My Blog has moved!

Save the Bay has updated their webpage capabilities and it is really impressive. Sign up to be in Save the Bay's netcommunity now, where you will receive updated and personalized information based on what you are interested in. In the meantime, visit my new blog spot at

http://community.savebay.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?&pid=605&srcid=522

Thanks for reading! -Abby

Support RI Environmental Education

Have you been wanting to spruce up your car, but not quite sure what to add to it? You can help support environmental education for the children of Rhode Island while adding that little extra bling to the exterior of your car. I am very excited to get my plate when they come out, and you can sign up for yours now, too.

For more information and to order your new license plate, visit http://community.savebay.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?&pid=522&srcid=522

Colt State Park, Spring Tide!

Colt State Park in beautiful Bristol has a great salt marsh and salt pond to take students to explore in. There is ample marsh to walk through (and even a single path from use that people are able to stick to as to not disrupt the rest of the marsh) as well as plenty of shallow water to use seine nets, dip nets, viewers, and waders in.

However, this shallow salt pond isn't so shallow during a spring tide! Spring tides are extremely high high tides and low low tides, and occur due to the cycle of the moon around the earth. Gravity pulls the water on the earth toward the moon, so the highest of the high tides will coincide with when a full moon is visible at night. In Rhode Island, this timing happened to be yesterday.

We put our 7th grade students from the Community Preparatory School into rubber boots, gave them all sorts of equipment to explore the water with, and when they got in the water at 9 am (high tide was at about 7:45) it was up to the rim of their boots! Luckily, yesterday was more like a summer day than a late September day, so students wound up trudging through the water up to their knees -- with the brackish water spilling in right over the top of their boots! They had a great attitude, and their rewards were the bountiful green and fiddler crabs they found, as well as the shrimp, silversides, and killifish they scooped up in the seine net.

Many thanks to Richard Benjamin, who often runs sunset series "Taking better Bay photographs" with us, who took the picture above. To find out about upcoming sunset series trips, visit http://www.savebay.org/education_sunsetseries.asp

And for information on the photographer visit http://www.providenceri.com/richardbenjamin/richben.html

Up the Seekonk River

The purpose of today's MET High School's program was to observe the waterfront of an "Urban River," to look at how the land is used around the water. The students observed the many uses of the Port, looked at waterside restaurants, hotels, parks and marinas. They observed the occupations that would put people outside to work on the water (boat crew, construction workers, people fishing, etc.) but were definitely surprised as we headed up the River at the sight of dead fish floating by the boat.

"They're all dead. That stuff's nasty!"

And indeed, as we left from the Providence Bay Center and headed north, past the Port of Providence, and up the Seekonk River, we saw more and more dead fish. There were seagulls and cormorants at the surface eating them, splashing around, happy for their easy free lunch.

In order to investigate why the fish might have been dying, we used our YSI off the side of the boat to measure the Temperature (which was still about 72 degrees F surface to bottom), the Salinity (21 parts per thousand at surface and 28 ppt at bottom), and the Dissolved Oxygen, which may have been the problem for the animals. Animals that live under water need to breathe oxygen in, just like we need to. Most underwater animals have gills in order to do this, instead of the lungs to breathe air like we have. The air that we breathe in is about 21% (or 21 parts per hundred) oxygen, and that makes terrestrial animals, such as humans, very happy. However, underwater creatures are much more efficient at using their oxygen. They are happy when their water has more than 5 mg/L (or 5 parts per million) of oxygen to breathe. The readings up the Seekonk River were much lower that that- 0.85 mg/L of oxygen. This is a lethal limit for most sea animals, so they either need to find another place to live quickly, or suffocate from not enough oxygen.

There are several combining factors why the oxygen levels could have been low. Most of the oxygen in the water comes from plants, or phytoplankton. Phytoplankton like to live near the water's surface so they have access to plenty of sunlight, so usually the surface of the water contains the most oxygen. When we have sampled recently for plankton, we have come up with next to none, so there may not be very much oxygen being produced right now due to the low levels of plankton. In addition, the water in the Bay is just about at its peak temperature right now (maybe 1-2 weeks past), and warmer water holds less oxygen in it. Lastly, when organisms die and sink to the bottom, bacteria eats away at it for decomposition to occur, but this process uses oxygen as well. This is another reason why the oxygen levels at the bottom are normally lower than the rest of the water column.

