One with Nature
by Courtney Jansen
The day was Friday, September 15, 2017. The sun was shining, not a sign of stormy conditions to come, and a nice breeze was blowing southeast. As the 19 of us made our ways to the kayaks, I had my eye on the middle blue one (my favorite color). But I couldn’t keep my eyes on the kayak! There were countless fiddler crabs running at my feet! I weaved between them as I danced my way to my target. Once in my kayak, I paddled out into the bay and waited for the rest of the class. I noticed many birds flying overhead: laughing gulls, herring gulls, cormorants, osprey, and yellow-crowned night herons. They were all seen frequently throughout the day as well.
After a plethora of photos taken by Professor Bretsch, our group made its way under a bridge to shallower waters. We had to stay away from the concrete walls lining the bridge’s underpass because there were so many barnacles living on them. Just beyond the bridge, there were fish jumping out of the water. This was most likely in attempt to escape predators like blue crabs. At the first stop we made came more pictures, and that naturally put a smile on our faces. Professor Bretsch made us students feel like we are all on one big family vacation where he’s the dad taking all the photos at every site. It really does bring us closer though, not just while taking the pictures, but having the memories to look back on and taking moments to pause and really let the surroundings sink in. This was a day where we learned about the environment we kayaked in while enjoying the outdoors and bonding with one another, creating a more family-like atmosphere.
At this first stop, I learned schools of alewife fish come up these areas to spawn at certain times of the year. Unlike salmon, alewives make multiple migrations to spawn in their lifetime. This was very interesting to me. I am excited to learn more about their osmoregularity differences for migrations in Professor Bretsch’s Ichthyology class. I love how the information we learn on Fridays tie into many of our other courses at Semester by the Sea.
After that, we went back towards the bay and cut across the middle. We noticed many big black cages submerged with little wind turbines on the tops made of an X of thick wire with little red metal cat shapes on the ends. Apparently, those scare birds away. These cages held oysters from a conservation effort to revive oyster populations and bring more filter-feeders into the area to clean the waterways more. This is awesome and much-needed. Long Island used to have a seemingly endless supply of shelled organisms in its waterways that filtered out all the water in the bays in a relatively short period of time. Clams were overfished and the stocks crashed, and the water quality declined greatly as well. There are a few restoration projects on Long Island for filter-feeders, and these projects are critical for water quality improvement for removing harmful algal blooms and other particles and impurities clouding the water. The incredible day ended on a beach, where I did yoga with some classmates beside the serene sunset over the water. I was beside myself that this was my class. I saw so many species today, and it made me wonder how many different animals or bugs are around me daily that I do not take the time to appreciate like I did today. I wish every day was like this.
Fish Facts and Kayaks
by John Hardie
The day had finally come for our class kayak trip and cookout. Although I had never kayaked before, I couldn’t wait to get out on the water. After going over the basics, we all took off towards our first stop; a fallen tree in a creek. As we stopped for a photo opportunity, we learned the migratory patterns of the Alewife. The Alewife population migrates into streams and creeks, like the one we were in, to lay their eggs. Unlike other fishes, the Alewife migrates back out to sea and starts the process all over again. These fish can make multiple migrations throughout their lives opposed to many fish that spawn and then die. During the migratory season, you can sometimes see the water become alive and sparkling as thousands of Alewives pour through the bay to reach their destination.
After kayaking across the bay and a couple more photo ops, we paddled upstream into Peconic Bay and beached. As the food was being prepared, I learned some interesting facts about one of the fish on the menu, the puffer fish. The population was once so large, with puffer fish being considered almost a nuisance, and reaching sizes much larger than we see today. However, like many other fish species, the puffer fish suffered years of overfishing, leaving the population as it is today. Although puffer fish have seen some success in recent years, their numbers don’t reach what they once were. The interesting seafood medley preceded hot dogs and burgers cooked to perfection and delicious brownies. We all sat around the bonfire as we heard tales of witches in American history and watched some beach goers set off an array of fireworks. The night came to a close by observing ctenophore bioluminescence and stargazing.
