Maine Field Trip Day 2

The next day, after gorging on all-you-can-eat lobster dinner, we explored the marine center's facilities and watched a talk on lobster fishing in Maine. Some surprising things I learned were that lobster fishing is thought to be sustainable, lobsters can live to be over a hundred years old, and lobsters can live without food for months (years!)-

Saturday night's dinner

Today we packed our bags to leave, but before heading back to Smith we went bird watching at the ocean. Seagull watching. My partner and I did our bird watching on the actual beach, and I was so jealous of all the people that got to relax while we were working. The weather was perfect after such a rainy start to the weekend-

Maine Field Trip Day 1

This weekend my marine ecology class took a trip to Maine to explore New England rocky intertidal communities. We stayed in dorms at Darling Marine Center, about an hour outside Portland.

Our exploration of the area included a boat ride where the captain dredged the bottom with a giant, heavy shovel-bag. While we were out there it started to rain pretty intensely but we still managed to have an interesting time and hauled up some interesting marine specimens-

Following the boating trip, we ate lunch and headed out to a nearby beach. The goal of our beach visit was to help us refine the experiments we had designed in lab.

The beach was rocky and beautiful, and it was completely covered in fog when we first arrived. I couldn't even see the water or the horizon-

 

 

overcrowded barnacles

Some of my classmates checking out the intertidal

Me and my group members

An example of some of the interesting tide pools we found

Paddling with Aunt Lynne

Today I hung out with Aunt Lynne. We went out for Mexican food and eventually ended up spending the late afternoon paddling on a nearby pond. It was a beautiful, calm evening. Incredibly, it even warmed up enough for us to take a brief swim-

Baldwin Barbies !

I finally arrived back at Smith for cross country preseason and its been a busy/ tiring/ weird week and a half. I wish I could be in preseason forever but classes start tomorrow and I have to face reality. 

Today, in honor of the start of classes, Smith held its annual and very unique convocation. At this school convocation isn't some boring event. Instead we jazz it up with house cheers and dress up in costumes according to our house themes. This year Baldwin house went as Barbies (and Kens):