Let me just say that I have been soooo excited all day. I saw THREE squid swimming in the ocean today. I have only ever seen two before, and I saw those while I was snorkeling at Looe last week. This morning I saw a 12 inch squid swimming, but it swam away very quickly when I started calling for the campers to come look at it. Then about 5 minutes later I saw two hovering above a gorgonian (a soft coral for those of you who are non-scientists). They just stayed there while I got all 8 of the kids in my class to swim over and look at them. It was amazing.
Clearly, I was having a fantastic day. I decided to google the squid so I could put a picture of one on here for you. When I typed in "squid in South Florida," this is what came up: Giant squid found in Stuart
SERIOUSLY?!?! I leave Stuart, and they find a giant squid there?! I am livid. I can't even believe that this has happened. Why was I not there to see it? This is nonsense, Stuart. You should love me enough to wait until I'm home to find sea monsters so I can see them for myself!
I'm reminded of the time I left the beach early and a seal came up on Stuart Beach an hour later. I mean, what's next? The Megaladon will probably swim up the river and prove it's alive while I'm all excited to be snorkeling with a nurse shark in the Keys. It's like Poseidon is trying to play some cruel trick on me.
Needless to say, I'm buying a camera right now so that I don't have to google anymore pictures for you guys.
15 days til Harry Potter 7 Part 2!!!
31 days til Nicole's wedding!!!
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Training Injuries
I always seem to hurt myself at camp, especially during training. I find bruises that I didn't realize I'd gotten and random scratches all over my legs. It's not really a good look for me, but there's not much I can do about it.
Yesterday, we were learning how to sail on some miniature sailboats. They only hold two people. Before we could practice actually sailing, we had to do a capsize drill. Basically, two people sit inside the sailboat, flip it onto its side, and then right the sailboat and get back in. It sounds pretty straight forward, because it is. Kerri and I were in our own group. When we were righting it the second time, I was in the boat first and was helping pull carry up when someone yelled, "Jenna, your leg is bleeding!" I look down and there's blood all over my upper right leg. I wiped it off, and couldn't see the cut. I couldn't feel anything, so I looked over to see if Kerri was bleeding. She seemed fine, so I looked down again and saw even more blood. Obviously, water makes it look like there's way more blood than there is. My leg has two cuts side by side about three to four inches long. It's not deep at all, but I'm sure it was from a barnacle, so I cleaned out really well. Now it just looks like this:
Yesterday, we were learning how to sail on some miniature sailboats. They only hold two people. Before we could practice actually sailing, we had to do a capsize drill. Basically, two people sit inside the sailboat, flip it onto its side, and then right the sailboat and get back in. It sounds pretty straight forward, because it is. Kerri and I were in our own group. When we were righting it the second time, I was in the boat first and was helping pull carry up when someone yelled, "Jenna, your leg is bleeding!" I look down and there's blood all over my upper right leg. I wiped it off, and couldn't see the cut. I couldn't feel anything, so I looked over to see if Kerri was bleeding. She seemed fine, so I looked down again and saw even more blood. Obviously, water makes it look like there's way more blood than there is. My leg has two cuts side by side about three to four inches long. It's not deep at all, but I'm sure it was from a barnacle, so I cleaned out really well. Now it just looks like this:
This morning, 12 of us had to remove Cassiopeia from the swim canal. Cassiopeia is the genus name of the upside down jellyfish that live in the shallows around here. They were named after a queen in Greek mythology. Cassiopeia was very beautiful and thought that she was more gorgeous than the sea nymphs. This really pissed off the nymphs, so they complained to Poseidon. He kept destroying the ships from her main city after that, and the oracle said Cassiopeia's daughter had to be sacrificed to a monster for the ships to be safe. Perseus, Zeus's mortal son, saved the daughter. As punishment to Cassiopeia, when she died Poseidon placed her in the stars on an upside down thrown. You've probably heard of the constellation. It's refered to in the horrible movie Serendipity with John Cusack. Lame.
Anyways, these jellies are mainly benthic. They live on the bottom, upside down and look like plants. They don't move a lot, but if you disturb them, they can release their stinging cells into the water column. An example of what happens is that one person swims down, and accidentally kicks a Cassiopeia. Then their buddy and everyone around them starts to get really itchy from the stinging cells that are all over the water. It sucks. Plus, some people are way more sensitive than others. We all put on wet suits for this fun project, but I had to borrow one since I don't own my own. I grabbed one that was a little too big, so it didn't block out enough water, and I got stung all down my chest, stomach and back. My neck got the worst of it. I had horrible, red welts all over, but now I just have red spots all over my neck and chest. The picture doesn't show them very well, but I thought you might be able to get an idea.
My neck still stings, but I didn't even stay in the water as long as other people. We ended up getting an estimated 2,000 jellies out of the swim canal. It was insane. We had to transport them to other areas by boat so they wouldn't die. I now hate Cassiopeia.
(These pictures are mainly for you, Mom. I know how you love to take pictures when people get hurt.)
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