Best Day So Far
Today, by far, was the best day of the week. It was our third day at the National Marine Life Center, so we have learned almost everything about cleaning and animal care. We worked under Wendy, a volunteer, today, and she was amazing. Wendy gave us more freedom than anyone had given us all week and taught us a lot about feeding the seals. Today was also great because the center received its first harbor seal pup! He is only a few weeks old and is named Dill. Why Dill you may ask? This year the theme for names is spices and herbs. Little Dill was found abandoned by his mother, but we are waiting for x-rays and tests to see if he has any injuries.
After Dill’s admin Marissa and I went back to doing the morning chores. First we needed to box herring for the seals meals. The herring come in laptop size ice bricks, and to box them you have to break the fish apart and then inspect and box them. There are a lot of rules about the condition of the fish for the seals. When you inspect the herring you are looking for missing scales, a broken off head or tail, and gatches in their bodies. If the fish have any of these injuries they get put in the bait box. The bait box is given to local fishermen. Not only is boxing fish a tedious job, it is extremely cold. After about five minutes of holding the ice block of fish your hands become extremely cold. It may sound like a gross job, but it may be one of my favorites. Marissa and I have a lot of fun while doing it and it's one of our chores that isn’t cleaning.
After boxing the herring we cleaned the kitchen. this includes floors, counters, fridges, sinks, and doing the dishes. This takes about an hour because people add new dishes every 10 minutes or so. After the kitchen we got Wasabi’s lunch ready, so we grabbed his 2 kg of herring and filled it with water to thaw. At 12 p.m. I threw his fish to him. This was the first time they let Marissa and I feed Wasabi!After lunch Marissa and I learned how to make fish gruel, a delicacy at the hospital. Fish gruel is basically ground up fish, electrolytes, vitamins, and salt. This is used for seals who are not eating on their own. Cilantro gets tuped every day about 3 times, so basically he gets a tube put down his throat into his stomach and has the fish gruel pumped down into stomach. Dill was also tubed with baby seal formula.
So far I have learned a ton about seal care, but also about what it is like to work in a rehab center. Here are the main things:
You WILL go home every day smelling like fish
Your cloths WILL ALWAYS be wet and covered in fish or poop
Your hand WILL ALWAYS be pruned from washing dishes all day
You WILL get used to the smell of fish and poop
Friday night Marissa and I watched half of The Whale, a movie about the true story that inspired Moby Dick. The first half introduced us to Tom a young man, much like Ishmael, who wanted to become a whaler and joined a ship without any experience. Captain Pollard is a new captain who is trying to live up to the memory of his grandfather, a greatly remembered and known captain. After a almost deadly storm and a food shortage spirits are low until a whale is spotted. One of the whales was killed while the other made it away. A while later the boat is hit by a whale with tremendous force causing the boat to sink. The crew makes it to the whaling boats where they decide to make the 2,000 mile ride to Peru rather than risk the cannibals on a closer island. During this time Captain Pollard was turned became second in command to first mate Owen Chase. The last scene we watched was them on an island waiting to be rescued while tensions is high.
