Boston Harbor Explorers

Welcome!

2009-06-17T17:12:00.005-04:00

Welcome to Save the Harbor/Save the Bay's Youth Blog, where our summer staffers and program participants share their experiences on Boston Harbor with each other and with you.

We hope you find their stories compelling - we sure do!

Thank you

2008-08-25T11:24:00.002-04:00

Friday was the final day of this summer’s Harbor Explorers Program at Courageous Sailing Center in Charlestown.

We were able to go on two Green Boat voyages, viewing cormorants and terns in the Mystic Basin, watching fish jump out of the water, observing a few of the Harbor Islands, and excelling at Harbor Trivia (the kids at Courageous are so smart, and got almost all of the trivia correct!).

I will miss our voyages as well as pulling up the lobsters traps when back on the docks. Thank you to everyone who helped to make it such a superb summer!

Click here to contribute and make this summer a memorable one for a deserving child.

After a Week of Rain

2008-08-25T11:13:00.002-04:00

Tuesday we had both sun and wind, so Level 3 and the Racing Class students sailed J22’s to Spectacle Island! It was a wonderful voyage, allowing us to practice navigation, view several of the Harbor Islands, and from the boat we could see comb jellyfish. Once on the island we fished off the pier, combed the beach for pottery and sea glass (and left it on the island), took in some sun, and made sandcastles.

Back at Courageous, we pulled up a few lobster traps and found green crabs, red rock crabs, a sea star, and even a flounder (which had also swum into a trap). Finally a week of sun and great catches.

-Laura

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Dorchester Beach Festival

2008-08-22T14:35:00.002-04:00

This past Saturday I had a great time at the Dorchester Beach Festival on Malibu Beach in Savin Hill. All kinds of groups showed up, from the New England Aquarium to the Coastsweep Program to the UMass Boston Volleyball team. I, along with Matt Nash from the Department of Conservation and Recreation, led a series of programs on the beach where we taught kids about the life cycles of harbor animals and how to conserve the Piping Plover. We had a great game set up where kids pretended they were plovers, and attempted to collect an amount of "food" in a time limit. Once they did it without interruptions, and once they did it with disturbances, such as kids playing frisbee, kids pretending they were dogs, or kids flying kites overhead. Each time the kids that were plovers were interrupted, they had to stop collecting food and run up the beach away from the shoreline, just like a real plover. Everyone learned that even though we might be doing things on the beach we consider to be fun, they can be destructive to plovers and might even lead to them starving. We also led kids in a scavenger hunt on the beach, where we found lots of dog whelks, surf clams, and even a horseshoe crab. Everyone there, parents included, had a great time learning about all the interesting animals they might encounter at the beach.

-Pat

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Cooling Off At Habor View

2008-08-22T11:12:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the perfect day to let the kids go for a swim. They really enjoyed jumping off the dock. It was a nice change of pace from the fishing and since it was really hot, the kids were happy to be able to cool down. One of the kids would not stop jumping in and I could not figure out how he had that much energy. It was a lot of fun.

-Tom Regan
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Backwards Day at Harbor View

2008-08-21T11:24:00.001-04:00

We put out a few hooks last week with bait in hopes of catching a nice striped bass. Once again, we were surprised to catch another lobster on our line! This lobster was a bit larger than the last with a 3.5 inch carapace. It also had no intentions of releasing the bait so we put both the lobster and the bait back into the water.

We also had the lobster pot soaking with some bait. We pulled up the lobster trap and found about 8 red rock crabs and 2 spider crabs. Most of the kids had never seen a spider crab before and thought it looked pretty scary. After holding a few of them, the kids were gained confidence around the crabs. Nice catch! We'll work on catching some fishing with our fishing rods and lobsters in our traps, but we still had a great day!

