Clams, Mussels, and Oysters, Oh My!

        The coolest thing about Carson is the wide variety of mollusks you can find during low tide. The past few days Arianna, Preston, and I have been tirelessly digging and searching with our young explorers to find these treasures.
        Wednesday was our biggest day of clamming. We were able to find many quahogs or hard-shell clams, as well as soft-shell clams while digging. Young explorers also found mussels during low tide and it was really fun showing them the differences between all the different bivalves. The best creature we found on Wednesday was a huge razor clam! I had just warned some kids to watch out for any sharp broken clamshells when one girl found a live razor clam!! The coolest part was putting the razor clam in the water and watching it come out of the shell. All the kids were amazed but it and were asking a lot of great and interesting questions about the clams and how they develop and function.
Thursday we were able to find more soft-shell clams and a few quahogs but the best find of the day was an oyster! The girls who found it were convinced that there would be a pearl inside and wanted to take it home. We explained to them that taking the oyster away from the beach would be taking it away from its home, and they agreed to keep it on the beach.
Hopefully in the coming week we will find enough clams to send to other sites to use for fishing bait. I can’t wait to see what we dig up next!
                                                                                                                           -Nora

Big Dreams for a Little Oyster

Hello again fellow adventurers!

        There were many creatures pulled up in the traps at Courageous Sailing Center today, one of which was an oyster! While they are not very visually appealing, these bivalves have a strange yet valuable talent. When an irritant such as a grain of sand becomes trapped inside the oyster's shell, it's body surrounds the grain in nacre, a substance the oyster naturally produces to create its hardened shell. Over a long period of time, this nacre builds up until finally, a beautiful pearl is produced!

        Why is this relevant? Well for this young explorer, his first thought when he saw the oyster was, "do you think there's a pearl in there?" As soon as he let out that question with such excitement, all the other kids became pearl-envious and wanted to crack open the oyster's hard shell. With money-filled ideas swirling in their heads, the kids shared dreams of everything from buying a new iPad to a car. At this point, the excitement reached a maximum, and their patience had run out, to which the oyster was cracked open. 

Sadly, no pearls this time

        To much disappointment, there was no pearl waiting to be found inside the oyster. Although they did not find what they were looking for, I discovered just how easily their imaginations could run wild with even the slightest possibility of finding a pearl in an oyster. Who knows, maybe next time we really will find a pearl. 

Until next time, keep on exploring!

     -Luke

        

Early Bird Catches The.. Oysters?

Last Friday was an exceptional day for exploration at Camp Harbor View. A strong low tide led to the exposure of a large gravel bank, which nearly doubled the size of the eastern most portion of Shell Beach. Additionally, the area was dotted with a number of tide pools- a treasure trove for the beach explorers at CHV. I only hoped that the gulls had not pillaged all that the area had to offer.

Watching the tide roll in on the expanded beach.

Fortunately for us we were able to find plenty of awesome stuff to discuss. The entirety of the exposed area was covered in periwinkles. A few steps on the rocky shoal also revealed the presence of countless soft shell clams, which made themselves known by spraying water out of their feeding holes. The kids loved getting the clams to spray each other. A quick dig and we had quite a large one in our hands.

The tide pools also contained plenty of hermit crabs and slipper shells- many stacked in large piles on top of one another. A walk further into the water revealed a few European oysters. The campers enjoyed these immensely and thought heavily on the potential for pearls.

A camper with some tide pool treasure.

It is only on these very low tides that these types of creatures can be captured at Camp Harbor View and I am sure that there are many that reside on this exposed area that the explorers at CHV have yet to find.  Unfortunately the gulls wait for no one, and are much more synchronized with the tide cycles than myself. As a result our beach combing groups are often late to the party. The evidence of this laid bare on previous expeditions when we have found the gull-torn remains of other species, including sea urchins.

A rather menacing gull.

Hopefully the next group that gets to go out on this fantastic piece of ocean floor will have even more luck, and beat the impeccable timing of the gulls.

- Tom Rebula