Houston

I have been following the real time activities of a NOAA research vessel off the Massachusetts coast.  See link

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/media/exstream/exstream.html

You get to experience the data, views, and conditions experienced by this research expedition in real time...in your PJS, with a beverage...and with expert color commentary.  No duct taping the bunk sheets to the mattress on a R/V reality needed.  No guessing what the strange albino thing is.  An expert tells you!!!  Watch the different views and data feeds and experience what it must be like to be in the control room in Houston ( a tiny bit perhaps?)

So completely interesting and inspiring and yikes how can there still be so much to learn?  Yes.  Please use my taxes for this.  Excuse me while I go grab a beverage and play desktop scientist.

Be the Difference

This group came to Hampton at 3:30 on a Saturday to participate in our daily beach clean up.  They braved parking and traffic and 10 of them helped clean the beach.  And the beach....well the beach was so CLEAN today except for the ever present cigarette butts.  The kids were calling what little trash they saw and racing to collect it.  8# of trash was collected in total.  Afterwards critters were visited and crafts were made by even the biggest of the kids.  Thank you so much!

Wish Upon a Sea Star

Have you ever seen a shooting star and made a wish? Well, we wished on our sea stars that our touch tank in Hampton would be totally awesome and people would love it. And.....guess what!? Our wish came true. People love our touch tank and we have had the pleasure of educating and meeting over 2,500 people in our first month. We couldn't have had this much success without our amazing animals.

Pictured below are the fabulous Jonah crab and a large Northern sea star. Jonah crabs are a native of New England. They like to hide themselves in the rocks of the tidal zone. When handled they often draw into themselves; almost like the way a tortoise draws into its shell. They have a bumpy and pinkish colored carapace (shell) with black tips on the end of their pincher claws. They are often confused with rock crabs, another native crab of New England. However, rock crabs have a smoother and pointer carapace which is often more red in color. Yet, they are still hard to tell apart but the crab pictured below is an excellent example of a Jonah crab.

As for our sea star, it is the most common sea star found in the area. They have five arms. They may have six arms but this is very rare and then they are called a Polar star. If they lose an arm it will grow back. This is called autonomy. The regrowth may take months or years and at this time the animals is susceptible to disease and predation. The Northern sea stars have small spikes on top to protect their soft bodies. They move very slowly and can travel only one mile in a week. I thought snails were slow! Sea stars enjoy feeding on mussels, clams and other shelled animals. They shoot their stomachs outside of their body, excrete digestive juices and then suck their stomach back in once their food is digested.

We love our animals and you will too. Hope to see you soon.

~ Your marine loving friends at the Blue Ocean Society

Marshmallow Sea Urchins!

This week join Blue Ocean Society at the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company dock to visit with our critters and make a take home craft. This week's craft is the ever popular marshmallow sea urchin! Some of you may remember this craft from last year too.

Here is one of our faithful visitors, Ned, with his sea creature creation!

We also have some new additions to the tank that are worth checking out. Our sea anemones have been scooting around the tank lately, and we never know where they will pop up next!

Hope to see you there!

Cleaning Our Beaches

Today we had the awesome help of Exavier, a young boy that was very unhappy about all the trash on the beach so he decided he wanted to help us with one of our daily clean ups. He collected one huge bag of trash weighing 7 pounds. And you want to know the sad part, this was only in about 20 minutes of walking around Hampton Beach. However, in order to make this a less sad situation, the Discovery Center has been doing a beach clean up everyday. In one month, we have collected over one hundred pounds of trash so that we can help keep our oceans clean. Trash is not only disgusting to look at while you are trying to enjoy a lovely day at the beach, but it is also harmful to marine animals and humans. Trash is dirty and is the perfect place for bacteria to grow, therefore it can contaminate water where humans swim. It can also entangle marine animals such as whales, dolphins and sharks. Oops sharks aren't a marine mammal, they are a fish right everyone? Yes, they are a fish because they use gills to breathe and they do not have calcium bones but cartilage instead. Trash can also be ingested by marine birds causing them to fill on plastics and eventually causing them to starve. Therefore, in order to help reduce the horrible effects of trash we at the Blue Ocean Society do a beach clean up everyday at 3:30 PM at our Hampton Beach Discovery Center. Please join us and do your part to make the ocean a little bit cleaner for everyone.

Lunch Time at the Portsmouth Touch Tank

It was feeding day down at our touch tank for the crabs. Join us at the tank every Tuesday through Friday from 9 AM to 12 PM. We have public feedings at 11:30 AM on Tuesday and Friday.

Check out this green crab prying open a blue lip mussel for his lunch.

Green crabs are an invasive species from Europe. The cold waters here used to keep our native species safe from this invasive, however with warming ocean temperatures the green crab is starting to settle right in. This could cause problems for native species such as scallops, mussels, and clams which are now eaten by the ever increasing population of green crabs.

Come join Blue Ocean Society at one of our touch tank locations to learn more about the green crab and other species found in the Gulf of Maine.

Rainy Day Tide Pool Meditation

It's cold and rainy outside but these 4 kids are having an authentic tide pool experience with some of our periwinkles.  Listen and you will hear a hum.  No they are not meditating...maybe they are.  When you hum to a periwinkle they will usually open up and venture out of their shell.  This innocuous little animal suddenly becomes animated and responsive as it slowly opens up and then peeks out of its shell.    The meditation pays off and these kids will never overlook a periwinkle again.