Lecture by the Campfire
by Elaine Alberts
The Coastal Cultural Experience class is hard to compare to any other class in college because it takes a completely different approach to education. Not many people can say they have taken a lecture in a kayak, or sitting around a campfire watching fireworks and listening to ghost stories. We were fortunate to have perfect weather for a kayaking trip. We paddled around leisurely, and learned about local ecology and the history of the Hamptons. We covered different kinds of conservation efforts in the area. We talked about bird sanctuaries, and how subsidized farming retains the peaceful reputation of the Hamptons. We glided through the water laughing and occasionally bumping into each other. Luckily the kayaks were extremely stable, and no one went swimming unexpectedly. After a few hours of exploring, we beached our kayaks on a stretch of the Peconic Bay, where there was a beach cookout waiting for us.
We took a little break and went swimming and a few of us did yoga while watching the sunset. We splashed around and attempted to catch comb jellies. Comb jellies are ctenophores, instead of having stinging cells like cnidarians, comb jellies have sticky cells. When held up to the sunlight, comb jellies have a slight iridescence, but when they are in the water they are nearly impossible to see. Personally, they are my favorite species that we have learned about in the Semester by the Sea program. After playing in the water, we dried off and sat down to eat. We tried a huge variety of local seafood including Pufferfish, Squid, and Porgy. As we sat down around the campfire, on our beach towels, for our last mini lecture of the day, two things occurred to me. First, I feel like I have known my classmates for years even though we are only three weeks into the semester. Second, I became aware that I was actually in class. It feels like a family vacation, everyone is constantly laughing and smiling for pictures. I wasn’t even aware of how much I had learned in the past five hours because we were having so much fun.
Our final lecture of the day was about the more chilling history of Long Island. Professor Rider’s talk was briefly interrupted by a firework display down the beach. After stopping to watch the fireworks, everyone listened intently to stories of witch trials, and betrayal. Finally, we learned about the history of the Stony Brook Southampton campus and the friendly ghosts that live there. I didn’t know that the campus was previously an estate, but it definitely explains why there is a mansion in the center of the campus. We learned about the building of the windmill, and the ghostly candle that appears in the window that overlooks the Shinnecock Bay. After listening to ghost stories and eating as many brownies as physically possible, we packed up and trekked back to the vans in the dark. We paused briefly to look up at the Milky Way one last time before heading back to campus. Tired, but still overexcited from our fantastic day we walked the long way back to our dorms. We took a detour through the center of the campus, passing by the old mansion and the windmill in hopes of seeing a phantom candle watching over the Shinnecock Bay.
Double, Double Toil and Trouble
by Emily Kollmer
Fire burn and cauldron bubble. After our amazing kayak adventure, we beached ourselves on the shore where Capt Andy had a grill going with a wide variety of food. Once we had all tucked into our meals, each of us trying something new like pufferfish or porgy, we went swimming and sat around the campfire. As the sun set and the bugs came out, the subject turned to ghost stories. Professor Rider never disappoints when it comes to cool history and she delivered.
First, she told us all about one of our campus ghosts. Way back before the area of land we call Stony Brook Southampton was a university, it was an estate to a rich, old man. A little bit later in life he married and had a little girl, who to all accounts meant the world to him. It seemed that he would do anything for her. Being a good father, he wanted to set aside a space for his little girl to play. Most people would set aside a small space in the living room for their child to play or, if they had the space, have a room in the house that would be dedicated as a playroom. Not this guy; for his little girl he built an entire windmill for her to play in. She absolutely loved it. It was a tradition of hers to light a candle in the top window as a way to let the fishermen and boat captains below out in the bay know that she was watching. Unfortunately, when she was nine years old, she contracted tuberculosis and died. It is rumored that on days when the weather is foul unfavorable for boats, she still lights her candle in the top window. She is often described as a friendly ghost, just here to keep an eye out.