It is a strange sight to see, since normally fish kills happen in Narragansett Bay in July or August, when the air temperature and the water temperatures are both very high and the water is not mixing. It was sad for the students to see, but it was an important lesson on how animals rely on clean healthy water to live in, and how drastic it is when the conditions are not right.

For more information on Narragansett Bay oxygen levels, visit http://omp.gso.uri.edu/doee/science/physical/choxy3.htm

For more information on how to book our "urban rivers" program, visit http://www.savebay.org/education_shipboardoutings.asp

Rocky Hill School

It's back-to-school time! And for me as an Educator, that means the transition from camp programming back to regular school programs. It is sometimes hard to change from the laid back, all-day-camp, exploratory style of teaching to a slightly more rigid 1/2/(however many) hour program. And although there is a transition that must occur, I am very lucky that my first back-to-school was with the Rocky Hill School in East Greenwich.

The Rocky Hill School sits right on the Potowomut River, near Greenwich Bay, and the possibilities of marine programming there are endless! There is a beautiful salt marsh, a sandy beach that is perfect for seining (above picture), a dock to measure water quality off of, and lots of marsh grasses to conduct birdwatching activities. The school invites Save the Bay to their site each year to conduct programming for their 6th graders as part of their EnviroWeek.

As any person who has lived in Rhode Island knows, the weater can be quite finicky in September. Although I suppose that's the case with any month in New England, really. But we were lucky to have a perfect summer day. It may have even been too hot for some; temperatures got near 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and muggy moisture was in the air. I, however, fully enjoyed it, as I hold on to summer weather for as long as I possibly can.

But if summer has to end, this day was the perfect way to get the school year started, not only for the 6th graders, and for Katie, Moe (shown below) and I as Educators!

For more information on the Rocky Hill School (and to see pictures of their entire beautiful site), visit http://www.rockyhill.org/

For more information on booking a similar program with Save the Bay, visit http://www.savebay.org/education_coastalfieldtrips.asp

Willow is a pirate?

"Let us introduce you to the crew of the sloop Providence. This is our youngest member, Willow. She is Captain J.C.'s daughter, and she is a pirate."

"Like the pirates that were on this boat for the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie?" one of our campers asked. We have our last session of BayCamp this week, and it is based out of our Providence Bay Center. Due to a funded grant that the sloop's director put together, we were able to offer our camper's this opportunity aboard Providence at no extra charge to our campers. We were also able to take out our Americorps run camp for the Crossroads RI program this week.

"Well, that's not exactly right," the sloop's crew member John interjected. The sloop Providence, Rhode Island's state vessel, was indeed in the 2nd and 3rd installments of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, but not as a pirateering boat. It was represented as a British sloop of war (which is actually the opposite of it's real life history- it was actually the most successful sloop in the Revolutionary war against the British) and a Turkish fishing vessel.

Pirates and movies aside, it was a great trip aboard the Providence. It was a fun and unique experience for our Save the Bay staff members, as we don't usually get to work on sails. We took the opportunity to teach about navigation, and to let the campers learn their knots, line coiling, and some sea shanties ("Heave away, Haul away!" is still in my head). The crew of the sloop was also of great help, and it was impressive to watch them bounce around the ship barefoot, all acting together like a well oiled machine.

We may not be pirates, but I think we still gave the sloop Providence a good wear today!

For more information on the sloop Providence, visit their home website at http://www.sloopprovidenceonline.org/

For lyrics to "Cape Cod Girls" visit http://www.jsward.com/shanty/codfish/jesse.html

Young people, big dreams

"I would love to be a marine biologist when I grow up. I am like a little shark."

"Not me. I do enjoy field biology, but marine science isn't really my thing. I want to be an ornithologist."

This is a real conversation between two of our campers this week. We are offering a week of camp for grades 6-9, and the questions are tough! The excitement is high! That is, as long as there is some competition involved.

