Are you ready for OBX? (Recommend You Try These Things)

Living a new place can be both overwhelming and exciting! Here’s how you can make the best out of your time while in the Outer Banks.

Rooms

The first thing you should do is decorate your space. It’ll make you feel at home and can also be your sanctuary for when you need some alone time. If you’re missing something or want something new for your space, then you should thrift! There’s sooo many items that you can thrift and can find some awesome antique on the island too!

Activities

Don’t feel too pressured, but here’s a quote to abide by. “The warmer the island, the more tourists and more places are open.” As soon as the tourist season is over, there’ll be less places open. Therefore, you’ll want to get going quick to visit the fun-summer places, but no worries.. there are things to do during the winter months too..

Late Summer Activities

Ocean.. ocean.. OCEAN
Jet Skiing

Fall – Winter Activities

T<3M – Interning with the Town of Manteo

My internship for the the fall 2018 OBXFS semester has been with the wonderful Town of Manteo. Centrally located in downtown Manteo, a pleasant 5-minute bike ride from our Manteo home, interning with the Town of Manteo has been one of my favorite parts of this semester.

The Town of Manteo is where all of the magic happens – it’s where public works, planning, police, water and sewer, and special events collide. The people in Town Hall keep Manteo beautiful and running smoothly, while involving community members and listening to and supporting their ideas.

I’ve been working for Melissa Dickerson; a whip smart, tree hugging individual who is dedicated to her job in her (almost) hometown of Manteo. Every Monday and every other Wednesday this semester, Melissa and I have been primarily working on the Community Rating System (CRS). I spent many of my first few days reading up and gaining a better understanding of the complex FEMA program – essentially, communities can participate in CRS through accomplishing certain tasks that prevent the negative impacts of flooding on properties, and, in doing so, they accrue points that add up to a class rating which results in discounted flood insurance premiums for property owners. The more activities the town completes, the better the discount for flood insurance policy owners. I’ve helped to examine and understand flood zone maps; write, address, and mail out letters; and keep track of our documentation for our projects. I also participated in some damage assessments following hurricane Michael (pictured).

While that has been my primary focus, I have also enjoyed seeing how Melissa works and how the town as a whole functions. I’ve had the opportunity to get to know all of the department heads and understand more about what each of them do – from managing water and sewer to keeping all of the town’s files perfectly organized and accessible, to planning the Christmas celebration. I had no idea what I was getting myself into with this local government internship, and I still don’t know if it’s where I’ll end up, but I’ve learned so much in my time with the Town of Manteo and have walked away with an overwhelmingly positive outlook on how local government works and an increased appreciation for all that they do. This is a result of being a part of a relaxed, community-minded workplace environment. I’m so thankful for the opportunity to live the beautiful outer banks of North Carolina, and I’m so thankful for having the chance to get to know TOM (pictured), and the many friendly faces that make up Manteo Town Hall.

Horsin’ around

This week was our first full week back since evacuating for Hurricane Florence, and it sure feels good to be back. In short, our week started off with internships on Monday, class and Capstone session on Tuesday, a guest lecturer on Wednesday, and finally an overnight field trip on Thursday and Friday!

On Wednesday Dr. Alex Manda came to the Coastal Studies Institute (CSI) to speak to us about his research on groundwater and marine inundation. First, he walked us through an exercise which helped us all understand the groundwater table, and how exactly water runs through the ground right under our feet. The picture below shows the model we used to visualize how water moves through wells, layers of sediment, and aquifers.

After finishing our activity, we heard more about Dr. Manda’s research, and what exactly they discovered in their groundwater inundation research. Groundwater inundation in short is how much land may be out of commission due to sea-level and the water table rising. Dr. Manda and his team wanted to know if there would be more inundation, land out of commission, from groundwater or marine waters, specifically the Atlantic Ocean. His main conclusion was that the groundwater inundation may be more significant than the marine inundation due to the area covered by groundwater inundation being greater than that covered by marine inundation. If you would like to read more on his study it is titled, “Relative role and extent of marine and groundwater inundation on a dune‐dominated barrier island under sea‐level rise scenarios”.

The next morning we all woke up bright and early to leave for our overnight trip to Corolla! The day started off with with a hike at the Currituck Banks Coastal Estuarine Reserve with Kate Jones. We walked through the 300 acres of Maritime forest and it was breathtakingly beautiful. Maritime forests are forests impacted by the ocean, and so we could hear waves crashing in the distance all throughout our hike. Here’s a picture of a baby snapping turtle we saw during our hike!

