Castaway Movie Remake ft. Bre and Lindsay

           Yesterday Lindsay and I shadowed one of COA’s oceanography’s classes. Sean Todd, the director of Allied Whale, teaches it and he decided to take his class and us out to Mount Desert Rock for the day. Mount Desert Rock is twenty-five miles off the coast of Mount Desert Island and is literally a bunch of rocks. An old house as well as a lighthouse are the only two buildings that occupy the island. It takes approximately one and a half hours to reach the island and upon reaching it seagulls literally cover the place squawking and protecting their nests. On the other side seals are hauled out sun bathing. Apparently it is extremely common for some of the students to spend an entire summer or winter on the island in order to perform research. It is far enough from Mount Desert Island that whales feel safe to pass through, unfortunately we didn’t see any today. Just because we didn’t see any whales though doesn’t mean they’re not out there. We saw a harbor porpoise, which looks like a dolphin, a few puffins, grey seals, harbor seals and a whole bunch of different sea birds. The conditions for whale watching weren’t exactly as favorable either for the sky was overcast. That being said, it’s harder to detect the whale’s blowholes against grey skies making it nearly impossible to see them.

-Bre

The house/lighthouse, the rest of the island is just rock.

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           As Bre said, we ventured out to Mt. Desert Rock yesterday from around 8:30 to 5:30.  It may as well be called Mt. Deserted Rock, as you can see from the picture, the island has a lighthouse and one dilapidated looking house and shed.  We mainly spent the day preparing the island for the next set of researchers to come in and spend the summer gathering all sorts of information relevant to their projects.    (Ex: we carried the solar panels from inside the house and put them in place to provide energy for the house, and cleaned the inside, took inventory, etc.)  Although the island is small and devoid of humans, it is far from lifeless.  We spoke with one senior at the college who spent a summer there researching mercury levels in the ocean by observing the seagulls and their eating patterns and then gathering blood samples from the seagull chicks.  We also saw a massive colony of seals who occupied the other half of the island but we weren't allowed to go too close because it might've disturbed the mother pup bond if we happened to scare them.  The area is also prime for whale watching.  A tourist whale watching catamaran passed the island as we were leaving, I believe it was the first trip of the season.  Since it is the very beginning of whale watching season, the odds of seeing one were very slim and unfortunately we didn't but we still have plenty more opportunities to go out on the ocean so we're still hopeful!  

-Lindsay