Despite requests for wiffleball, kickball, and ultimate frisbee, we have also managed to incorporate the campers' competitive natures into our camp this week. We have played 1) the try to find as many unique animals as you can game, 2) the jeopardy style habitat game, and 3) the split into 3 teams and identify that sandy beached up shell/body part game. The latter of these was the favorite of all, with tails of horseshoe crabs, claws of blue crabs, and (most challenging) the center spiral of a whelk shell all possible clues.

Sometimes all it takes is a little friendly competition to want to learn more!

Seaglass Plea

"Can you help me find seaglass? I really want to bring some home for my parents."

It's as if this camper read my mind, as that is always what I am looking for on the shores here.

It doesn't count as exploring the biota of Narragansett Bay, but when out on Rose Island, it's really difficult to not get absorbed into this hunt. Rose Island, that little island that you can see off to the south when going over the Newport Bridge, makes their own seaglass for their visitors to find. In the wintertime, they break all colors and shapes of glass and ceramic so that the softened treasures will wash up on their shores. And when bringing a group of campers out to the island, it's sometimes difficult to distract them from this task!

Many of the campers from our Newport BayCamp out of Ft. Adams were on this same mission while exploring the shoreline. The best finds were an extremely smooth piece of light violet, a really thick and smooth piece of light aqua, and the bottom of a bottle that was smoothed, but the letters "EER" could still be made out. It's like solving a little piece of a mystery (some stories slightly more difficult to figure out that the bottle I just mentioned), but it's also a reminder that even though some man-made products pollute the environment around them, some products, when shaped by the sea, can turn beautiful and almost seem to be a natural part of their new environment.

For more information on Rose Island, visit http://www.roseislandlighthouse.org/

We also run winter seal watch trips with Rose Island http://www.quahog.org/attractions/index.php?id=1043

Jenny's Creek Spa

Jenny's Creek out on Prudence Island is my favorite Salt Marsh that I've been to in the state of Rhode Island, and I've been to a lot of them. There is not much development out around the creek, so when walking through it, you can feel a sense of what much of coastal Rhode Island looked like when it was still teeming with salt marshes. About 90% of downtown Providence used to be salt marsh before development took over, so to see a pristine salt marsh still in its near natural state is refreshing.

It is also refreshing to have a camp full of middle school girls who enjoy being outside in different marine habitats every day and aren't afraid of getting muddy and salty while learning! There is a path along the outside edge through the Spartina of Jenny's Creek salt marsh, that houses many fiddler crabs, snails, oysters, and pickleweed that we had our campers actually taste. It leads you down to a small floating bridge, where, just past high tide, there is enough water to scoot your way into the tidal creek, and take advantage of an outgoing tide. The creek winds around and eventually opens up on the west side of the island on a rocky/partially sandy shore. The ride is much like a lazy river at a water park, but in an all natural setting. Below your feet you can feel the decomposing peat and every now and then get a good whiff of the sulfur contained in it, both signs of the health of the area. Salt marshes are the most productive habitat on earth, even moreso than a rainforest. There is diversity of life everywhere, as many animals use salt marshes as a breeding and nursery ground for their young.

Because of this productivity and the absorbancy of the peat, the soil also has an incredible amount of nutrients contained in it. Humans often use this to fertilize their gardens, but the finest spas around the world also use this for mud baths! Much of the sediment was suspended in the water with each time someone touched the bottom, so we were submersed our natural mud baths for about 30 minutes. The next day, all of the girls told me how smooth and soft their skin felt. Most were very excited to get the most expensive spa treatments in such a beautiful setting, with many new friends, and for free!

For more information on Jenny's Creek, read the article http://www.prudenceconservancy.org/Images/PressReleases/News.20070406.BlountOpenSpaceGrant.pdf

Save the Bay Swim 2007

What a day for Save the Bay's Annual Swim! Last Saturday marked the 31st annual Save the Bay swim from Newport to Jamestown. It is always an amazing site to behold!

