Oh just the best whale watch ever. PLUS video.

So today we went on the best whale watch ever. Here's a video of the very playful calf, and its momma pops up a little bit later in the video. The calf is flipper slapping and just goofing around while mom feeds farther down (the calf can't hold its breath as long). At the end both fluke and then dive under the boat. ENJOY!

week six nonsense

HELLO! It is week six and I had my day off today finally. I traveled this weekend to Bangor to drop off and pickup new campers which was exhausting as usual. But we always get Indian food for lunch and Domino's for dinner...so that was amazing. Another plus is that I get to sleep in a nice hotel bed and shower in a nice bathroom! So that went pretty smoothly....no vans broke down. No children were harmed.

What have I done since I last posted.....OH Mike left...so sad. We are now without our fearless leader. And where will we get our banjo playing knee slapping dish cleaning music now? MIKEEE!!!!

I went to Pettes Cove three separate times last week. THREE! So much sea glass, so many cool rocks. I am really glad I don't have to fly home because all my bags would be overweight. We also went to do a salt marsh lesson for the first time this summer! It was really fun mucking around and finding plants that live there and demonstrating how it acts as a filter for fresh and salt water. I worked a lot in salt marshes last summer with the North and South Rivers Watershed Association so it was good to be back. Got to sample some sea pickle, which is a succulent found in the marsh. Never have I ever eaten so many plants straight out of the ground or the ocean before...and its awesome.

Sea Pickle

Plant species for the kids to identify

Today was my day off...and I haven't had one in almost two weeks, so it was much needed. I slept in, then went for a run and showered and started the ol' job hunt. Luckily I got interrupted by our lovely cook Sandra who needed my help in the kitchen for lunches, so I cut up some celery and made some PB and J sandwiches...very skilled cooking going on. Afterwards I spent about two hours applying to jobs and whatnot...actually found some cool research assistant positions around the DC area and hoping to get something interesting for the fall! Yay!

Around 3 we went to get tea and scones in Harrington Cove and it was lovely as usual. Then I took a long nap and then had a staff meeting. So eventful.

Tomorrow I am teaching forestry, bog and marine mammal behavior. Should be pretty easy. Excited for a whale watch on Wednesday!! I haven't been out on the whale boats since week 4 so I am itching to see some cetacean action.

Four more weeks here--so crazy. So many places left to go! So many things to see!
P.s. the Red Phalaropes are here...which means the RIGHT WHALES are coming. There are only about 450 North Atlantic Right Whales alive in the world....to see one would be amazing. They were hunted to near extinction but are now slowly coming back thanks to banning commercial whaling and shipping lane shifts.  Crossing my fingers I get to see some....

Whales...duh

BONJOUR from Canada. I just got back from travel day (when we bring last weeks campers back to Bangor, Maine and pick up some new kids) and I'm exhausted. But I'm happy! It went really well and even there were some hitches, none of them were my fault so YAHOO. Also we had an awesome dinner of roast beef and mashed potatoes and gravy so I was so happy. And of course we washed dishes to the tune of many a bluegrass song with Mike. Which is even better than dinner, really.

BUT rewind.
Last week I went on the best best best whale watch of my life on the Day's Catch. It was choppy water but we saw a baby and momma humpback and a few other pairs, and the baby was breaching and fluking and lobtailing and just so playful!!! It was amazing. Once he breached right next to the boat, like actually right next to it. SO amazing. I took an awful video of the fluke, but hopefully you will enjoy it anyways!!

Hmmmm...what else. Nothing really compares to that.  Thursday I went kayaking out of seal cove and we saw the salmon pens up close (where salmon are farmed offshore) and a really cool sea cave. It was so sunny FINALLY and everyone was enjoying the weather and being on the water, it was very nice. We took the kids tidepooling afterwards and found some awesome critters.

