| Twelve students from Fairhaven High and
their teacher, Barbara Belenger, came sailing
with us today. The small number of passengers
prevented us from setting our mainsail but the
high winds kept us sailing through Buzzards Bay
with our foresail and jumbo set. To familiarize
the students with the history of the Ernestina we
played a game having them guess the answers to a
variety of questions that encompassed the
106-year life span of the ship. They played well
however their complimentary prizes were stickers
instead of money or paid vacations. Once we rounded the corner into Clarks
Cove we set our otter trawl to collect a sample
of marine life on the ocean floor. Although the
trawl was down for minimal time we still managed
to get such a large sample that it took everybody
working together to get our sample back on board!
The majority of our sample consisted of the algae
Codium, commonly known as dead man’s
fingers. We did manage to get three species of
fish - cunners, scups, and a sea bass, along with
numerous crabs - mostly mud crabs and spider
crabs, and a few species of mollusks with slipper
shells being the most abundant. The students have
an aquarium set up in their room so they took
some living samples with them, and we tested the
salinity of the water so they could compare it
with the samples they have already taken at Fort
Phoenix, West Island, and the Acushnet River.
Unfortunately the morning went by too fast and we
had to say goodbye when we returned to shore at 1
p.m.
Captain: Sophie
Morse
Program Coordinator: Crista Mellican
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