Are You Sure You're Not A Pirate?

 "Are you sure you're not a pirate?!" I asked for the fourth time in ten minutes. Colin declined, claiming, that no he was not a pirate he just liked the ocean. This went on the entire time we were fishing until finally, Colin pulled up a crab! He shouted "Sam look look!It's a crab!". He couldn't believe what he'd just done! I told him that if he wasn't a pirate before he was an honorary pirate now! And that's how my week started. One kid, exploring an activity for the first time, laughing at my wild accusations that he was a pirate, getting excited when he pulled up a crab on his fishing line, making my day just because he stopped by.

Colin's Crab!

A lot of moments like this made this week a great start to the summer. The heat wave did not deter the fun that needed to be had outside Boston Children's Museum this week. We had lots of visitors from all over the place! My new friend Shyla came from New Hampshire to hang out. She was quite an enthusiastic fisher woman. She never once gave up! When she first stopped by she was afraid to hold the crabs but with her Dad's help I managed to convince her that the crabs wouldn't hurt her if she just followed my directions. Finally, I got her to hold the crab with me and she realized there was no reason to be scared. By the end of the day she was pulling them out of the trap and holding them all on her own! While we were fishing she told me all about her sister's birthday and how she had woken up at 6:30 to come visit the museum!

Sebastian the Snail!

Later on in the week I had a chance to show the kids a real life snail! The conch shell was of interest to everybody passing by! We ended up naming our snail Sebastian. Sebastian was quite a showstopper and kids loved the idea that there was something living inside the shell that they couldn't quite get their hands on. Some of them would patiently wait near the touch tank to see if Sebastian would climb his way out and make an appearance. Others would try to convince me to just "Pull him out of the shell already!". I had to explain that Sebastian wouldn't like that very much so we'd just have to be patient and see what happens.

Until next time!

Sam

Tidepool adventures

Disclaimer: This time around, we didn't take as many photos as we would have liked. Thus this blog post will depend on your imagination to fill in the gaps from the imagery my words can produce.

The week started off with a staff day at Lovells island, where office staff, JPA's, LHE's and SHE's bonded over tide pooling, picking wild blackberries and snail hunting! After a boat ride with Charlie from the seaport district, the group consisted of 37 individuals who hiked to a spot where there was an abundance of tide pools! Split into groups, Kristen, Abel, D, Jennifer and I headed off to where the  tide pools merged with the Boston Harbor. There we found an abundance of starfish, periwinkles, hermit crabs, and Asian shore crabs! We had easily found over 10 starfish and with Kristen's observation skills, we saw even a purple periwinkle! After some time, Garett, Kristen and I shifted over to where there seemed to be an abundance of large pieces of scrap metal! It was there that we found some fist sized green and rock crabs burrowed in the sand!

Once lunch came around, Garett and I had accumulated about 10 oysters each, and we both shucked one each using rocks and sea shells we found around the island! With one slurp, Garett and I had a taste of Boston Harbor's quality of fresh raw oyster! From my taste test, it could definitely use some Tabasco sauce, horseradish and lemon juice.

The rest of the staff day was our chance to explore the island for some specie of snail! The island has a lot of spots that are very worth seeing in person.

Figure 1. Above is an amateur photographers attempt at being artistic! 

I hope you guys can experience the joy of exploring Lovells island one day since it looks like a great place to go camping!

Raymond Chai