From River Rat to Polynesian Pirate: That Was Shore-ly The Best

Wow, what just happened.

A little surreal leaving Woods Hole yesterday morning. It was our home for the past 4 weeks of the first shore component, and it went by so fast. Looking back at the first day, I was remembering how alone I felt when my friends dropped me off on campus. I guess “alone” isn’t the right word I’m looking for, because it was so exciting and I knew it would be great-- but I was still in a completely new place, with a group of strangers I was going to have to get along with whether I liked it or not. Yesterday, I found myself having the same feeling at the Boston airport. However, this time it was because I had to say goodbye to my new friends from SEA…. well just for a week!

In exactly a week we will all be meeting again in Pago Pago, American Samoa. Feels like I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, yet I still can’t believe it’s this close! On the first day of the shore component in Woods Hole, everyone at SEA was telling us the following 4 weeks would fly by. And what'd ya know— it did. Despite the fact that this past week was basically finals week, our time in Woods Hole really did go by quickly and it seems like I’ve been friends with these people for months. Okay side note— everything I just said, I kind of figured I’d be saying by this time. I mean of course I had fears that maybe everything wouldn’t be as great as I’d hoped or the people in my program would be crazy… but in reality I knew it would be great. Nevertheless, I’m still so happy I can sit here and say how amazing this program and these people are. Of course everything hasn’t been perfect, but I don’t have to tell you that…. BECAUSE THE GOOD THINGS ARE FAR TOO GOOD.

Like safety class!

I will tell you a little about how terrible this last week has been though— sorry, again with my over exaggerated words. It wasn’t "terrible", it was just... you know... finals week, which I personally find pretty synonymous with terrible. I think the saving grace was that at the end, we would be done and heading to the Seamans (details in 1st blogpost). Also, that all of us were in it together. Usually I’m one of the last ones to go to bed, but almost everyone was sleep deprived this week. With around 30 pages of research/literary analysis papers and I don’t even know how many pages of reading (probably would know had I finished them…whoops) we had to get shit done. In ways, we were all a little bummed the bulk of the work load was pushed to the end of the program, but I'm glad we had time to explore the area and socialize with each other the first 3 weeks. Anyway, we made it!

Woohoo!

We keep getting told that life aboard Seamans will be even more tiring than what we’ve been doing so far. This is understandable since we have quite a bit to do aboard the Seamans. Not only will we be continuing our courses and research, but we will be helping maintain and run the ship. We’ve been briefed on a lot of “life at sea” but it’s hard to conceptualize and understand everything until we get there. Our head resident Jeremy, who is awesome (hear his majestic voice here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc8ZvENm-5I), explained life at sea pretty well the other night. He said to just think of it as a foreign country, which is true because it will be a completely different language, a different way of working and you won’t know where anything is. It’s going to be a lot of work, but it will of course be an exciting challenge!

The beginning of last week was pretty great though. Last Friday, we went on another field trip—this time to the town of Wellfleet. There we helped the Woodberry’s with their clam farm. After this we had our lunches at Monomoy Natural Reserve. I think pictures would better describe this, so if you haven’t seen them yet, here they are:

We made it to Wellfeet... half asleep

The Woodbury's show us the ropes

First, we had to take out the crabs and worms amongst the baby clams

It was a dirty job...

... well for some

Crab!

Preparing the bed

After spreading out the clams, we covered them with net

Great team effort :)

After, we talked to the harbor's Constable

Monomy National Wildlife Refuge

Absolutely beautiful.

Despite that fact that we had to get up at a god-awful hour to get there while the tide was out, it was a lot of fun. The whole time laying the clams, I couldn’t help but think about the times crawdad fishing with my Dad. Although we only got to do this maybe a couple times a year, it was on of my favorite things. By the end of the day, like most new experiences, all I wanted to do was tell my Dad all about the clams. I think he would have been fascinated by the way they “farm” them, and the fact that I ate quite a few and actually enjoyed them! Besides all the hard work and fatigue I’ll probably be experiencing at sea, I know the hardest part will be moments like this. I know he’ll be watching though. Like I said in my first blogpost, he really wanted to go on this trip too, so I know he’ll be there <3

Here's some of my favorite photos from crawdad-ing: