Hoping to Avoid Turtle Disaster

The Best of the Best

Whale, whale, whale, what do we have here? What an interesting week I have had here on CHV with Save the Harbor. This week's events were controlled by the rainy weather Boston received. A windy and stormy day led us to stay inside with a touch tank full of crabs. The building stood tall and strong against both the activity inside and outside of it. The wind hitting the windows as hard as the screams and voices of the campers playing board games, creating art/bracelets, and sticking their hands into the touch tank. There was an energy of fear mixed with excitement around the table for the crabs. The campers were interested yet quite observant, filled to the brim with all kinds of questions about what was inside the tank. We were able to get some kids to break out of their own shell to touch and be able to eventually hold a crab. 

Black Sea Bass

 As the next day rolled around, we were cleared to go on our weekly fishing trip for the morning. We went around the boat to round our fishing club kids up and set out for Quincy on the Belle. The morning was quite but the waters were full of movement from a school of fish just below the boat. Next thing you know, we have at least 3-4 campers screaming with joy about their first, second, or third catch of the day. It was a slight competition to see who would be able to catch the most. One camper even went so far as 6 fish for the day. 

Rock On

While others were not as lucky, they were just as satisfied and excited for their companions. They kept their energy up all throughout the day and carried it down to the shore on Camp Harbor View's beach for tide pooling in the afternoon. They got a kick out of flipping over the rocks on the shore to catch the evasive short crabs and collect a few hermit crabs. All in all, we did not allow the weather to stop us from having as much fun as we could. Weather it was inside keeping away from the storm or outside in the cold morning fishing, we found a way to make it work.

   

As you probably know, things do not always go as expected. Even when everything is planned out, when the day comes you must go with the flow of things. At Andres Amador on Friday, we got to get creative on and off the shore. If you weren't busy with Vanessa making cute little fish out of water bottles you were down by the beach decorating the sand with any fin that came to mind. Patrice and I decided to take someone's unfinished artwork and turn it into the classic rainbow fish. Although it lacked color, her scales were brilliantly shinning. The artwork stretched across the bottom of the beach and showed off our teamwork. It was proof that if you are given the chance to be creative, you can leave your mark on the community. 

 The highlights of my week were the impressions I was able to leave on my campers at fishing club and the YMCA. I've had kids tell me that when they get older they would like to work for STH and be able to fish everyday. I've also had returning campers remember me from years ago when I first began working here and tell me about their adventures since then. It is beyond rewarding to see how I can affect the lives of others in positive ways with just one interaction by asking, "Would you like to try fishing?". It brings me great joy to give out that type of happiness.

Boomerang!

Thanks for tuning in, Sea you next week!

Kharliyah

What is a Cunner?

Hey guys what a good week to go fishing right? 

This week at the Boston Children Museum even though we didn’t catch any more striped bass fish we manage to catch other fish which I’m not too aware of what type of fish it is. I enjoy teaching new kids who never fished before how to fish for the first time.

Add caption

The best part of all this is seeing how happy the kids get while in the process of fishing or even pulling up the crab traps. We often catch European green crabs more then  we catch spider crabs or any other living sea creature. At first what we were using as bait was flounder and scup which they fish didn’t really like much. Ever since we did a change of bait the sea creatures at the Boston Children Museum seem to like it better. I think it’s the change of bait that is bringing the new sea creatures we catch.

Later that day the fishes that our team caught were actually called a cunner. The cunner is also known as bergall fish and a chogset as well. Often you may see the Cunner fish with different skin patterns that you usually don’t see other fish with. But if you look closely you’ll be able to see that this fish has tiny teeth that would sting if you got bitten. There were times where we would try to use cunner to catch crabs and other fish. People often get a cunner fish confused with a perch fish due to the little similarities you may see if both compared. The way we caught the cunner fish wasn’t with a rod it was actually caught with a crab trap. Throughout the day everyone’s confidence increase due to not ever actually catching a fish in the crab trap.

Sincerely,
 Edward calderon