The treasures of Spectacle island

I was quite impressed with what I have seen in Spectacle Island, but I wanted to know a bit more about its transformation. In a Boston Globe article I was able to find some more information about its recent history. I was very impressed when I read: "It is said that the smell of the dump was so foul that in foggy weather ships could get their bearings simply by the stench emanating from the island". I am very impressed that in less than fifteen years, an island that was used as a city landfill, horse-rendering factory, and quarantine station, became such an interesting and pleasant place where I happily swam.

In fact I liked so much that I volunteered to take the next boat (I'd like some extra credit for this please). I am also sorry to inform you that you missed out the most magnificent view of Boston.

Our visit in Spectacle island was very interesting especially considering that we went there after we read the article about the "tragedy of the commons." As I already told you in class, I thought that we were asked to read the article because one of the interpretations was that the "tragedy of the commons" is about the need of having national parks. The following quotation shows how: "The national parks present another instance of of the working out of the tragedy of the commons. At present, they are open to all, without limit...the parks themselves are limited in extent." (Garett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Coommons, 1968). My interpretation is that there cannot be free and unrestricted access to the National Parks because they would soon be extinct. This is why there should be laws and special provision to protect the National Parks as needed in each case. From my (limited) knowledge I know that National Parks in the United States have special rules that are strictly enforced. Spectacle island is no exception since from what I gathered you cannot camp, remove anything from the beach etc.

When we arrived at the island we talked a bit about how we are going to gather data in both a systematic and a non- systematic fashion. We were particularly interested in the abundance of each thing we found, but also in finding things that were particularly interesting to us. Our methodology for the systematic data collection was to use a hula that was 49." We placed the hula in different spots and then we categorized and counted everything we found in the hula. The non-systematic way was to walk across the beach an pick things that there interesting to us.

We collected out first data sample a few inches below the highest rack line, and about 80 feet from the lowest-tide and included the following (thank you Joseph for measuring the distance, and Nikki for writing down the data we collected):

• A very big amount (too many to count) of white, green and some brown pieces of glass
• 20 pieces of some dark coal-like rock. Our group thought that it was Iron Ore
• 5 smoother pieces of something that we identified as coal
• 5 pieces of Razor Clam
• 10 (some broken) blue mussels
• 7 very small pointy shells
• 230 shells of periwinkles
• 6 barnacles
• a few parts of disintegrated crabs

We gathered the second dataset as close as the low tide as possible (turned out not to be the best decision ever since by that time the tide was rising). We found the following:

• dark and light grey rocks
• 2 alive mussels (some brave group members followed my example and ate them!)
• 1 periwinkle
• seaweed
• a pair of women's slippers

A brief look at the treasure, what impressed me the most (probably the best part of my post):

I am very proud of this finding. It was pretty intriguing and we had to get help from an expert to identify. I have to say that our amazing group was very right in guessing that it is the front of shell.

This brown glass with the numbers is pretty intriguing to me.

I do not understand what these numbers that look like math do

in a glass piece that looks like a bottle to me.

This is something that I identified as a part of a white? Pepsi bottle

I couldn't help it. This is a great picture of our group discussing about our interesting findings. After our first experiment, every time I go to the bathroom I look at whether the water drains clockwise or counterclockwise. After our visit spectacle island, every time that I will visit a beach, I will take the time to examine what I can find rather than just swimming, tanning and doing other activities.

A very unrelated note, but I am sure that Spectacle island would be the paradise for Orhan Pamuk. The museum he has set up in Istanbul and his latest book the "Museum of Innocence" make me think that he would be very interested in finding out about the history of many of the things we found.

Lovells Island

We started our day by taking the boat from Boston Harbor to Georges island, and from there on to Lovells islands. In Lovells island we were greeted by Tim the park ranger. The blackburries that were on our way to the beach added a lot to this inviting island. Without loosing too much time we headed Westward.

Lovells island was a great experience for me. I had the chance to take a closer and more carefull look of the life in the intertidal zones. We were particularly lucky since we got there early in the dayt and the tide was at its lowest which revealed a very rich habitat. I found some striking differences with the Barking Club: the most important one being that Lovells island is a National Park and therefore a protected environment. The other major differenence is that the Barking Crab is a dock in Boston Harbor whereas the place we were looking at in Lovells island is a sandy beach. As a consequence the habitats were drastically different, especially in regard to what kind of life we found. For instance, in Lovells island we found a number of shells, periwinkels and snails that we didn't find at Barking Club.