All of our campfire stories were not about ghosts though. Once we had discussed and shared stories of the hauntings at the windmill on campus, the topic shifted to witchcraft. The first witch trial the Europeans held in the new world was here in the Hamptons; almost thirty years before the all-famous Salem witch trials. What happened was a girl had just given birth when she pointed to an empty corner and shouted that a witch was there to torture her. The midwives passed it off at first, but grew more suspicious when the girl died 24 hours later. This was unusual since the girl was young (16 at the time of her death) and healthy. There were whispers and suspicions but eventually the accusation fell on Goodie Garlick; a midwife. She was sent to Connecticut where she stood trial and was found “not guilty.” At the time, ‘not guilty’ didn’t mean the same thing it means today. It was a somewhat happy medium between ‘innocent’ and ‘guilty;’ meaning that they think she did it, but they didn’t really have the evidence to pin in down on her. She returned to the Hamptons where she lived into her 90’s. In fact, she still has descendants here in the Hamptons today.
Another cool witch story that we learned had to do with the trials in Salem, Massachusetts. The year they took place was a wet and windy season for their crops. These soggy conditions are perfect for a variety of funguses, but more importantly, ergot. This fungus grows on rye and is a derivative of LSD. In the Salem witch trials, a lot of the girls that were having visions, convulsions, or other symptoms brought on by ‘bewitchment’ were working closely with the rye the inhabitants of Salem were growing. Not only that, but all of Salem was eating the rye. It is hypothesized that the entire fiasco that we now know as the Salem witch trials were brought on by a bunch of settlers who were tripping out on this tainted rye.
We left our campfire with a lot of spooky tales and cool facts to think about. This was an amazing day with an amazing end and I hope that we, as a class, have many more memories to make and scary stories to tell around those future campfires.
‘Yakin
by Finn Morrissey
Although Kayaking is one of the worlds most popular recreational activity, kayaks were originally used for transportation, fishing and hunting by early north Americans. Approximately fifteen thousand years ago, humans coming from Siberia crossed the land bridge into modern day Alaska. The Inuit tribes of the Alaska formed from these early Americans and these tribes developed the first kayaks. Considering the fact that the position of the Inuit tribes was located in a baron region, the frame for these early kayaks were made out of drift wood. The frame was covered in water proof seal skin and the whole vessel was lashed together using sinew, a thread of sorts made out of the tendons and tissues of the animals the intuits hunted. The kayak was meant to be light easy to move on land or in the water for the game sought out, such as seals and Cariboo are agile quick prey. A double bladed paddle, often made of wood, was used to propel the vessel. The double bladed paddle offered higher levels of efficiency, speed and maneuverability than the single bladed paddle often associated with canoeing. Kayaks today are made out of plastic and other synthetics, but the wooden framed seal skin models can still be found. The kayaks used on the Coastal Cultural Experience trip were self bailing ocean kayaks. Self bailing refers to holes that are put through the plastic hull of the vessel to allow water to flow freely out upon entering the seat. These inherently stable kayaks were relatively light (two persons to move or one really strong person) and easy to master even for those who had previously never operated this type of vessel.
On the trip, the class explored the salt marshes surrounding the protected salt ponds that feed into Peconic bay. As a class we explored a river mouth that emptied into the salt pond. The river was a breeding ground for alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) an semelparous andadromous fish. Andadromous fish spend their adult life at sea and migrate up-stream to spawn. Semelparous means that each individual has the potential to spawn repeatedly through out its life cycle. Following the conclusion of the alewife talk we paddled across the salt pond observing the oyster farms below us. On the other side of the pond we discussed the difference between conservation and preservation, and the necessity of both. The nature reserve we were next to had been preserved, left untouched, and the oyster farm we paddled over was helping with oyster conservation, the use but not over use of a resource. Then, for the finale we did a hard core back, shoulder and ab work out by paddling against the flood tide into Peconic Bay. The ability for the class to experience kayaking, an ancient north American use of the waterways, while learning about the culture and processes of the natural world that is our local area, was an impressive experience. Being in one on one contact with the water and the concepts we are learning about puts a new perspective on the happenings of semester by the sea.
