Its August already?

The annual Lobster Fest has come to an end. The campground and City of Rockland are back in order, and I am left fridge-less. The universe just had to make sure that I had at least one more camper challenge before leaving it for good! It's fine though; I only lost half of my food, wasted money on only one bag of ice trying to save it all, and have everything soaking in a cooler full of half-melted ice blocks. Its been one hell of a summer!

Despite everything though, I can definitely say that I wouldn't trade my experience for a summer of familiar places, faces, and activities. Granted, I do love my home and my people, but I've got the entire rest of the world to experience, and the rest of the people on this planet to meet! I'll take a few hurdles in the way to be able to do that. Its also a good feeling to know that I came here and did everything I did, and overcame some tough obstacles that never took me down in the process. 

I think that the amazing people I've met, the spectacular places I've seen, and the challenging things I've done were well worth the risk and uncertainty of leaving everything I knew. In fact I could actually never find sense in passing up such a sublime opportunity. I may be nearing the end of this summer internship, but I feel strongly that this really is the beginning of my future.

Beaverdam Stream

We got her back up there!

Carrying a 70+ pound canoe with one other person isn't the most difficult thing to do, but carrying a 70+ pound canoe with one other person through bug-filled woods on a hot day is a completely different story. Not only is it a challenge to keep a good grip with sweaty hands, but to try and fight off swarms of mosquitoes and deer flies while stepping over fallen trees and protruding roots without dropping the canoe seems like a sick joke. How can anyone possibly avoid the blood-sucking mosquitoes and the flesh-tearing bites of deer flies with 70+ pounds of canoe in their slippery hands, all the while stepping over the rugged forest floor? The answer is, NOBODY REALLY DOES!

The trick is to take frequent and abrupt breaks, and to be back on the move before the bugs catch up, getting so bad that it is impossible to breathe without inhaling an insect. This is what Beth and I did one afternoon at Sunkhaze. Mind you, this was all just to get the canoe into the water. 

After what felt like a mile we finally got ourselves and the canoe to the water. I was relieved, but I knew that we still had the walk back as well as loading the canoe back onto the truck ahead of us. It was a small winding stream bordered in flowers, shrubbery, and the skeletons of trees that probably haven't had leaves on them for years. We took off with fancy paddles, lifejackets, and a shovel. The shovel was for digging up Purple Loosestrife, but we used it for everything but. 

The water was shallower than we expected in some places; at first because of a several beaver dams, later because that was just how the geography of the land is. The limiting factors may have slowed us down but it didn't stop us from progressing further into the liquefied pathways. We pushed on, hopping out of the canoe when necessary to push and pull our way as we zig-zagged on. Beth just hopped right out, shoes and all; I tied my shoes to the canoe and let the soft stream floor squish between my toes. There was a perfect balance between the water and air temperatures. It couldn't have been a more perfect day to be where I was, doing what I was doing. 

After reaching a point in the stream that required more knowledge about the location than we had or at least a map, we decided it would be best to turn back and try the other direction of where we started off. We climbed in and out of the canoe, pushing and pulling it over beaver dams, fallen logs, and other natural obstacles once again. We never ended up seeing any Purple Loosestrife. Even though that was the entire point of our afternoon venture, there was no where else I would have rather been. Besides, the absence of the invasive plant is what we were hoping to see (like that irony right there?). 

Furthermore, I learned some new canoeing terms, like when I learned the scooching technique for instance. I know now also that the next time I come to an obstacle while floating on the water will not be when it is time to turn around. 

Purple Plague

Another long day at Sunkhaze. That mean Hannaford bright and early again. Yesterday we went up to control the infamous Purple Loosestrife on each side of the long dirt road within the refuge. It is a beautiful purple flowered plant of European origin, but is unfortunately invasive to all the native plants in the area. Once it its growth has taken off, its a difficult process to stop. So far it has only grounded its roots along either side of the road. If it is not controlled however, it will find its way to the wetlands and take out anything in its path. That doesn't seem so bad, does it? Having a beautiful purple flower blanketing the marshes? As a matter of fact, people actually pay money to plant the greenery around their houses. Wrong; it actually has no predators here on this continent, so unless there are people interfering its growth, it will spread at its own free will.