In Lovells island the intertidal zone had a few intertidal pools in which we were able to find a number a of different living organisisms: we spotted a number of plants and animals. We looked for any living organism that could be senn which we observed, photographed, drawed and later looked up in guides.

We found a very interesting habitat that developed in the intertidal pools that were surrounded by ruined jetties that served the US military in the past. As you can see on the picture, the intertidal zone consists of a sand zone which extends to a very rocky area, with rocks of all sizes.

I am personally very proud of this. Although I've been in the ocean before and I have been fishing many times, I never had a great relationship with crabs. With the help of Hilary we caught this (alive) crab which is the first one that I actually touched. I was thrilled,

I will show you in a minute a much bigger one we caught alive. According to the Hitchickers guide this crab is an Asian Shore crab. The reason that makes me believe that is the resemblance in the picture and that this crab has three teeth.

This crab was found dead but I think I found out what he is. I looked him up on

the Natioanal Audubon Society Field Guide to Noth American Seashore Creatures. Originally I thought that it was a Say's Mudd Crab. However, the description made me doubt and I decided to double - check with the Hitchickers guide. If I am not mistaken this is the same kind of crab we've seen the day before in the Barking Crab, and I believe it to be a Green Crab.

For this I do not need a guidebook since I know pretty well what it is. It is a dead sea urchin. If it were alive I could also probably determine its sex. If we were ev

en luckier and it was a female we could have eaten the eggs which are one of my favorite delicacies.

I was a bit surprised we did not find many sea urchins, especially considering how rocky was the intertidal zone. Even when I walked on the jetties I couldn't see any although I expected there would be a big population of them. I am pretty sure that there is a good reason for that, but I just don't know it.

This was one of my favorite discoveries of day. Ted? caught this baby lobster which I had the chance to look at before we set it free. I looked it up in the guidebook and it turned out a bit more complicated than what I thought. To begin with my pictures are not that great since I was not too close. The s

hape of the tail as well as the fact that it has three legs make me believe that it is a Northern Lobster

For the first time in my life I sang to the periwinkle pictured on the side (I never thought I would actually do something like this). So I had the chance to closely observe it but all I could think of was the lunch that was waiting for me. Now I am trying to identify in the guidebook, however I realized that I only have pictures from the front side. However, from what I remember and what I read in the guide, I suspec and speculate that this is a Rough Periwinkle especially considering the comment

in the guidebook that it is found more than anywhere in New England.

After lunch, unfortunately we left the tidal pools and the intertidal zone and we went to look for snails. This is something that I have never done before, and I frankly think that I just needed to spend some more time with these lovely creatures.

We found a lot of these grove snails on trees. I assume that the humidity of these days does a lot of good to the snails. This assumption has to do with the fact that when we picked the snails from the trees and put some water on our hands, they would come out of their shell.

I was really impressed by their abundance. I just started reading about and exploring the world. Thanks to our course I am now able to appreciate their complexity and their role in the natural habitat.

Day 1 - Orientation

What a day! It is really interesting to see that everyone caught on different things. Today was pretty much my first experience with the harbor and the islands.

First some data:

• Date:Friday, July the 30th
• Time: from about 1pm. to 3.30pm
• Starting point and route: Long Wharf. To be totally honest I still don't have in my mind a crystal clear view of route we followed. I know that we did a circle from Hull to Quincy and that we stopped in Killroy (shipyard) and the airport. After I finish this blog post I will take a better look at the map.
• Temperature felt a bit colder than in the city. This link has a lot of very detailed info (updated hourly) about the weather conditions in Boston Harbor. According to the data collected, the atmospheric temperature at the time of our visit was between 68.2 and 68.5 degrees Fahrenheit. The water temperature was also around 68 degrees. The wind speed was very low, and there were no waves. For those that cannot be bothered to click on the link, here is a summary of the measurements.