Our Clam is Such a Ham

Come see the amazing clams that we have in our touch tank at the Discovery Center. The clam you see pictured below is a soft-shelled clam. These are the yummy clams that a lot of people refer to as steamers. However, we prefer to leave our clams for the crabs to eat, which they love to do! In the picture you can see a tube like structure. This structure is called the siphon. Clams usually like to be closed in order to protect themselves, but they need to eat somehow. Therefore, they put the siphon out into the water and suck water into their shell. This water is filled with yummy organisms for them to eat like zooplankton. Their inner organs filter out the food and then they shoot out the waste using the other tube like structure. This is called filter feeding and this is how the majority of invertebrates in the ocean feed. Fascinating huh? Well, I am about to blow your mind even more. Did you know that clams can move? Yes, clams have the ability to dig in the sand to prevent themselves from being washed away with the tides. They can also move along the bottom of the ocean floor. They have a large structure that comes out of their shell and flings them this way and that. I think it looks like a tongue, but it is actually called a foot. We have a surf clam in the tank that flings itself about all day. It is so cool to watch. Today, Ceci, one of the interns, finally got to see it and she was so excited. So if you are interested in flinging, filter feeding clams come on down and visit us at the Blue Ocean Discovery Center.

As always, your marine friends at the Blue Ocean Society.

The Rainbow Fish

This week at the Portsmouth touch tank we will be reading The Rainbow Fish written by Marcus Pfister. The story is about the most beautiful fish in the sea who doesn't want to share his shining scales. In the end the fish learns that it is better to share and have friends than to have the most beautiful scales. 

We will be holding story time at 10 AM at the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company Dock, 315 Market Street, Portsmouth, NH. Following story time you can make your very own rainbow fish to take home. We will also have a public viewing when we feed our critters at 11:30 AM. 

For more information email Abby at abby@blueoceansociety.org or call the office at (603) 431-0260. 

*Note, the Portsmouth touch tank is open Tuesday through Friday 9 AM to 12 PM and is located at the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company Dock. 

Amazing Echinoderms!

We have some new additions to our touch tank in Portsmouth at the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company dock, 315 Market Street, Portsmouth, NH. Two new sea stars have made the tank their temporary home.

Sea stars, formerly known as starfish, are echinoderms which means "spiny skin." Their skin is rough and often feels like sandpaper. Beyond being beautiful animals that come in many colors and shapes, sea stars have amazing abilities. For example, have you ever touched a sea star that felt stiff or rigid? Or have you have felt a sea star that was limp? It's not the case that some sea stars are rigid and some are stiff, but instead sea stars are able to make their bodies rigid or limp! Don't believe me? Follow the link below to watch a short video from Creaturecast.org which explains this amazing ability is a few more details with the help of Harry Houdini.

Creature Cast: Echinoderm Skin

This is how echinoderms are able to drop one of their limbs if they are being threatened or trapped by a predator. As it shows in the video link above, sea stars are then able to regenerate or regrow new limbs! Even more amazing, those limbs that they lost will regenerate or grow new bodies!

Come down to the Portsmouth touch tank at the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company dock or visit us at the Blue Ocean Discovery Center in Hampton, NH to learn more about these amazing creatures!

Blue Ocean Discovery Center Opening in Hampton Beach!

Blue Ocean Discovery Center entrance

We're excited to announce that after more than 3 years of planning, we're opening a touch tank in Hampton Beach!  Our Blue Ocean Discovery Center is located in the North Pavilion in the Sea Shell Complex, 170 Ocean Boulevard, Hampton Beach (the former location of the Made in New Hampshire Gift Shop).

Starting tomorrow (Saturday, June 29) we'll be open from 10 AM-7 PM daily for the rest of the summer! Check out our touch tank, mark your hometown on our world map, and bring your kids for fun crafts and other activities!

Join us every Tuesday and Thursday at 9 AM for story time with a take home craft and participate in our Tideline Nature Walk and Cleanup, which will be held every day at 5 PM (meet at the Center)!

Thank you to all who helped us prepare the space, including Cathy, Ann, Becca, Abby and Nathan (from Visions Kitchens)! We hope to see you soon!

Summer 2013

It's that time again. The long harsh winter is finally over, and the warm days of summer are just around the corner (if they haven't arrived already). Here at Blue Ocean Society we are getting ready for the summer season of whale watches, beach cleanups, and tide pool animals at our touch tank in Portsmouth, NH.  Come learn about and gently touch live marine animals from the Gulf of Maine!

The tank is up and running for the season, and we are having a special opening on June 1, 2013 from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. before the official season starts. The special opening is part of the Portsmouth Opening Weekend, Live Free & Play events June 1 and June 2. 

At the special opening the tank will be open and free to the public. At 1:00 p.m. there will be story time followed by a take home craft. Come down to visit and check out which critters we have in the tank for the 2013 season. We currently have rock crabs, jonah crabs, periwinkles, hermit crabs and more! The tank is located at the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company dock at 315 Market Street, Portsmouth, NH. If you have any questions feel free to email info@blueoceansociety.org or call the office at (603) 431-0260.

If you can't make it this weekend, come back sometime this summer. Things are always changing at the touch tank, and you never know what you'll get to see next!