Trimming the Purple Loosestrife
Seed-heads

When we arrived, we met up with the Milbridge team and got right to work. They took one car up one side of the road, and we did the other. There were four people in each car, so one person would drive and the other three would jump out and snip off the flowering part of the plant and leave the rest of it. Sometimes if there was enough concentrated in one area, we would all get to work. This coming Tuesday we will be venturing back up there to spray the remainder of each plant in hopes that it will eliminate it completely, or at least reduce next year's returning amount.


It took us all day to complete the job, but with help it wasn't all that bad. The worst part about it was the mosquitoes. If any of us stood still for even a split second we would be completely covered in them. I think one even got my eyelid. It was so bad that I'm pretty sure I have bites on my bites!

The car ride home was just as bad. I've never seen more dead bugs on a dashboard. If you're wondering what the work life is of a MCINWR employee is, a prime example would be: while all the other commuters were talking on their cellphones, we were killing mosquitoes and flies that were trying to take chunks out of us.

Boston Bound

For the first time since orientation in May I got to see my beloved fellow intern friends! We met up at Rani's house in the suburbs of Boston and that was the beginning of a fantastic weekend!

I had planned on getting to her house earlier than I did, but I took a huge unplanned detour all around Boston. That's what you get for using phone GPS. Not too long after getting there we were already on our way back into town to board a ferry. We spent the whole day volunteering on Peddock's Island, lending quite a few hands to cleaning up debris and making for a more aesthetically pleasing place to visit. We got free shirts, lunch, and the company of many new friends, so it was a successful day in my eyes.

We spent that night at Rani's before Outdoor Nation. They dragged me to The Dark Knight, and I actually sat through the entire thing and didn't fall asleep! I'm not much of a movie go-er, so I was pretty proud of myself. It was three hours long, aren't you proud?

We were at UMass Boston bright and early the next morning. We collected our free shirts and waterbottles and prepared for...actually at the time I wasn't too sure what to expect exactly. There were two massive projector screens and a stage, and I did know that we were supposed to be creating projects and presenting them so I got a tad bit nervous.

The day went well though. I met plenty of awesome people, ate free lunch, snacks, and dinner! Plus another free ferry ride! We spent the night out on George's island. We got a quick introduction to the island and its famous ghost stories, and a few awesome people from the Northface before before everyone went their separate ways. Everyone slept in tents, and spent the majority of the night exploring the forts and enjoying the campfire.

The view from George's Island

I found myself exploring the island in its entirety with two strangers. Sounds dangerous. That's just the way things are nowadays I guess. I actually didn't think you could have so much fun with such unfamiliar people, especially that came from such different backgrounds! One of them is from the Bronx.

My new found friends and I ended up back at the campfire, only this time it looked so different. When we left it, the flame was almost impossible to see through all the people. Now there were only a few faint shadows hovering around the pit. Long story short, I've never laughed around a fire more than I did around this one, and three of us slept most of the night out there. We did eventually run out of wood and got cold enough to head back to the tents.

Before I knew it the sun was up and everyone was packing away their tents. We were on the ferry back to Boston by 7. That was stupid; I got barely any sleep, and I had to present a project in front of a huge room of strangers, on a stage, and with microphones, and that also was thought up the day before. I get really bad stage fright, so I have no idea how we did. I prentended I didn't know how to set up a tent as part of the presentation, then stood there telling myself that I don't have to actually present anything so stop being so scared of nothing, for the rest of the time we were up on stage.

The rest of the day was spent watching other groups present and voting for the winners. Each winning group would get a certain amount of money to actually fund the project that they created. The group I was in definitely did't win, but in our defense, one of the groups that came up with a similar project did.

By the time the day was over, we all left with our hands and bags full of free stuff, as well as an experience that I am so glad we didn't pass up.