That night all of the staff was off, so we got fresh lobster and cheese and crackers and beers and fresh baked bread (by Mike) and had an amazing dinner. It was really fun to hang out with everyone (all 8 of us) because we never really get to see the dorm counselors during the day when we're on lessons. Twas lovely.

The bugs.

Friday we took the kids shopping and did closing activities (mostly reflection stuff) and then had campfire that night. We do this thing where we pass around a talking stick, and everyone can say whats on their mind or how they're feeling, and its amazing how many kids really open up during it. They all say how they've gone to tons of other camps that didn't even compare to whale camp, and talk about how accepting and close-knit the entire group is. Its really cool to listen to kids who have found out how to be themselves, or become more outgoing, or realize its okay to be weird. Makes me feel like I'm doing a good job! yay me.

other thoughts:

-i've slept 10 hours and driven 6 hours in the past two days.
-the new campers seem REALLY awesome, like the best group i've had so far
-we're all constantly on the hunt for purple sea glass and licking rocks to find pretty ones
-camp is over in 5 weeks...what!
-we blast this song while washing dishes...you should listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKMBpyZlZ_I
-Mike is leaving this weekend. WHAT WILL WE DO WITHOUT HIM.


Seriously.

Ohmygosh its week four.

OK so its been a while since I've written, but lots has been happening. Lets see.

plankton from a plankton tow on the boat

i found a heart shaped rock

twilight tidepool panorama

went to tea in Harrington Cove!

Week 3 was.....good! Lots of good whale watching--its only gotten better as time goes on! Last week I saw my FIRST humpback whales of the summer and boy let me tell you they were AMAZING! There were 3 of them that we were following for almost the entire whale watch, and they had been previously identified (by the white patterns on the bottom of their tail). Their names were Touchdown, Cornucopia and Foggy. We saw them logging (napping on the surface), fluking (raising their tails when they dive down from the surface) and just surfacing. They were incredibly beautiful and breathtaking and it was the best. Although finback whales (the 2nd largest animal in the world) are amazing to look at and watch, they are negatively buoyant and therefore don't show their tails (FLUKE) when diving. Humpbacks are positively buoyant, which makes it harder for them to dive, and they really gotta put their backs into it resulting in exposing their gorgeous flukes. WOOT. They went right under our boat at one point. AMAZING. Also...spending all this time on the boats with the captains and the crew makes me want to just work on a boat for the rest of my life and see amazing things. And learn knots. And brave the sea. BUT...we'll see.

I honestly can't remember much else..except that for the Friday night campfire all the staff learned the whole dance to Thriller and performed as zombies. Lots of fun. Long night of youtube videos and ridiculousness.

Week 4 is starting now and today I went on the puffin boat in the morning. I got to go ONTO Machias Seal Island this time, which is where the puffins, razorbills and common murres nest. Only 15 Americans and 15 Canadians PER DAY can legally go onto this island, and I got my chance today! We went into bird blinds--these little huts with little windows to lift up and see out of without disturbing the birds and their babies. They were so cute! And very uncoordinated. So cool to watch. After puffin-ing, we went to the bog and learned about some cool carnivorous plants and creepy bog sacrifice stories. Lots of fun--bog is one of my favorite lessons to teach. wooowoooooo.

PUFFINS!

Tomorrow I'm going on another whale watch in the afternoon on the Day's Catch--hoping to see some BREACHING!!!!!! And in the morning I am teaching a new lesson we just came up with, Modern Fisheries. Should be fun!


Other thoughts.

-The washing machine in the staff house makes the entire house shake like theres an earthquake.
- I'm slowly weaning myself off of sea-sickness medicine so that I can be a real sailor on the rough seas. Arrrr!
-It was really hot and sunny today! I got a tan line from my hiking socks.
-Anything can be fun if you participate in it and are open to it. As exemplified by my amazing campers who have the most fun playing silly games even though they're in high school.
-I put coffee in the fridge for iced coffee tomorrow morning. Yes.
-Thursday night the staff has the night off and we're getting lobster for dinner. DOUBLE YESSSS.
- After this summer I am planting myself somewhere amazing for at least a month without traveling by car, plane, train, or ferry. I have traveled way too much in the last month.