This year posed extra and new obstacles for everyone that was on the water. There was a wind of about 10-15 knots out of the west (northwest) (yes, right where the swimmers were swimming into) and quite a bit of chop in the water, probably a little over a foot. Just under 450 people were in the water swimming, a new record for Save the Bay, and many of them had kayakers assisting them. Many swimmers had difficulty with the wind and the chop, and many of the kayakers had difficulty with wind pushing their kayaks around. It was a little nerve wracking for Captain Rob and I to watch all of this from our vessel Swift, knowing that if anyone had too much trouble with the conditions we would be the ones to pull them out. We followed the lead swimmers to the finish line, while Captain Eric and crew member Dave were aboard our other larger vessel Alletta Morris following up behind the swimmers.

Conditions made it difficult for everyone involved. Even the winner of the Swim finished about 4 minutes past his usual time. In all, about 16 swimmers were escorted out of the water by us or the Coast Guard, and about 12 kayakers required asssistance. But everyone remained in good spirits for an excellent feel-good cause of the day, and everyone else crossed the finish line without problems!

There are too many individual motivational stories to give justice to each person's reason for wanting to do this swim, but they range from people overcoming overwhelming physical disabilities (from cancer to being paraplegic), to reaching milestones in their lives (just turning 30, just turning 70, just having a baby), to people just wanting to prove that they can swim 1.7 miles. It is always an inspiring day. So inspiring that I personally am hoping to swim next year instead of working!

How can you not be inspired by so many motivated people, all swimming for the better health of themselves and for Narragansett Bay?

For more information on this year's Swim event, visit http://www.savebay.org/news_06swim_final.asp?&pid=202&srcid=183

Pink snorkel mystery in Wickford Harbour

This week is our first BayCamp of the summer, and it is off to a great start! The camp is run out of Wilson Park in Wickford in North Kingstown, RI. We meet the campers at the park every day before getting picked up at the dock by one of our boats to head off to places like Rome Point, Prudence Island, or Ft. Getty in Jamestown. However, there is one day for each of our BayCamp weeks that we don't have a motorized boat, we have canoes!

Campers had been asking me all morning, "Abby can I be in a canoe with..." and "Abby, I'd be great in a canoe with... because I have a lot of experience and she doesn't have any." I made them wait to get their canoe groups before finally giving them the news. I think they were all equally unhappy with the groups I had chosen, because I broke up all 5 pairs of siblings and the 3 best girlfriends. But they were working in teams, and making new friends, and teaching each other valuable lessons. That is what camp is all about!

We departed from the Wilson Park boat ramp, and started off toward Rabbit Island. There was an osprey nest there with one large adult osprey keeping close watch over us as our 7 canoes rolled by.

We continued around Rabbit Island, and found our way over to a beautiful salt marsh. The tide was just past high, so there was plenty of water for us to canoe in. Picture the long, tall Spartina grasses in a pristine salt marsh, being in the back of the pack of campers where I was, and only being able to see people's heads drifting through as their canoes floated by. It was a beautiful sight! Next we made our way over to Cornelius Island, where we stopped to have lunch, explored the beach and then let the campers go snorkeling.

"A horseshoe crab!" "A whelk snail!" "I lost my pink snorkel!"

It was the third of those comments that had myself and the other educators, Rob and Maureen, slightly concerned. But Rob had it under control, immediately putting on his own mask and snorkel, as he began wallowing in the shallow water to look for the lost pink snorkel (Picture Rob being 6'4" with a kiddie size mask on his face and that becomes funnier). Maureen and I decided to focus on the critters, telling the students all about the animals they had found. One of my favorite facts to pass along about the knobbed whelk snail that one of the girls had found crawling around the bottom is about it's raspy tongue. It pushes it through the pointed area farthest away from the pretty spiral of the shell, and can drill a hole into another shellfish in order to make it it's meal. Many snails have this radula on their tongue in order to eat this way.

By this point, the girl who had lost her snorkel had other girls and Rob all virulently looking for it. Some of the boys teased that it was a lost cause and that she wouldn't be able to find it. Eventually, we all started walking back toward shore to get back into our canoes.

"My pink snorkel!!!" the girl who had lost the snorkel exclaimed.

And just like that, laying near some eelgrass and a green crab, the mystery of the pink snorkel was solved.