Blues Festival Weekend!

I could go on and on about the weekend of the North Atlantic Blues Festival. To keep it short though, I'll leave out the just as entertaining but less important stuff. First off, I got to watch most everything get set up and the public's excitement grow all day the Friday of that weekend. It's located right across the street from the visitor center!

That same afternoon I met up with my uncle, his wife, and her daughter after work. I met them at a friend of my uncles vacation house in one of the Rockland mountains. It was a full house all weekend long. Even the owners son along with two friends came up from Long Island New York! The house is beautiful. Matt, the homeowner, designed it himself, so it was quite out of the ordinary.

Driving back to the house with
a bucket of live lobsters

On the way to the festival the next morning, I found myself driving Matt's Ford Superduty deisel truck as the designated whoever pays attention and comes with us first taxi. He even made me back it into a parking space in downtown Rockland! I so did not sign up for that.

With that out of the way, I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the festival, eating lobster, haddock, and drinking refreshing chai as I scoped out the merchandise filled tents. Soon enough though, we had to figure out how to feed such a house full of people.

Within the hour, I was driving a handful of us to Owls Head for fresh off the boat lobsters, listening to the live electric guitars and deep voices that poured from the truck's speakers (we could listen to the bands playing at the festival on the radio all weekend long!). They were hands down the best lobsters I've eaten. Ever. And I never pass up an opportunity for lobster, so I've had my fair share of lobster in my short 20 years of life.

I also had my fair share of heat and direct sunlight for one weekend, so I went back to the camper Sunday morning, but most of the bunch actually went back to the festival. What troopers.

Losing hope in Hope

Everyday on my home from work I pass two roads on route 17 both with street signs reading 'Payson Rd'. It was a lovely afternoon, so I figured a little detour would be nice. It's my favorite way of getting to know unfamiliar areas. Little did I know that what I thought would be a short detour, judging from the distance between the two street signs, would turn into what nobody wants to happen in unfamiliar territory.

Am I the only who figures that passing two roads with the same name means that its the same road and if you stay on it then you'll come to the other end? Oh how wrong I was.

Turns out that there's quite a deceiving intersection along the way. It was a stupid mistake really. I went back a few days later to take some pictures of some things I had seen the first time, and noticed that the road I should have taken was for the most part on the other side of the intersection. It was the angles of the street signs themselves that completely through me off course.

Eventually, after realizing how far I'd come from where I should have turned, I came to a small old fashioned general store at an intersection. Of course it was closed but I specifically remember the store because I ended up finding it from each direction possible at the intersection. I always do really well with direction, so I've never been in that situation before.

Up a mountain, down a mountain. My car swallowed up over a quarter tank of gas while I spiraled my way up and down the mountains of Hope Maine. After some time, I couldn't recognize any of the town names on the signs I would come to. By then my sense of direction was the only thing I could rely on.

Two hours after first pulling on to Payson Rd., and a nearly empty gas tank later, I found my way back to 17. I couldn't have been happier at the time. I was hungry and just wanted to settle in for the night after a day of work. I must admit though, it was the most beautiful scenic detour I've been on in a while.As you can tell, I got some good pictures though.

Goodbye Metinic :(

I got to spend one last weekend on the beloved Metinic before the nesting season came to an end, and the researchers as well as all the gear would make their final trip to the mainland. Essentially I did the same things that I did the last time I went out, but with the other intern, Chelsea, and it ironically happened to be the last weekend there for the both of us. She was being switched to Petit Manan.

During one windy day there I walked out to the north point of the island and climb into the researcher-built Ledge Blind for an hour or so long blind stint. Sitting about 10 feet above the ground on the cold metal chair inside the tiny wooden blind I locked the door shut and opened two of the three wooden windows. Opening all three, or two on opposite sides of eachother would have revealed me to the birds. Since the terns abandoned their colony on Metinic, I would see them come and go overhead, scoping out the area. The longer I sat in the little blind, the more spiders revealed themselves to me. There are always a few clearly visible ones upon first climbing into the blind, but about a half hour into it, I noticed about 8 good sized spiders hanging out right next to my head and in front of my face. It gets a little weary because the wind blows them around, so it felt as if they could easily have swayed right onto my face!

