Diving Into My Second Summer

Holding a Moon Jelly 

Hey there, I'm Briana Scata and I'm excited to be diving into my second year of programming with Save The Harbor/ Save The Bay as a Senior Harbor Educator!

My first fish of Summer 2017

During the fall and winter months, I taught physical education in an elementary school and was able to make lots of connections between STH/STB summer programs and our school! My students participated in many activities and games that I learned over the summer. I also spent my afternoons coaching field hockey in the fall and track and field in the winter and spring. This spring I participated in my first Shamrock Splash and got a taste of working with everyone at Save The Harbor/ Save The Bay again, I knew I needed to be back. After an incredible summer last year it was an easy decision to get on board for Summer of 2018.

Showing our staff and youth what the underside of a skate looks like

I cannot wait to continue to learn about Boston Harbor and see what else I can incorporate into teaching children during the school year. Working for Save The Harbor/ Save The Bay has truly given me a new perspective. 

Over and out for now!
Briana

Roger That

Monday was a day for the books at Piers Park! Recently, we have been accomplishing things even the Sailing Center's oldest staff have never seen at their site. After almost landing a Striped Bass fishing from the docks we thought we could not do much else that folks have yet to see until Monday.

Carefully transporting from lobster trap to water

We began our dock time like any other day by pulling the crab traps first. Crab traps are our first activity because they are light, easy for kids to get out of the water, and usually are loaded with things for them to look at. When a few kids look like they're not interested in the crabs, tunicates, and mussels that usually come up with the crab trap we ask if they want to pull the lobster trap, I've never had anyone tell me no!

We have the Harbor Explorers take turns because it is so heavy, they usually pull until they need a break and a friend will step in to help. As it rose to the surface I heard screams, not just from the kids but from the staff too. I thought to myself, we must have so many lobsters! As I took a good look at the trap I realized we did not have any lobsters, just one large creature that looked tangled and gasping for air. We realized we pulled up a skate in our lobster trap!

He was definitely waving to us.

We quickly tried to think of what to do. We knew we had a skate, we knew it was tangled in the trap, but we had no idea how to get it out or what we were going to put it into. Thinking it would be best for the animal to be in water we lowered the trap to buy ourselves some time. We looked for gloves, I've been told to watch out for a skate's tail but I wasn't sure how dangerous it may or may not have been. Finally, we found some thick gloves. I put them on and we pulled up the trap. We had a large plastic wheelbarrow filled with water ready to put the creature in to be able to examine it.

I surprised myself with how willing I was to stick my hands in to untangle this creature that could potentially have hurt me in the process but I knew I had to get the skate out. Finally it was able to curl itself into a ball making it easy for me to pick it up. When we finally got it into the water my team felt so successful, the kids and the Piers Park staff were amazed. We could not stop gawking over the amazing animal in front of us. The kids decided to name him and listened intently as we taught them all about skates. We watched him swim around and it looked like he was waving his pectoral fin at us. He must have been a Jolly Roger because he got out of that trap!

Over and out,
Briana

Comparing the anatomy of a skate to a flounder with our Harbor Explorers 

Crazy courageous morning

Monday mornings are usually so boring and annoying but this one was different. I was back at courageous sailing center for the second time, this time I didn't get lost. That morning I was determined to catch anything so I partnered up with two campers to teach them how to fish. They were about 12 and 13 years old and taller than me, but who isn't? Anyway we ran out of bait that morning and so we used hot dogs but the girls and I knew we wouldn't catch anything so they wanted to check out the crab traps on the dock. We put our life jackets on and head down. The traps had been there for years so they were a struggle to pull up. We weren't just pulling the trap, we were pulling mud, sea squirts, and seaweed. There were so many crabs and we caught two baby spider crabs. Super cute. Further down there was an even older lobster trap. You could tell it's old by the rope that was crusty and dirty. It took more than 3 people to pull it up. Andrea and I tried pulling it up ourselves but we couldn't so we gathered as much people as we could to help. Eventually the entire camp got involved.

It went downhill from there. We tied another rope to the rope that was attached to the trap and pulled. We threw it over the railing where the campers were, everyone grabbed on and pulled and pulled and pulled until... *SNAP*. The line broke! Luckily one of the counselors caught it before it went all the way into the water. We re-attach the ropes and pull harder and *SNAP* and with that it was gone forever. The team effort put into it was wonderful and we were all so sad we didn't get to see what was inside the trap, if there was anything. It was one of the most exciting moments at courageous.

