View from the Coast #3: Birds and boats

Woohoo! Week three is almost over! Time is zooming, as I knew it would.

But I'm finally getting to the point of having a few hours here and there to do something other than wrangling campers and their paperwork. Last weekend I went to New Harbor with friend and colleague "Puffin Pete" who is, among other things, the narrator on Hardy boat Puffin Watch tours. I tagged along on a trip out to Eastern Egg Rock, where I took a bunch of rotten photos in the rain but still had a great time being out on the bay.

Rainy evening leaving New Harbor

The next day our new camp session started, so things went back to their "usual" busy pace. We've a full house this week: 44 adult and 16 teen participants, plus about two dozen instructional and island staff. The weather pattern keeps improving, but certain themes are repeating: rain Monday and Tuesday, sun Wednesday and Thursday.

Today was a sparkling Wednesday and lo and behold there was space on the Snow Goose, headed out for another tour to Eastern Egg Rock. I got everyone situated here, got campers headed where they needed to be for the morning, and then hopped aboard for the trip.

Harbor seals loafing in the bay.

It turned out to be a great decision. The weather was perfect, the birds cooperative, and the company entertaining. I even scored at least one, but possibly three life birds! The definite lifer was parasitic jaeger, but I couldn't remember if I'd seen great cormorant or white-winged scoter before. I definitely saw them today!

Of course I took a bunch more bad bird photos. These were bad with a blue background, as opposed to the weekend birds, which were bad with a gray background. I suppose we could call that an improvement.

Linocuts come to the camp store.

There IS a little bit of lino-related news from camp. Long-time readers may recall that last summer my work was featured at the Project Puffin Visitor Center in Rockland. A few framed pieces remained there in inventory, and we decided to bring them over to the island and share them in the camp store. Eric and Juanita oversaw the installation.

One more day of this session and then it's prep time for the last session of my tour as Program Manager. Three days after that session ends I'm off to another adventure.... in which I will be looking at the Atlantic ocean from the opposite coastline. Stay tuned!