I'm certainly not a fan of spiders, and before being so exposed to them this summer, I would stay as far away from them as possible. I wouldn't want to disturb them, for they usually would never want to disturb me. Because I do so many things up here that don't include time to work around spiders, I have really learned to completely ignore them. There is even this one spider I call Peaka that hangs out in my shower at the camper. It always sits high in a corner and remains there when I shower, so I decided to leave it be. One day I actually saved its life! It fell and landed on a ledge right where the water pounds off of. It didn't even resemble a spider anymore. I actually found it a little sad. Normally I would have just figured that I was not responsible for saving it, and I would just let it wash away down the drain. For some reason I could not let that happen to this spider! I shut the water off and climbed out, dripping water everywhere, dried off my hands, and balled up some toilet paper. I carefully picked it up with the toilet paper ball and placed it on the toilet to dry while I finished my shower. My relationship with spiders has definitely come a long way!

Anyways, our last night there, we watched our last Metinic sunset on a rock in the intertidal and later did some Storm Petrel work. We were unsuccessful in locating any new burrows because the birds were busy at work, so the only calls we were hearing in the area we needed to look were coming from above us. They were all airborne. The long and difficult tread through the tall grass and uneven terrain in the pitch dark was well worth it when I got to hold a Storm Petrel though. They are so precious! It happened to be right where we were walking, so we scooped it up and it made itself right at home in our hands. When I tried to let it go it wouldn't leave! It just laid right down and enjoyed the warmth of my hand. Eventually I finally got it to leave my hand and scurry across the grass to safety.

The next morning we took one last walk around the island and said our final goodbyes. The island is not accessible to the public, so it really was our final goodbyes.

Visiting NH!

It was really weird! I met up with some friends that live in Portland and went with them for the day, so it was weird being back home but not having free reign to visit everyone I wanted to. It was a beautiful day though and we met up with some people and had a cookout all day so it was a pretty successful day. I'm just going to leave it at that; the shortest blog post ever.

Breakwater

Yaaaay my Mom came up for the weekend! It got cut short because her boyfriend wanted to go back early =[. I was NOT a happy camper. It was quite the fiasco. We did have a nice supper at the pearl and walked around downtown Rockland when they first arrived though. That was nice! We had our dog Payton with us, so he attracted plenty of attention, and created quite the dilemma of where we could eat. I'm glad we settled on the Pearl. I don't recommend the asparagus salad. That may or may not be what it is called, but that is the depiction that is portrayed when reading the description. That actually is not at all what it is. It is one of the most expensive things on the menu, but is smaller than the appetizer we ordered! It was two pieces of asparagus with a funny looking egg placed on top! Ridiculous!

Breakwater Lighthouse

The next day we went to the Breakwater, which was on my list of places to visit while I'm up here. From the water going to and from the islands I hadn't realized how long of a walk on the rocks it was out to the lighthouse! Its 7/8 of a mile! That doesn't seem all that long, but when every step risks a chance of a broken ankle, its plenty long enough!

We finished the visit off with a trip to the Badger cafe. The food is really good there! Sadly though we polished off our plates and were headed back to the campground soon enough. I would have been really happy if we could have spent the whole weekend doing all the things I had planned for us, but I was promised another visit. Let's see if she sticks to her word...

Sunkhaze

Sunkhaze Boundaries Team

Who would have thought that a Hannaford parkinglot would be so lively at 6:35 in the morning? I waited there bright and early for my supervisor to pick me up so we could be on our way to Sunkhaze. It was about a 2 hour drive to a long dirt road. We met up with the rest of the crew and some workers from M & N and Spectra before we set off into the woods.

We were doing boundaries. Its basically a day spent in the woods with mosquitos cutting branches, ensuring that there is a clear pathway along the Refuge boundary. This is to avoid misunderstandings among hunters where hunting is and is not allowed.

