Cali Trip Day #4: In, On, and Around the Ocean!

Well, SOME of us played IN the ocean anyways...

This was my favorite day of the entire trip. We woke up, had another continental breakfast, loaded the buses, and headed to the "beach".



We spent the morning hiking along the shore at Dana Point. At first we thought we wouldn't see much because the tide was on its way in, but boy did we see all kinds of things!



Sea Anemone's,



Crabs,



Keyhole Limpits,



Sea Hares,





and Starfish!





Here is where the IN the ocean comes in to play. Tide came in, and lots of people were out on a bit of a rock. Some found a safe way,



while others went swimming. A few scrapes, bumps, and soaked cell phones but for the most part we made it back in one piece.

We got to play around the harbor while we ate a quick lunch- some cool tall ships sitting there.





After lunch we walked over to the Ocean Institute and got to take turns going out on the ocean and going through different modules on shore. I got to go on the boat first!



Right off the bat we saw sea lions at the edge of the harbor.



The water was a bit choppy at first and the boat was throwing a pretty good spray up every time it crashed down into a wave. Me and one of the other counselors went up on top to the lee side of the tower thinking we would be safe... Not so. We hit a rouge wave or something because all of the sudden we were DRENCHED. Like, someone just poured a 5 gallon bucket of sea water over my head drenched. You should have heard the kids scream at that one!

Just a little spray:



After a bit of a cruise we found some bottle nose dolphins!









Funny story (not really), we managed to break the boat. After following the dolphins for a while, they decided to try and do a sample of some kind for the kids to see. They dropped the thingy (real technical, eh?) over and it promptly got snagged on something, then the boat shifted and in the process the cable went over one of the crew's heads and jerked tight across the back of his neck. I guess it pinned him down and they had to pull the cable up and slide him out. He ended up being okay, but the cable then got tangled in one of the propellers and snapped off. I think we went all the way back to the harbor on just one screw. When we got back the captain dove in and checked it out, I guess it was okay because the next group got to go out!

Trying to dry everyones jackets out back at the institute after getting drenched on the boat.



The modules at the institute were pretty interesting. Students got to look at different types of sea animals, dissect a fish (as soon as I get a copy of Mr. Tayson Neff dissecting his fish, it will be right HERE!!!), measure water, and a few other things. Tayson about lost his lunch, but he tried so hard to be macho for the ladies in his group.



One group was working on testing the salinity of water... We'll leave names out to protect the innocent. Here's the story as I heard it. They had a water sample and were supposed to ad some other stuff to it until it changed colors. They kept adding, and adding, and adding, but nothing would happened. Their instructor had them get another sample of water and try it again. Still nothing. She finally came over and added the other stuff for them, and viola! It worked! The 3 students were sitting there with a disgusted look on their faces, having given up. One of our chaperones tried to get them going again but they were done. When asked why, the student said, "You know why it didn't work, right? BECAUSE WE WERE JUST ADDING MORE WATER.". They hadn't been adding the other chemical!

Much funnier to hear Ms. Pattee tell it.

Anways, after all of the fun and games at the beach we headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up and walk down the street to Mid Evil Times!

This. Was. AWESOME. You have no idea how much fun this can be until you go with a huge group of psychotic middle school students. I screamed myself hoarse cheering for our night!







You can just barely see our poor night in the middle, being mobbed by the students.



The dangerous part- souvenirs here were of the pointy variety.



And of course, almost EVERYONE bought one. It did, however, make for one of THE BEST ALL TIME videos I have ever seen.



Yes, that was all 110 students CHARGING across the road. What the video missed was the "RED! RED! RED! RED!" chanting for a solid 1/2 hour as we exited and made our way out to the road.

The best part? About half of them could hardly speak the next day. :)