~Aimee

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Sea Glass

2008-08-20T09:17:00.001-04:00

Out on Georges Island I always encourage people to look for beach glass or sea glass as some people call it. This is simply broken glass that's been tumbling around in the sand for quite some time and has become nice and smooth. If it's sharp we leave it for next year. Many people collect beach glass. I've been collecting beach glass for many years so I've included a photograph here of a small amount of the glass I have at home. My favorites are the blue and the most hard to find, RED. Can you find the red one in the photo?

-David
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Harry McDonough Sailing Center

2008-08-19T15:58:00.001-04:00

This is something to do after a long day of sailing and soaking up the sun . Seadna and Kathleen were enjoying every minute of the poster included with a lobster ,crab , hermit crab , flounder, and a bass .They used a field guide to help them out a little .When the poster was done we hung it to dry and called it a day.

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All Access Boston Harbor

2008-08-19T14:29:00.001-04:00

Last week we went to George's Island and every day we had a full boat of 200 people. Before we left for the Island we all met at the Bank of America Pavilion for a short briefing and we also sang a sea scanty. Once we got to George's Island the kids and I flew kites, explored the beach for crabs and snails, and also skipped rocks which is always a blast. After, David took them up to the Fort where they went through the dark tunnel and met the "Lady in Black". George's Island is such a fun place to be I enjoy every minute of it. This week we went out to Spectacle Island twice and each day the kids had an opportunity to fly kites and go swimming. On Monday, I was up on the North Drumlin about 157 ft. high flying kites with the kids. After about 45 minutes or so we made our way down the hill and to the beach where we all went swimming and ended the day cool and refreshed. Only four days left, but they will be just as fun as the other trips this summer.

Frankie :)

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All Access

2008-08-19T14:16:00.001-04:00

At Georges Island I'm usually the one you see with the kites in my hand that you ask if you could have one and I have to say "no sorry we need these for our other trips." But sometimes you'll see me up in the fort showing people around making sure they don't get lost. Sometimes you might even see me on the beach with Frankie helping him out. But I'll always be the one teaching the kids how to fly kites like a pro.

At Spectacle Island I'm the one that shows the groups good spots to eat. Afterward I help them organize any games the are trying to organize. Then I try to get groups to go up the hill and fly the kites with Frankie. Then we go back down the hill and get soaked by the rest of the kids that are at the beach.

-Darius

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2008-08-19T11:05:00.000-04:00

Hello All Access! Today while fishing and tangling line on the fishing pier at Harry McDonough we had the pleasure of waving to the All Access crew as they returned from George's Island. Despite the fact that we did not catch any fish we had a great time seeing David, Frankie, Andrea, and Senait as they passed us by.

-Kat

Marine Art

2008-08-18T10:28:00.002-04:00

Hi I am Marissa and I have been working with Aimee at Camp Harbor View. On this day, we decided to do a different activity with the kids. We decided to take a walk along the beach and find things like rocks, mussel shells, different kinds of crab shells, and other things we thought were cool and we painted them.

Mark and Nnandi found some red rock crab shells to paint. They also found clam shells, mussel shells, and a horseshoe crab shell. The kids enjoyed learning about marine wildlife in this new way!

- Marissa
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Haul Away Joe

2008-08-16T11:10:00.001-04:00

Most mornings we meet on the stage of the Bank of America Pavilion to hear a little history about how Boston Harbor got to be so clean. So clean we can, and do, swim in it. But the most fun we have in the morning before we get on the boat is to learn a sea chantey. These are the work songs the sailors sang on board the old sailing ships, many of which were built right across the harbor from us in E. Boston. This is one of my favorites. Anyone named Joe (and some people whose name I change to Joe) comes up front to sing this with me.

The name of the song is Haul Away Joe. It was most often used as a hauling chantey, mainly for hauling on the lines to raise the sails on the old sailing ships. The most famous shipbuilder, Donald MacKay, is celebrated with a monument on Castle Island (a miniature Bunker Hill type obelisk) with every ship he ever built carved into the sides. Go check it out.

When I was a little boy, or so my mother told me,