Lunch was awesome. The fantastic people from Spectra provided us with pizza and probably the largest salads I've ever seen from a local shop. They even donated a generous amount of money to the Friends Of Maine!

Part of the Refuge property line runs along the backyards of many houses. That was an interesting run. Apparently there was a bear roaming the area not too long before we came up. We later found out that was result of all the trash and dirty diapers that we found scattered throughout our paths. At the time though, we thought that all the residents of the street were too lazy to hit up the local dump that happens to be located on the same road...

I have to catch snakes?!

Despite working the entire time that I was on the island, I had so much fun! I got to enjoy sun majority of the time I was out there, and most importantly, I learned first hand what the Maine Coastal Islands NWR Complex staff does on at least one of the 60 some odd islands that they manage.

Throughout the summer there are two interns that stay out on the island and conduct research during the seabird nesting season. Each of them gets one vacation, so I got to fill in for each of them. If it weren't for the large number of terns that abandoned the island early in the season, than I would have experienced everything that the research interns of Metinic Island would normally do. Instead we did everything we could to keep the abandoned colony grounds attractive to the terns that occasionally passed by, heedfully inspecting the area. 

We were outside by 7 every morning to do the morning bird count. We would walk to the 4 locations that we would record the number of birds at with our binoculars and notebook. Because it is so easy to miscount all the little moving specks perched throughout the rocks and intertidal, we would both count each species at the same time, and then say how many we counted. I never wore my glasses, so most of the time I was way off. I did get pretty close to the number that Katie, the intern I was staying with, got though. Its more exciting when it happens trust me. There are so many to count that when you know you didn't miss a whole slew of them you feel this sense that maybe I can be a help out here.

Abandoned tern eggs

After the bird count we would go back in and make ourselves some breakfast for a bit before spending the rest of the day outside. Then it was off to pick up trash, search for guillemot burrows, catch snakes (which are invasive to the island), pull the most obnoxious and persistent thistles (also invasive) I have ever come across, and chase the sheep off of the abandoned tern colony in hopes that the terns would renest there.


Catching snakes is not my forte. I wanted to catch one so bad, but when all of your instinct is telling you to run in the opposite direction of them, there isn't much catching going on. Eventually I warmed up to them and would try to catch them, but they were just too damn fast. At least I made some progress though. I clearly didn't want to catch one badly enough though, because unless you immediately dive at anything you think is a snake, then it will slither away before your brain can even process what happened. The ones we, or Katie rather, did catch went into a bucket that I carried around, trying to calm them all down and keep them from trying to slither out. They would stay in there to give to the refuge staff when they came to pick me up. Usually the trade off would happen when the staff would come by to drop off groceries and water though if it weren't for my lucky opportunity.

At the end of the day, we would take our snake bucket and our notebook full of our collected information back to the house, wash up, and prepare dinner. I was lucky enough to go out there right after our only neighbor, a fisherman that built a little house on the island, gave Katie a bunch of extra crabs he had caught. It was the best tasting crab ever! Of course such good crab can't come without a catch. That being that we didn't have anything to break the shells with, which didn't stop us from eating them though; we used rocks. One to set the shell upon and another to smash it with. True island camping.

There is no running water out there. There isn't even a faucet on the sink! There isn't a bathroom either. There is an outhouse next to the house, but to be honest I'd rather find myself a bush; the outhouse really grossed me out. Our drinking water came in large jugs with me on the same trip from the mainland, which we had to lug up to the cabin. Its exhausting. They're sealed though, so its not as much of a pain as fetching the well water to do dishes is. That was a project, let me tell you.

First, you must fill the bucket reserved just for the well water as full as you can get it, then pull it up with the attached rope. It's more difficult than it appears. Without spilling, you must carry the heavy bucket back to the house through uneven, really tall grass and thistles. Remember, no spilling! Once you've got majority of the water back the house, it must be boiled and poured into two bins; one for washing and one for rinsing. Its not the cleanest way to do the dishes but it does the trick!