	Wind Direction (WDIR):	S ( 180 deg true )
	Wind Speed (WSPD):	9.7 kts
	Wind Gust (GST):	11.7 kts
	Wave Height (WVHT):	1.3 ft
	Dominant Wave Period (DPD):	2 sec
	Average Period (APD):	3.1 sec
	Atmospheric Pressure (PRES):	29.92 in
	Pressure Tendency (PTDY):	+0.02 in ( Rising )
	Air Temperature (ATMP):	68.7 °F
	Water Temperature (WTMP):	68.2 °F
	Salinity (SAL):	30.94 psu
	Dew Point (DEWP):	61.0 °F

source: National Data Buoy Center

Now the observations:

The first impression I got is that the water is pretty clean. This impression is primarily based on what I have been told, however the water seemed relatively clear to me. That said I could not see very deep inside, nor did I measure how far I can see.

Today I was able to take a glimpse at life in Boston harbor and the islands. The traffic did not seem to me very intense, however I have no criterion for this observation since it was my first experience there. Also, I was able to see some of the erosion that has taken place after the last ice age. The most astonishing thing to me was perhaps how green the islands were. I have a lot of experience from very dry and rocky islands in Greece, and I was surprised to see very small but very green islands. I wonder whether they are so green just because of the rain, or if these islands have water reserves. In any case, I am not a tree expert but there seemed to be a good variety, and I think that I was able to see some varieties of Pine? trees.

I was also very happy to see Deer island, because we have talked about it in both my science classes this summer. Two hundred and eighty million of mostly untreated waste sounds like an awful lot of waste, and yet people came up with a good solution. Every time I hear about this success story I am more and more impressed. It makes me think that if people were able to clean the Boston harbor and the bay, they should be able to do it elsewhere. This immense effort that took place in the last 25 years should serve as a model to other big ports around the world. I was mostly surprised (in a good way) by the reaction of the court to the first clean-up proposal. The response was extremely effective in mobilizing people in Massachusetts and the result is spectacular. The second thing that I found very smart was that the efforts were first geared toward fixing the problems that were hurting the health of the harbor and the bay, and later address the problems associated with the closing of the beaches. This ensured that everyone would be committed until the clean up is finished. I can see the policy response and the clean up efforts becoming textbook cases in the very near future. I am sure that in the early eighties it would be practically impossible to do what we are doing today. Even if it was possible, probably I wouldn't be willing to go anywhere near the harbor and the islands.

My internet connection is really bad right now but I will upload some of my pictures once I get the chance.

I can't wait to get out there tomorrow and learn more about the harbor.

Alexandros

Personal Introduction

Hello everyone,

My name is Alexandros and I am originally from Athens, Greece but I have also lived in the Netherlands for three years. This summer I am graduating from Claremont McKenna College in California where I majored in Economics and History.

I am taking this course as part of my science requirements, and I have three good reasons for choosing "from snails to whales": the first reason is that the head of the biology department at Claremont told me it would probably be the best science course I could ever take (judging from our first field trip, she was definitely right!). The second reason is that when I was younger I "adopted" an Orca whale but never got to actually see a whale. The third reason is that although I spend a great deal of time on the Greek seas and islands, I feel that I don't know enough about life in water.

Here is a slideshow with some pictures from the Aegean Sea where I spend my holidays.

View all

Get your own

As far as the experiment is concerned, I will tell you what I observed while trying not to bore you too much by repeating what others have said. In the sink experiment I observed the water twisting clockwise when draining. Although I was looking closely I cannot make up my mind about the direction of the water in the toilet experiment: it seems to me as though the water was going in all directions without any particular pattern other than down the toilet.

I looked up the Coriolis effect in my notes from the Environmental Science I recently took. My notes referred to wind and ocean currents, but if we assume that in theory the same should hold for the sink and the toilet, I would say that in both the sink and the toilet the water should drain to the right. The reason is that in the North hemisphere, currents are deflected to the right (Eastward) because of the Coriolis effect.

In Australia the currents are also deflected to the right, but since Australia is on the Southern hemisphere, the resulting direction of the currents is Westward. Considering this it is tempting to say that if we repeated the experiment in Australia the water would drain counter-clockwise in both cases, but this question seems to me a bit more tricky than that.

see you on Friday,

Alexandros Couclelis