Whales CTY Summer Session 1 Day 8

On Monday, after being hove to in Stellwagon Bank all night, we woke up to whales eating their breakfast beside the Lady Maryland. We had delicious baked French toast for our breakfast and after watching more whales, we departed for Gloucester. We were pretty sad that it was our last sailing day. While we were underway, we ate a delicious lunch of the fish that Sinker had caught. He also caught a dogfish shark, but we let that go. Coming into Gloucester, we saw a castle built by the person who invented the remote control. We got into Gloucester at around 1530 and after docking, we went to the Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center.

At the Heritage Center, we looked at some awesome touch tanks which showcased native and invasive species of marine life. We all got to pet skates, which were surprisingly playful. We also saw a hermit crab get eaten! In addition to the hermit crabs, we saw really cool blue lobsters and learned that lobsters are carnivorous cannibals. There were also really strange looking fish and enormous moon snails!

After playing in the touch tanks, we did a squid dissection. Everyone got their own squid and we learned a lot about squid anatomy. The squid smelled really bad, but it was still awesome! At the end of the dissection, we used the squid's pen and ink sac to write our names.

We went back to the boat for dinner and then we did our project presentations. Everyone had been working on projects throughout the trip, and since it was our last night on the boat, we presented them to the crew and the other cadets. Starboard Watch showed us the whale of the future and Port Watch showed us the whale of the past. All the presentations were awseome! :) Then we had our final muster, where we exchanged funny quotes from the trip and sang some songs. That night, the cadets got to be on watch by themselves without any crew members (and they did a great job!). We're sad to be leaving the Lady Maryland, but its been an amazing trip.