Bathing is a similar story. There are solar showers, which I would have taken advatage of if a had been spending more time pon the island. I just took a few quick dunks in the 50 degree ocean water instead. Refreshing! 

Showtime fellow campers!

The day had finally come that I would be staying out on Metinic for 4 days. I woke up bright and early to finish getting everything together before I headed out. I packed majority of the things I was bringing the night before, but I saved the cooler for the morning. I figured it would just be easier to pack all the food at once, rather than pack the food that didn't need refrigerating at night and packing what did in the morning. Unfortunately, I was still running around like a chicken with my head cut off (for lack of better words), trying to get everything together.

Eventually I ended up locking my keys in my trunk. I had finished packing in the last of my things that I was brining to the trunk, but I realized as soon as I closed it that my keys were somewhere in there. The funny thing is, my car can only be locked from the outside, so the only way that locking the keys in it is possible is to only unlock the trunk, and then shut it without unlocking the rest of the car. Of course that's what I did. I seriously thank my lucky stars that the night prior I had decided to crack the windows, because it seemed like a nice night to let the car air out, and I have weather strips so I figured that if it did rain then it wouldn't be a problem. I was able to squeeze my through the crack and unlock the door, but doing that causes the alarm to go off. So until I could find my keys amongst all the stuff jammed into the trunk, the alarm was not going to shut off.

That's about the time that I noticed the people a few sites down from me relaxing in their chaise chairs and pajamas, clearly enjoying the show I had put on for them. That's also when I noticed that I still had not changed for the day, so I was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off in pink polka-dotted shorts and a bra. I can't even imagine what these people were thinking. I would have been doing the same thing if I were them; to be honest though I have no idea why they were even up! It was 7 in the morning and they clearly had nowhere important to be!

Thankfully I figured everything out (without having to call AAA) and made it to the office in time for Beth to drop me off at the docks. As if things hadn't already started on a bad foot that morning though, I misplaced my keys again right before we were about to leave. The problem ended up being that since I have no use for my keychain up here, I took my car key off of it and attached it to the camper key thinking that would be easier than lugging a giant keychain around that I would never use up here. Good idea right? WRONG! Turns out that I need the giant keychain so I can actually notice when I put the damned thing down. I would always try to do things with the key in my hand, and I would end up letting go of it without noticing.

When I finally found the keys, I handed them right off to Beth and made them her responsibility until I got back from the island.

Portland

Finally Friday night had arrived! I was off to my friend's house in Portland as soon as I could rush home, change, and pack a bag. It felt pretty odd leaving when everyone else was arriving for the weekend, but since June 4th I had been there every night. It was time to spend some time elsewhere.

I managed to find my way there and hour and a half later with a list of directions because my phone doesn't work right up here, which at least for right now is my only means of a GPS. I have a really expensive one that I don't even use because it requires updates with a disk, and I only have a simple netbook. Those cheap little things don't even have enough space for a disc drive if you paid extra.

Little did I know until I arrived that it was Pride Weekend. I've never seen more colors or creative individuals crammed into one place at one time. All weekend long the streets were filled with rainbows and happy, free-spirited people. My friend's and I were too busy with farmer's markets, hooping, and mall trips to spend any time taking in what was going on around us though. We simply became part of the background noise as we walked past all the commotion.

By the time I arrived back to my home away from home I still had a chance to explore the liveliness within the campground. I was much too tired however, so I hopped into bed, unaffected by the laughter and crackling of fire that engulfed me from all directions.

The campees have arrived!

Things at work may not be all that exciting, but the campground has certainly livened up quite a bit. There are actually other people camping aside from myself, so it's much more cozy. Everyone's campers and sites are all decked out with flowers, gnomes, and lights. It makes for a much more appeasing atmosphere than a bunch of vacant, dark campers scattered throughout the campground.

