Today at
0930, 60 seniors from Weston High School boarded the Ernestina
for a four hour sail. Their
focus onboard was to look at the marine science of the area
from the deck of a traditional vessel.
In addition to water quality and plankton, students
also learned about navigation, the history of the Ernestina
and stood watch at the helm and the bow. Looking
to do an otter trawl, we motored out from Fan Pier to a trawl
site between Long Island and Spectacle Island.
We trawled for around 5 minutes without a good idea of
what we might find. No
one onboard could remember trawling in Boston Harbor before.
We came out with a great collection of skates,
flounders, crabs, seaweeds, and more. Students
walked through the different tanks, and identified the
different species and counted the number of each one. Although
we found some invasive species, we were impressed with the
numbers and diversity of the species we found. We
raised the four lower sails with everyone’s help and shut
down the engine for a beautiful sail.
We had decent wind with only a few clouds overhead and
following the trawl and sail setting we all enjoyed our lunch
on deck. We
returned to Fan Pier around 1345 after striking and furling
our sails. The
crew fully enjoyed the sails and working with the students and
we hope some may come back and join us as interns in the
spring. Captain:
Doug Nemeth
Program Coordinator: Gretchen Stuppy
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