Challenging Day

Hi everyone,

So last Monday at Courageous, instead of Grace, we had Kristen join us there for the day. Kristen had no idea of how things at Courageous works because it's a little different from other sites. Every Monday we get a new group of kids. So last Monday when Kristen joined us, she thought we had bait. With that being said, we had no bait to start off the morning with some fishing like usual. As Kristen ran to Tedeschi to grab some bait, Kharlyiah approached me with two girls that wanted to go down the dock to pull up multiple lobster traps that we have there. The four of us put on our life jacket and walked down the ramp to the dock. When we pulled up three of the old traps, one of the girls pointed out a fourth trap that none of us knew existed. Apparently, that fourth lobster trap had not been pulled in atleast two years so now this is when the challenge begins. 

I was not dressed comfortably for that challenge but I did not care. All I worried about was trying to pull up that trap because we were all anxious to see what was in it. When I tried pulling it up alone, I just couldn't because it was extremely heavy. All of the girls decided to help and it still would not come up so we thought it was getting stuck under dock. We kept trying and trying and trying and did not give up. Some of the staffs from Courageous tried helping us and they gave up. Instead of me giving up I came up with an idea of tying a rope. The staffs from Courageous ran to get a rope so Kristen came down the dock and tied the rope to the lobster trap's rope. Now this is when we put all of the kids at work. We threw the rope up across the pier and had atleast 15 people pulling the trap from up there. They were able to pull up most of it but the rope from the lobster trap snapped. Luckily, myself and a staff from Courageous who was still down the dock, were able to save the trap from sinking. Now this is where it gets more challenging. The two of us are holding on to a little bit of rope trying to save the really heavy lobster trap but all you could hear was me screamming for my fingers that was getting scraped off and yelling for some guy staffs to comw help us out because I couldn't hold on to the rope anymore. A guy staff from Courageous came down and tried tying the rope they had to the little bit of rope on the lobster trap that was left and I dont know how he did it but he just did it. So we threw the rope up and across the pier again and had the kids, Sam and Courageous staffs pull it up one more time and that's when the old lobster rope snapped again. This time we were out of luck in saving the trap becausw there really was no rope left to grab. The lobster trap sunk after 45 minutes of trying to pull it up and that's when we all gave up. I could not thank the kids and their staffs enough for the challenge. This was the most fun and productive day we ever had at Courageous.

Until the next challenge,

- Andrea Lopes :)

Excitement at McDonough Sailing Center!

Hi everybody!

Today at McDonough sailing center was incredible! We had a blast fishing with all of the kids who hang out at the Center day after day. Even though there are a TON of campers there- we have already gotten to know a bunch who are interested in learning how to fish, experimenting with the crab trap, and exploring the dock and beach for other critters!

Jazeel showing the campers a Green Crab

Today, we caught close to 30 green crabs- not only with our crab trap, but also with the fishing rods. Using herring as bait the kids have found the perfect spot on the dock to cast off. The crabs don't get hooked, but they attach themselves to the bait and don't let go until we pry them away. The kids love this process, it's always exciting to see something besides a lure on the end of your line! After the brave campers pull them off the bait, we stick them in our floating crate on the side of the dock- this way other campers have the chance to check out what we've caught!

Esmeralda and I also had a chance to take a couple of kids out to the lobster traps we have set in Pleasure Bay. We checked the old one first- it was empty, unfortunately (someone must have taken them for dinner!) We also baited, and set a new one. We're hoping for some lobsters tomorrow, I've heard they often catch 5lb-ers!

While we have yet to catch a fish over at McDonough, one camper reeled in one of our rogue crab traps from last year- it was difficult to pull up, but proved to be a great catch! There were mussels attached to it, minnows, crabs, and slimy sea squirts! We cleared some of the mussels and mud off, then tossed it back in the water, tied it off, and will pull it up tomorrow to see what other sea creatures it attracted!

Towards the end of the day, Jazeel and I took 10 of the kids on the beach and out towards the causeway bridges where the water flows in and out of Pleasure Bay to hunt for sea stars and jellyfish. It was great to get the kids off of the dock, and to cool off in the water. On our walk we found clams, mussels, a few oysters, LOTS of barnacles, sea weed and sea squirts- and while we didn't find any sea stars this round, we're hopeful that we'll get lucky tomorrow.

All in all it was a fantastic day spent in the sun and breeze at beautiful McDonough Sailing Center.
See you on the beaches!

 -Kelly Randall-