The people are also amazingly friendly. They are always there to help. One of the first weekends that the campground filled with people, one my lovely neighbors came by to introduce herself. She quickly realized why I hadn't been as social as everyone else; I was dealing with a full galley tank that was backing up into my kitchen sink, mold, mouse poop, and a water heater that wasn't heating the water. She didn't hesitate to jump right in trying to help me. She even went to get George, our older handyman neighbor, since her husband was working for the day. Because of their help, my water heater turned on properly and I was able to take the shower that I had so patiently waited for. Thanks George and Sue!

Angry Birds On Matinicus Rock

Another day out on the water. I went with two of the staff from the refuge, one Friends board member (my supervisor's husband), and a volunteer first to Metinic Island to fix the tern sound system. It plays a loop of a tern colony in hopes of encouraging them to return to the island. The two research interns staying on the island for the summer came with us to Matinicus Rock for the bird census. We would do exactly what we did during the Metinic census, but I had no idea just how different it would be.

To start, Matinicus Rocks' terrain is completely opposite of Metinics. Metinic is a rather big unpopulated island that is forested in the center and blanketed in tall grass and sharp thistles everywhere else, with high, steep, rocky intertidal separating the island from the water. Matinicus Rock is about a third of Metinic's size and completely overtaken by rocks and birds. The only vegetation comes up much higher than my waist and is wedged low between some of the tall rocky cliffs. That's where the eiders were, and the only way to know that one was there was to nearly step on a nest! Their eggs must be incubated all the time so when there's a nest there's an eider. When one of us would come close enough to one, the eider would defecate all over the eggs for protection (who wants to mess with poopy eggs?) and clumsily stumble by us to fly to safety. No matter how many times it happened, it startled us just as much as it did the first few times it happened.

That was a difficult census. There were so many species of unhappy birds because we were treading all over their nesting territories; they were constantly swooping down towards us, screaming, and pooping. We pretty much all got poop on us one way or another. The worst part about that - no running water. There's no way to even thoroughly clean it off for the rest of the day! Luckily there was hand sanitizer readily available when we got back to the lighthouse. Poop or no poop though, the census went on. Terns, laughing gulls, and herring and black-backed gulls continued to let us know how unwelcome we were.

We also had to deal with the pungent smell of Annibelle the decaying seal. That was a smell that even the toughest of us could barely stomach. You know when you kind of adjust to a certain stench because you've spent some time around it? That didn't happen. No matter how long we had to stand by her or how much we had to walk past her it was just as bad, if not worse than the first time we came across her. It was quite the sight too to see all the maggots taking over her body. =/

Eventually the census did come to an end. My adventures didn't though! As I was walking down to the boat house I got attacked by a tern! They're so vicious! Especially on the walk to the boat house. They hover right next to your head and scream in your ears, and if you ignore them I guess they figure they aren't doing enough, so they attack! This one got me by complete surprise too. It came from behind me and grabbed a chunk of my face! Probably one of the most startling experiences I've had in a while.

Oh wow I almost forgot to mention that Matinicus Rock was the first place I ever got to see puffins or razorbills! It was an amazing sight as we dropped anchor in front of the island. They were all perched along the rocky cliffs and flying around like little torpedos with wings. Their wings are so small that they are much better swimmers than they are flyers. They flap those little wings as hard and fast as they can to stay airborne.

Daddy To The Rescue

For another week or so I would come home from work, make myself a snack and eat it surrounded in flith because it was too rainy and muddy to eat outside, try to clean, get overwhelmed, then just go to bed so I wouldn't have to deal with such a conundrum. I really just needed a nice weekened that I could spend with plenty of daylight and dry ground to move my things outside so that I could clean before I brought any of it back in; working around it all just wasn't effective.

Luckily one Saturday morning I got a call from my dad just as I was about to roll out of bed. He was planning on coming up to see me!!! He knew I was having a tough time which was affecting him, and not knowning where I was or what surrounded me made him quite uneasy. I really couldn't be more thankful that he and his girlfriend came up and helped me situate everything that needed to be worked out. Within five minutes of being there he gave me all the answers I had been in search of for a week! For instance, I knew I didn't clog the kitchen sink my first day there, it turns out the tank just hadn't been emptied. His girlfriend in essence cleaned and reorganized the entire camper while my dad and I spent time talking to the campground owner trying to figure just who was responsible for what if something went wrong.