After the hike we drove straight to the Currituck Lighthouse, where we climbed over 200 stairs to make it to the top. The views were beautiful and we all had fun at the top overlooking both the Ocean and the Sound.

Next, we had a tour at the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education. Our guide Sharon Meade informed all of us of the rich history of Corolla and of course the wildlife as well. The education center was extremely informative and we all learned about how much hunting has influenced Corolla. Duck hunting was a delicacy for Northerners, so much so that multiple hunting clubs arose and brought people and money to Currituck County. Later in this post I discuss the lovely home we got to stay in, which used to be a very popular Duck hunting club, and still is today.

Just a quick walk down the road and we were at our next stop, the Coastal Exploration Dock, where we met Hadley Twiddy. Hadley attended UNC Chapel Hill and was one of the first students to ever participate in the Outer Banks field site. She now lives in Corolla and was able to talk with us more about Corolla’s history, the Sound and Marsh ecology, and what it is like to be a permanent resident in a town made up of mostly tourists. Hadley also had an adorable dog named Junebug who we all enjoyed playing with.

After our conversation with Hadley we drove to the Pine Island Sanctuary, where we met our host Robbie Fearn. Robbie works for Audubon, a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to conservation. Audubon now manages 2,600 acres of the Sanctuary with the goal of providing wildlife and birds with a safe, undeveloped, place to live. We helped Robbie clear some invasive species, olive trees, and then were treated to a lovely Italian dinner made by our professors Linda and Andy. After dinner the group settled in for a night full laughs and card games.

The next morning, we woke up early enough to see a beautiful sunrise, and then were off to see the wild horses. The tour with Brad was extremely fun, he horsed around a lot, but made us all laugh throughout the tour. The wild Spanish Mustangs all originated from Spain, and made it to the Outer Banks after swimming ashore from shipwrecks. The horses are free to roam around citizen’s yards as often as they want. There was one donkey named “Earl” however, Earl is unique due to the fact that officials are strict about letting other animals interact with the horses. This is to ensure the bloodline remains the same.

The first picture is Earl!

After the horse tour we were off to our final destination, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Field Research Facility. Heidi Wadman gave us a tour of the Facility after presenting her research to us. Heidi studies storms, from hurricanes to nor’easters to excessive rainfall she covered it all. She specifically focuses on how storms are or are not changing over the years, and what that means for coastal environments.

After our 1/3 mile walk out to the end of the pier and back it was time to return to CSI! This overnight trip was definitely one of my favorite experiences so far and I hope you enjoyed my post!

Elizabeth Kendrick

The Dog Days are Coming

I’m writing this post as we are currently being evacuated from the Outer Banks due to the incoming Hurricane Florence. While we had a great start to classes last week, we are now awaiting the return to our new home until the storm passes. To overview last week, which seemed to fly by, we had a Labor Day cookout at our house, the first day for our 3 courses (Coastal Economics, Coastal Management, and Ecology), the first day of internships, and our first lab out on the boat. I’ll go into more detail about each of those a little later.

Labor Day weekend was a fun time for all of us. A few of us made the trek down to see the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, the tallest brick lighthouse in North America. It has about 260 stairs and was quite exhausting to climb, but the view was definitely worth it. The climb definitely required a break to catch our breath every few dozen stairs.

View from the bottom

After a long, tiring climb to the top. The view was beautiful (from left to right: Conor Howachyn, Emma Szczesiul, Lynn Tran, Marium Konsouh, Danesha Byron, Alex Kellogg)

Sunday night was a relatively relaxing night as we watched movies and played a lot of Rock Band. On Labor Day, a few of us had the chance to go to the local water park H2OBX, on the mainland, as our house manager had some extra tickets. No pictures from that unfortunately, but we had a great time despite it being extremely crowded because it was the last day of the season. We rounded the weekend off with a Labor Day feast. We used the charcoal grill in our backyard for the first, and despite some early difficulties (including the flames going out a few times and some meat falling through the grate, because we are environmental majors, not grill masters), the end result was delicious. The food included turkey burgers, veggie burgers, grilled bell peppers, mac and cheese, and grilled peaches for dessert. We also had a delicious salad made by Alex. Most of the food is pictured below.

We were chilling hard indeed, Snapchat. You can tell I’m enjoying that burger.

On Tuesday we finally began classes after what seemed like 2 very long weeks of orientation (we still haven’t fully grasped that we are living in this beautiful place!). We started off with a Coastal Resource Economics taught by Dr. Andy Keeler. While many of us had already taken a basic Economics course, the first day, along with Thursday’s class, were mainly dedicated to review of basic economics concepts and ideas. Following that class, we had our Sustainable Coastal Management class, taught by Dr. