were not the right ones to be fishing off the river. When we were using our rods with the big hooks, we were not catching anything. So that's when Harry decided to bring in some new small fishing rods with smaller hooks and that's when we started catching some sun fish. We started catching even more sun fish when he brought in the worms and cut them in half and use them as baits. The worms seemed to attract the fishes even more because sometimes each of the kids would catch four fishes one after the other and it was amazing how every kid had the chance to catch a fish. In one day the kids caught about twenty sun fishes and most of them were blue gails and red pumpkin seed. At first I was scared of cutting the worm in half and baiting the rods with it but because Harry had to run back to the office, I was taking over so I had no choice to get over my fear. It was a great experience though and with the help of the kids, baiting the rods with the worms got easier. I am glad that I did something new for the first time in the past three years here.

                                                 

"Try doing something new that you have never done before"

- Andrea Lopes :)

Gotta Catch 'Em All

So instead of catching Pokemon this week with Pokemon GO, I was catching fish at the Charles River! After a dishearteningly low catch count last week, I was incredibly excited that the kids at Community Boating caught a ton of fish today and yesterday. Our secret was new bait: Harry, who runs the environmental science program at Community Boating, brought over a container of live worms. Since we were freshwater fishing in the lagoon on the Charles River Esplanade, the worms worked really well. 

Monday was off to a good start as we pulled up the eel trap to start the day. In the trap, we caught one perch, two sunfish, and a very slimy eel. The eel unfortunately slipped out of our fingers before we could give the kids a closer look. After looking at the trap, we moved to the lagoon to start fishing.

Everyone gathered around the eel trap

Many of the kids we had at camp this week had not fished before, but they picked it up quickly and were excited to learn. Only a few trees were hooked in the process! Overall, we caught a lot of bluegill sunfish and pumpkinseed sunfish, and a few yellow perch.

Pretty soon, kids were pulling up fish left and right. By Tuesday, some of the kids had caught more than five fish apiece. Even better, the kids were learning how to identify the fish, and I was learning how to gently take them off the hook without causing any damage. I learned that you should cup your hand around the fish when you take it off, then hold on tight so it can’t slip out of your hands! I dropped a few fish before I got this technique down.

A camper with his pumpkinseed sunfish catch

I also learned that the pumpkinseed sunfish have some really neat adaptations to help them survive. First, the spotted pattern on their bodies helps them camouflage, as it blends in to the patterns of sunlight in the water where they live. Also, pumpkinseed sunfish have sharp spines along their dorsal fin, which they use for protection from predators. I accidentally got stabbed by one of these spines while handling one of the fish, and I can easily see how they could be used to deter a predator!

It was an exciting few days of fishing, and I’m looking forward to going back to Community Boating next week!

-Grace

The CBI Return

During our first week of work, my second site I visited was the one and only CBI. CBI is one of my favorite sites and for many reasons and I really enjoyed being the LHE at this site Friday. Our day was a fun-filled one and we did something new with Sej, our SHE.

Sej taught one of the children we worked with about a new type of bait. It was fun to make too! The bait consisted of dough, water, and sugar. Sounds kind of like a doughnut, right?

The creation was a sticky sweet treat, and as predicted by the kids, the fish would like it, and it was a success!

My time at CBI was great and I learned a lot from the children. We caught tons of eel, many small crabs and fish, and had a blast! Definitely can't wait to hit the water with these kids again, it was a great time, peace!

- Ahmed Hassan

The Great Capture

Wednesday at Community Boating we had the highest number of kids this summer, and with the beautiful weather we thought it would be a great idea to explore Boston from kayaks. Kiauna was a little apprehensive about getting in a small self propelled vessel so I stepped up to the plate and decided as a Senior Marine Educator it was my duty to help her conquer this fear. So into the double kayak we went, and I don't think Kiauna had a clue as to what she was getting herself into.

Mastering the Art of the Double Kayak

 As we paddled along the bank of the Charles I thought it would be a great talking point for the kids if we caught a sun-bathing painted turtle and talked about the differences between the fresh and salt water reptiles. I told Kiauna the game plan: I stealthy paddle near a turtle, while she gently grabs it around the roundest part of the shell and put it in the Yak. Now this is a pretty good game plan unless the person that is suppose to catch the turtle has an innate fear of turtles. To my surprise Kiauna was able to push her fears of kayaking and turtles aside and capture the wily reptile that guards to shores of the Charles.

A Delicious Turtle Snack

After the great capture we wrangled all of the kayaking kids to the center of the Charles where we talked about the painted turtle and different types of flora and fauna that can be found in the Charles. The kids were especially interested to learn about the American Eel and its ability to live in the fresh water of the Charles, travel to the salty Ocean to breed, and then subsequently die after procreating. This makes the eel catadromous, a species that travels from fresh to salt water over the course of its life, and it also makes it a terminal breeder, an organism that dies after it lays or fertilizes their eggs.

Best "classroom" Around

 

 

 

I have had the good fortune over the last several years to have some excellent teaching spaces, from snorkeling reefs in the Bahamas, to the shores of Catalina Island, but being able to educate from kayaks in the middle of the Charles was a truly indescribable feeling. It rings true with my teaching philosophy, go out and explore, ask questions, try something new-Sarah B

Surviving a Heat Wave!

Whoa was it hot today! With temperatures reaching a staggering 91 degrees today the STH/STB had to get creative with our activities to try to minimize our exposure to the intense heat! At Community Boating this morning we were greeted with a surprise when we discovered that the Rozalia Project had set up and brought their Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle, or ROV, to teach kids the importance of cleaning up marine trash.

Top Ten Pieces of Marine Trash

 Rachel, the director at Rozalia, had the kids guess what the top ten most abundant types of marine trash were. The kids were surprised to realize that the majority of trash are items that would come from a picnic, things like wrappers, plates, and utensils. The kids all enjoyed taking turns helping the ROV remove trash from the bottom of the Charles River and taking those pesky pieces of plastic that when left in the ocean/river take up to 450 years before they degrade!

Chalk animals!

We spent our afternoon at Courageous in Charlestown and we all learned about invertebrates! All week we have been pulling up our lobster pots that are full of sea stars, crabs, lobsters, and mussels without knowing much about these incredible organisms. We sat as a group and named all the invertebrates we could think of and then placed them into categories based on defining characteristics. Then we broke into groups and drew our very own invertebrates with chalk and had to categorize our invertebrate into echinoderm (spiny skin), mollusc (soft body), arthropod (jointed limbs), cnidarian (stinging cells), porifera (sponges), or annalid (segmented body).

Of course with all this learning we had to take a break- so when a game of jump rope was started, we had to join.

Stellar Jump-Roping Skills

What a full day it was out on the river and harbor, and we look forward to tomorrow to continue to have fun, learn and play in the middle of the heat wave.

And as always- take chances, ask questions, get messy!- Sarah B

It's Not Goodbye, It's See You Later!

Well my friends, the time has arrived. As summer programming comes to an end, I find myself on this last day reminiscing about the past 2 months,  and also wondering what lies ahead! This summer has been a great one, and being given the opportunity to spend every single day outside has been incredible. I think my favorite part about this summer has been watching the kids' faces when they discover something new and exciting, and sometimes unexpected!

Each day, I began my mornings by arriving at the Boston Children's Museum. The beautiful skyline greeted me across the Fort Point Channel, and overall sunny skies were present for the majority of this summer!

The entrance to the Boston Children's Museum

For the most part, we had different visitors stop by the touch tank everyday. I would say about half were locals, while the other half were visitors from overseas, which always made conversation fun and enjoyable! Hearing all of the different accents reminded me of what an attractive and desirable city we Bostonians get to call home, as families and individuals from all over the world come here to explore the city and surrounding areas. In addition, there were also a handful of returning faces that I loved to see -- kids with their parents, grandparents and babysitters who would stop by at least once a week!

This explorer visited 3 times in one week!

My afternoons were spent up at Community Boating Inc. along the beautiful Charles River. Despite providing a calm and relaxing environment, the Charles also carries with it this vibrant energy that easily draws one in. C.B.I. never got boring, as there was always something to do! We were fortunate enough to be placed with a sailing instructor from C.B.I., who helped us throughout the summer and had access to the kayaks and sailboats! The kayaks were a great mode of transportation to get us up and down the river, and allowed the kids to explore their surroundings and any creatures that lie above them in the trees, in the plants along the river bank, or even below them in the river itself! On some days, we let the kids bring a few fishing poles right out on the sailboats as well. The kids loved this, and especially loved the opportunity to show off their sailing knowledge and skills to all of us. However, fishing was the kids' favorite activity by far. Despite not catching a carp, the kids' patience was awarded with plenty of sunfish, a couple bass and even a perch! It was always interesting to discuss the concept of carp cookies to new faces. For the most part, the kids were crazy about getting their hands dirty with the flour, water and sugar combination! C.B.I. was a great way to end my day everyday, and I'll miss being there everyday for sure.

Memories from Week 1!

Fascinating eels!

Spending this summer with curious young people and a great high school team has made it an exciting one, and it's crazy to think that Labor Day is right around the corner. I want to say Thank You!!! to everyone at Save the Harbor for giving me this opportunity this summer, and especially to the junior assistants who I had the pleasure of working with everyday. It was really nice getting to know each of you, and I wish you all the best for the future! (Or for next month, whether it be school, a new job, or some other exciting adventure!). My only parting advice is this -- be ADVENTUROUS. Find the desire to explore; to see new places and meet new people from other communities/cultures. Boston may be wonderful (trust me, it is my favorite place to be and to call home!), but other new and different places are out there. Basically, what I'm really trying to say is don't be afraid. I like to view life as an adventure, but in particular one that always involves the sea!

-Ashley Wakefield, Senior Harbor Educator at Boston Children's Museum and Community Boating

Awesome People Being Awesome Together

This past week the Harbor Explorers of CBI went sailing on the charles. It was really fun getting out on the water and being able to see the river from a different perspective. I was in a boat with Ian, Will, and Rio for the week and I had a blast! We won several races against the expert sailor, Valentin, who often made it difficult to race as he made up rules along the way. On Thursday, my last day with Community Boating, I was was handed the tiller of the boat and got to have a try at racing against our French foe. I was on a team with Graham, Rio, Will, and Ian. I won one of the two races I sailed, and Graham won three more. I didn't win my one race on my own though. Without the help of the boys, I probably wouldn't have been able to navigate the wind shifts of the river at all. It was the perfect way to spend my last day out in Boston doing Save the Harbor programing.

I'm really happy to have spent so much time at Community Boating. It was definitely the highlight of my summer being able to go out fishing or sailing and be relaxed. Everyone was so curious about the river and other environmental things. I got go know so many awesome people, especially the very talented sailors I sailed with this week. I wish all the explorers and sailors good luck in their future adventures out on the water and with their upcoming school year!