With all of that put behind me, we were all able to relax and enjoy our time up in such a beautiful part of the country. We explored the campground; my dad being my dad of course had to talk to everyone, so he made some new friends, then we set out for dinner. My dad made us a fire and cooked, and the fire was still burning when we finished. It felt nice to actually relax, have time to spend soaking up my surroundings, and enjoy what I was doing for once.

Metinic

Unlike the camper experience, work was actually a fun and exciting place to be. The second day of work I went out to Metinic Island to help with the bird census there. I got to meet most all the other people associated with the refuge complex and do things I most certainly had not experienced before. Not all of it was enjoyable, nor did I agree with all of it, but it was all part of the job so I took it with a grain of salt. 

In short, we walked around as much of the island as we could physically, and not so physically cover. That involved pushing ourselves through raspberry thickets that put up a good fight.  We tracked each seabird nest we would come by in the process. Essentially it should have been a tern census but the torrential rain I had spoken of earlier among other threats such as garter snakes, sheep, gulls, merlins, and eagles pushed the terns to re-nest elsewhere. Instead we marked both herring and black-backed gull nests and eider nests. Guillemots and storm petrels, as well as some shorebirds also reside and reproduce there, but those were not of concern on this day. The researchers that stay on the island are able to cover what information is needed of those birds on their own.

Since it had still only been the second day, I could not get over how instead of being stuck behind either a cubicle, a sales counter, or a food line, I was spending my time breaking through waves on a boat toward an island, ransacking bogs and the thickest and thorniest of raspberry thickets I have ever come across, and witnessing a world of wilderness that I had never experienced before. Just from the second day of work I could tell you what herring gull, black-backed gull, eider, and tern eggs look like along with the nests they would be found in. I even got to see my first eider chicks! They're so precious!

Before that, I didn't even know what an eider or tern was! I feel so thankful that the staff at this refuge feel the same way as I do in getting me out to see and experience a little bit of everything that goes on. =]

The Strangers

So I have all these fairly long entries in my little computer that I had saved when computer access was an issue. Now that I have computer access I have decided I will save those for the book I'm writing about my experience up here, and just recap everything that happened until now instead. The book is soooooo much better than this but I don't have time to write novel length entries about everything that happens up here (that's what the book is for duh).

The pumps at the nearest gas station . . .

First off, the first night up here was a nightmare. I was convinced that the setting was straight out of the The Strangers movie and that someone was going to torture and kill me before my first day of work. Mind you this was all after a very lovely dinner with my supervisor and her husband at her beautiful house in South Thomaston, so I was as ill prepared as could be for such a situation. The camper I'm staying in was a complete wreck. Granted it was not completely obvious from first glance, but it had definitely been sitting much too long. There were days worth of cleaning to do to remove the mouse poop and mold off every surface of the rig. That's not the worst part though.


All my stuff I had brought up was now in this overwhelmingly dirty camper, so of course I at least had to clean a small space in the thing so that I could unpack some of the camping essentials. You know, things like soap, paper towels, flashlights...

What do you know, I'm left in the pouring rain, surrounded by mud and darkness. The lights went out and it was about 9:30 at night in a completely empty campground. And it's just my luck that I hadn't quite yet gotten to unpacking my flashlights.

Long story short, I got a hold of the campground owner who set me up in one of the cabins. That's when I realized how closely the situation resembled the movie, about the same time that I realized my phone was missing. How could I have not been convinced someone was messing with me?

Eventually after much searching and researching the same areas, I found it and curled up into the foreign bed with all the lights on. I dozed in and out of sleep until it was time to leave the cabin in the same condition I found it in, and dig through my stuff in the camper to find clothes for work and head on my way.