Prudence Island T-dock

Our campers through Brown University's SPARK program this week are from all over the country, New York to Arizona! They were fortunate enough to visit the northeast, south, and west sides of Prudence Island, the third largest island in Narragansett Bay, 4 of their 5 days with us. Two of those days were spent at the southern end of Prudence, and the old T-dock area, which is where these pictures were all taken. It is one of our favorite sites to bring camps, due to the great sandy beach (at low tide you can walk on FOREVER before getting too deep), the healthy eelgrass beds, and on the south side of the T-dock, there is a long rocky shore that you can walk down and almost around to the south east side of the island. We also love the T-dock because it is a great place to eat lunch while watching the terns dive in the water to catch fish for their lunch!



Prudence Island is a wonderful place for people of all ages to see. The island really encompasses the feeling of old Rhode Island, just how it must have looked before all the development of the coast line. There are pristine beaches, rocky shores and tidepools teeming with life, beautiful salt marshes that are in excellent condition, and lots of eelgrass to explore. Save the Bay has both monitoring and restoration sites in different locations around Prudence, so it is easy to see what a natural bed that is flourishing looks like as compared to a restoration site that isn't taking as well. With the help of many volunteers, hopefully the eelgrass will continue to flourish.



With a population of only about 200 during the year (that jumps to closer to 2,000 in the summer), only 2 students enrolled in the on island elementary school for next year, and over half the island being preserved as reserve land, it is a unique place to visit. Many Rhode Islanders have never even been, and there it lies, a beautiful, rarely visited island between North Kingstown and Portsmouth!

For information on how to visit Prudence, visit http://www.prudenceisland.us/prud/helpful_information/info/ferry_schedule.htm
To book a trip with children or students to Prudence with Save the Bay, visit http://www.savebay.org/education_shipboardoutings.asp
To find out more about the island itself visit http://www.prudenceisland.us/prud/
and for more information about the reserve land, visit http://www.nbnerr.org/

Tall Ships Sail 2007

Save the Bay ran boat tours over the weekend for the Tall Ships event. They were beautiful to see, and I was lucky to be among those aboard Alletta Morris for the Parade of Sails on Sunday. Even though the town of Newport technically hosted the event, I like to think that Narragansett Bay was the actual host, as the boats didn't actually get up onto town land. We usually think of the Bay as being an important environment for the animals that reside within it, but if you were among the many on the water last weekend, I think you would agree that there is more to it; people love to be on the water! There were people boating, jumping off their boats to take a little swim (myself included), fishing as they watched the sails, and many on land just relaxing near the water. The Bay is of importance to us, the quality of our lives, and to the tourism industry of Rhode Island. A healthy Bay means a healthy place for us to enjoy!

Here are some of my pictures from the extraordinary event.

To find out about other events Save the Bay is Hosting aboard one of our vessels, visit

http://www.savebay.org/education_lighthouse.asp

Or http://www.savebay.org/news_eventcalendar.asp

Tautog!

Just south of Bullocks Point in East Providence, we trawled aboard Alletta Morris for a few minutes and all of a sudden the boat had stopped moving forward. We have a small camp this week with the Paul Cuffee School, so Captain Amy, Jean, Katie and I had to do a little extra pulling to get the net onboard. It was difficult to pull, as it seemed we had gotten our net caught on a large bottom dwelling object, but all of a sudden it was set loose. Whatever had stopped us had been removed, but the net was still heavy.

We got it up a little further so we could see the trawl net, and noticed that there was some large flapping going on in the belly of the net. We pulled the net out of the water, and the flapping moved to the cod-end. There were a couple of large fish.

“Tautog!”

We don’t often get tautog this large in our net, so I was excited. I get excited whenever we catch any “real” fish, and there were two! We untied the daisy chain and freed the fish into our water basins.

I had the campers look up the fish in a field guide, and once they identified them correctly, I had them observe the fish closely. They were clearly different in color pattern and in forehead shape. I taught them that the males have a larger forehead bump, whereas the females have a much smoother snout to dorsal transition. The coloration around the mouth is also very interesting; they are nicknamed "white chins". Both fish were right around 20”, though the male had more girth and weight to him.

It was the first time many of the students – and some of the staff – had seen tautog this large!

For more information on tautog, visit http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dmf/recreationalfishing/tautog.htm
Or http://counties.cce.cornell.edu/suffolk/Fisheries/species/tautog.pdf
Or http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=458

Plankton are NOT actually evil!