Week 2! whales, seaglass, and rain.

Hello! I am extremely tired as I write this but also very excited about everything that has happened.
OK so starting with travel day. Basically four of us staff people drove the fifteen-passenger vans full of 1-week campers and their luggage back to Bangor. This included a 20 minute drive to the ferry at 6am, a 1.5 hour ferry ride to Blacks Harbor, NB, and then a 2ish hour drive into Bangor (crossing the border). When we got there, we dropped the kids off at the airport where they either were met by parents in cars or got on planes to other parts of the country. We left two staff there and then me and Heather went to the hotel. This is where we check in kids and then entertain them until the next morning. Up again at 6am to drive all the way back to Blacks Harbor and catch the ferry with new campers. All in all EXHAUSTING.

The new kids are really awesome. There are 10 year olds and 18 year olds but they are all getting along and I think its cool. There are only 16 of them total at camp this week--such a small group. But we get to know all of them well and they all make really close connections with each other.

Monday we did the sensory hike and tides with the ORDs and then in the PM we went on a Whales and Sails adventure!!! Me and another ESI took the kids on the Elsie Menota, a sailboat complete with captain, crew, and marine biologist. We went out a little towards the northern part of the island because the fog was bad and we couldn't go down to the southern end. The tide rips at peak flood (exactly between high and low tide) at the tip of Grand Manan and creates upwelling, attracting fishies and whales alike. Within 10 minutes of being on the boat we saw our first whale--a minke!!! For the whole time we were sighting minkes all around us, mostly far off but some right up close! They seemed to be just surfacing to breathe but it was AWESOME. My first whale of whale camp!!!!!! Minkes are about 30 foot long baleen whales with white spots on their pectoral fins (MINKE MITTENS). For comparison, finbacks (the 2nd largest animal in the world, which also live in the Bay of Fundy) get to be around 80 feet long, so the whales we were seeing weren't huge, but still amazing. I've heard that the whale watches just get better as the summer goes on, so I can't wait for my next one! We also saw 3 bald eagles on shore, lots of harbor porpoises, grey seals, and black guillemots!! And no one got sea sick, yay!

Dorsal fin of a minke!

Today was a rainy cold windy mess outside. Just awful weather this week. Anyways, we had a lot of things scheduled that got moved around or cancelled due to the weather. I was supposed to be on the Day's Catch going to Machias Island to see PUFFINS this morning, but it was actually down-pouring so it got cancelled. Instead I tagged along on the culture and fisheries lesson and learned all about the old smoked herring industry on the island, the modern salmon fishery and lots more. FUN! Except all the kids were wet and chilled. SO at lunch we decided to nix the geology hike at Flock of Sheep for fear that we would all get hypothermia. We went to the Grand Manan Museum instead and learned about history, boats, geology, and birds! The kids enjoyed it and were so glad to be indoors. For the last 2 hours of the day we went to Pettes Cove and did an abbreviated geo lesson. Pettes Cove has some of the BEST rocks and seaglass on the island and so we just let the kids do a lot of exploring for part of the lesson. I found so much amazing seaglass including TWO purple pieces, three ice-blue pieces, and lots of brown green and clear. The seaglass gods were certainly smiling upon me today. I also found some really great rocks and so did the kids. It was a great note to end on after all the rain and unpleasantness.

In the museum we learned that this is what a lighthouse light really looks like!! So COOL

Old wooden buoys in the museum

Gifts from the sea to me :)

SO upcoming this week is possibly a puffin trip, possibly another whale trip, a bog lesson, a tidepooling lesson, and then going to spend the weekend with Jake and his family in the Adirondacks!! So excited so excited.