Sea Camp Day 2

Greetings from Sunny San Diego! Well, sunny from the hours of 10 to noon between the moment the marine layer burned off until the instant returned. Don’t worry, despite the lack of rays we had a not so typical So Cal day. It all started in the fish lap (sorry, no pictures due to my camera eating batteries faster than a Slavens 8th grader wolfs down hash browns and eggs in the morning). First a trivia question, what smells better the combination of a baked bean dinner mixed with axe and Old Spice body sprays featured in the boy’s dorm or five day old Pacific Mackerel? The answer is…the boy’s dorm. Despite the pungent fishy odor emanating from the dissection victims the first presented to group A received a big wet hello kiss from Brandon. To come clean, I also kissed the fish and it wasn’t that bad as long as you exhaled the entire time. Once the welcome pleasantries were exchanged, students literally dove into the innards their subjects. We discovered that the inside of the Mackerels three gills was a pinky red color similar to the color of a sweet red watermelon, the heads partially detaches, and the guts when extricated are long and skinny not to mention an appetizing green color.



Did I hear someone mention appetizing? Nothing can be as appealing as a raw squid esophagus which Caden ate in its entirety. Yum! And that had to happen when my camera was dead. I have half a mind to ask him to do it again so I can get some video. Not to be out done, Jared sampled the Pacific delicacy of spiny lobster. Oops, I misread my notes, he ate Hagfish slime (mucus) which tastes like lobster. The Girl’s didn’t want to be out shined by the boys, so Jemma and Maura liked the keyhole lipid for good luck. To be honest, licking a lipid isn’t that gross. You’ll just have to trust me on this one.



After a quick hand wash and for a chosen few a mouth full of Scope, it was off to Mission Point for a picnic lunch, games, seining, and snorkeling part 1. The after lunch game was an extension of the fish lab called camouflage. In the game one person (first an instructor and then Duncan) would close their eyes and count to a number say 20 while everyone else hides, just like hid and go seek. After counting, the predator looks around and calls out to all the prey that they can see. If they the prey are visible, then they are caught. After the predators visual 360 degree visual sweep around the Mission Point Green. They then close their eyes and count to a smaller number then they counted to before. While counting, all the prey must run, tag the predator, and re-hides. As the amount of time given to hide decreases, more people get caught until there are one or two prey people left. Once Duncan preyed upon all of his classmates, it was on to suiting up for the water.



Watching students get into their wetsuits has been worth the trip to San Diego every year. Each time then don the 7mm of constricting neoprene, students can dress them self quickly, although there are always a couple of people who revel in the difficulty of the task. This year’s winner of the most entertaining wardrobe change goes to Bridget who meandered through group A asking for anyone to give her an “atomic wedgie”. Hannah was all to glad to oblige.



Once in the water, students saw many different kinds of sea life including a ‘huge’ octopus that inked on Brandon’s face. I would say that it was bad luck, first the fish kiss and then octopus ink, but he seemed to reveal in the experience. Other critters included sand dollars, fish, fish, and more fish, lipids, brittle starts, ocre sea stars, snails, and sea slugs.



After we extracted more ocean, I mean bay fun then seems humanly possible we headed back to camp for cell phones, basketball, and every ones favorite Sea Camp experience, cross country practice. Normally I wouldn’t mention the practice, but I had so much fun with the runners that came with me today. Kyle, Colin, Henry, Drew, Sasha, Hailey, Audrey, and Duncan ran about 3 miles around half of Fiesta island. We were running around and one of my favorite XC moments happened. I was running about ten feet behind the boys when spontaneously then just started to all sing. When does that ever happen which 8th grade boys? To make things more fun we were chasing sea gulls from the beach, but when we saw a Blue Heron, I know it required a different approach. I had the team line up on a tall sand bank about 30 feet from the waters edge and told them that there was a reward for the first person to tag the Heron. To my surprise they all sprinted down to get the Heron. Unfortunately no one realized that in between us and the bird was a fowl (pun intended) muck pit which claimed Colin’s shoe a foot down (he found it), caused Henry to slide on his rear end for 5 feet, and somehow turned Hailey’s face a shade of green brown I have never seen before. In spite of this, or perhaps because of this detour, we all had one of the most fun and memorable Sea Camp experience I can remember.



Enjoy tomorrow in land locked Denver. Tomorrow you are sure to receive the Sea Camp news that makes you long to be with us. Don’t forget to enjoy today’s slideshow on slavens8thgrademath.blogspot.com or slavens7thgrademath.blogspot.com.