This time of year, the density of plankton in the upper Bay is really starting to pick up. Earlier in the spring, it is often tough to find both types (plants and animals, known as phytoplankton and zooplankton), but now that it's officially summer, both types abound.

We are currently running a joint camp with the Edgewood Sailing School, so students learn how to sail in the morning, then come to STB to learn marine science in the afternoon. On our way back from picking up campers at Edgewood aboard Save the Bay's vessel Swift, Captain Amy and I talked a little bit about plankton, and several of the campers said "Plankton is evil!" The only association the kids had with plankton was from the cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants, where a creature named Plankton hatches evil plans. At least they had heard of it somewhere.

So we decided to catch some, to show them what plankton really is.

We explained that the word plankton comes from the Greek "planktos," meaning a drifter, or wanderer. A good definition for plankton is that they drift with the currents. Most are microscopic, but they come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes -- jellyfish, for example, can grow HUGE in some parts of the world. Some types of plankton can swim to some extent, but they aren't able to swim against a current, so they go where the current takes them.

Tom and Andrea set out the plankton net to tow at the surface for the little organisms. The surface is a good place to catch plankton because the phytoplankton need sunlight in order to photosynthesize, and the zooplankton, which are slightly larger, enjoy eating the phytoplankton. Our net had mesh the right size to target the zooplankton, because they are more active and more fun to look at. Once we got back inside, we started to explore our catch with the microscopes.

And, to the campers' delight, the first thing we saw was a copepod -- the very type of plankton that the little critter on SpongeBob most resembles!



(Picture was taken of projection from our micropscope image)

For more information on plankton, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton
For information on copepods, visit http://www.uni-oldenburg.de/zoomorphology/Biologyintro.html
To book a program with Save to Bay to find your own plankton, visit http://www.savebay.org/education_overview.asp

The Otter Trawl

An otter trawl is one of the best ways to get an up-close look at the diversity of creatures that live in Narragansett Bay. Today, 20 seventh graders from Thompson Middle School in Newport came out on the Bay aboard Save The Bay’s vessel Alletta Morris, and helped Captain Eric and the crew — me and Bekah — to haul the trawl net aboard near Potter’s Cove, off Jamestown.



The students were hooting and hollering as they pulled the lines in, hand over hand. But Bekah, Eric and I were exchanging worried glances because the net didn’t feel quite right — it was resisting our pull, more than usual.

“You’re almost there, guys, just a little further!” Bekah said.

As the otter boards broke the surface, Captain Eric said, “Stop! Drop the line!” He grabbed one otter board and I grabbed the other. We knew Potter’s Cove usually provides a good catch, so we hoped for a full cod-end. When we got the net on board, we found a big round bulge, and the explanation for all that weight. “A tire!” Captain Eric said.

Despite the tire, we still managed to get a decent catch for such a chilly spring. Narragansett Bay is several degrees colder right now than it was at this time last year. After untying the fishermen’s knot at the cod-end, we opened the bag up wide, and wriggled the tire out to find a 12” winter flounder very happy to flop into the water benches we had filled up with Bay water. Also sharing the cod-end of the net were dozens of sea stars, a few spider crabs, a squid that was a little over a foot long, a few hermit crabs, and a channeled whelk.



Our crew cleared the net, got the lines out of the way, and invited the very excited students to the benches in the back of the boat to examine their catch. After hearing about how sea stars have an eye on the tip of each of their legs, and that it isn’t good for fish to be touched too much because of their protective slime coating, a few of the students noticed that tire. They started to examine it, and found that it had been in the Bay long enough that animals had started to use it as part of their habitat. It had a few barnacles and some algae attached along the outside, but the real treasures were found in the darkness of the inner rim. For me, the two most exciting finds were a small purple sea urchin, and a couple of chitons that had attached themselves onto the tire.

Students helped us to remove any animals that we could from off the tire and to return them to their natural habitat. It is amazing how even the smallest animals that depend on the Bay can adapt and adjust their lives to the stress that humans force them to face on a daily basis. Talk about habitat diversity!

For more info:
Click here for more info about bottom trawling.
Click here for info about Save The Bay education tours aboard Aletta Morris.