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Category Archives: Nautical Life

More from our Kasitsna Bay Trip.

Photo dump!

Tree roots.
Looks like the perfect location for a little fairy village or a gnome home!
Near Jackalof Bay.
Tree creatures.
Each one teach one session.
Huge tree stump from selective logging.
Forestry hike

This was the first part of the journey, a little forest ecology field trip. We learned that there are naturally hybridized Sitka-White spruce trees here in this temperate rain forest. And they grow huge!

Tree roots bleached from the salt water.
The remains of an urchin, the test.
A sea cucumber me thinks.
Hermie the Crab.
So many barnacles.
Lil Bit walking in the deposits of broken shells. ASMR esq.
A boy in the cleft of the rock.
So many sea snails.
AK Boy found a skeleton of a sea star with muscles and barnacles attached
There’s a tiny little sea star right in the center, on the kelp.

Tide pooling adventures.

Afterwards it was back to the bunkhouse for some much needed rest. Walking miles in mud boots is not advisable. But we were ready for the next adventure come morning!

AK Boy at the microscope 🔬
Lil Bit zooming in.
What type of creatures we might see.
Alexa explaining how the plankton samples are taken.
Lab time!

Lab time was quite eye opening. 🫤🔬🤢 Remember that time at fish camp when pulling nets and a bunch of sea water splashed on your face and some got on your lips and you licked them… Yeah, you ate plankton.

Big chunky sea star.
Color stripes on this sea star.
Lil Bit stuck to the net.
This tank was full of sea stars that are in the stage 3 (super low) tides. Not usually seen but sometimes.
He finally worked up the nerve to pick one up.
The basic bish of sea stars. 🤩
There was a large table of readily found beach combing treasures. Labeled neatly for identification purposes.
A crusty crab! I think this one is a “decorator crab”.
Touch Tank & interactive lab.

That’s it for our end-of-year field trip. Lots of learning and fun was

Learning Experience Ahead!

Ahoy mates! We’ve shoved off and we’re underway to the Kasitsna Bay Research Facility to explore our marine and forest ecology! This is an overnight trip across Kachemak Bay. Seas are mostly calm, overcast skies, it’s supposed to rain but so far it’s just cool and overcast.

Aboard the Discovery with Captain Victoria!

I’ll be sure to post more about our adventures when we return home! You can see our adventures here!