Sea Stars, Whales, Sharks, and Lobsters

Note: I wrote quite a bit

Today, Thursday the 8th started off pretty usual. Wake up early in the morning when you really don’t want to, have breakfast yawning like a hippo with bags under your eyes, and a cold walk down to the marine lab for the first part of the day… Or maybe that’s just me, considering that I walked down there with a coat and an extra layer while others went down wearing just a t-shirt. Seemed pretty chilly to me…
In any event, the lab ended up being about something that some of the guys have been doing numerous times already: flipping things on their backs and seeing how fast they can right themselves (notably star fish). Only this time, we did it properly and measured them and timed them. We also performed the same test on sea urchins as well. All this was done after viewing them under a specimen microscope to take a look at their front and rear ends (mouth and anus respectively) and drawing them as best we can. To say that it was difficult is an understatement, as a sea urchin under a microscope looks like a tangled mass of spines and tube legs whereas a sea star looks like a tangled mass of even more tube legs.
After this was done, we hopped in the van for a drive back up the hill to the dorms, where we had time to unwind and have a meeting about the topics for what our presentations that are going to be on Saturday morning (I got the subject “Swimming with Dolphins”). After that, we then had a great lunch consisting of “I can’t quite remember anymore, but it was good”, and we killed more time until the event we were all excited for: Whale watching.
This was easily the main event of the entire week, and I’d just like to point something out now that I’ve done it. Whale watching isn’t exactly correct. It’s more like “Whale hide’n seek”. Watching would imply we’re always looking at them, but they surprisingly don’t surface often. It was quite a great experience, and we also noticed a peculiar spectacle that didn’t involve a whale. While out on the water, we found a porpoise which had its tail bitten off. When we found it, it was barely alive and bleeding profusely. Shortly after, a shark came along and took the rest. We weren’t quite sure what shark it was, but they say that based on the size of the porpoise and the fact that it was gone in two bites that it was a great white. This was an event that no one anticipated and that I was lucky enough to capture on my own camera. Aside from the shark, we also saw a fair amount of humpback whales, one of which was apparently un-identifiable at the time.
After the whale watching trip, we had a free after-noon in our schedule. We took this opportunity to go out to the town and play a few rounds of mini-golf. As we got hungry, we decided to go for dinner at the “Harbour Front Restaurant”. I ended up ordering garlic cheese bread, and a whole lobster with fries. I had never eaten lobster before, and never realized that they are just so darn good! The meal was a bit expensive, but it was worth it. All in all, today was very good.
P.S. Sorry you lost your chance to teach me how to properly eat a lobster, mom.
P.P.S. It was a messy meal.

Charles McCluskey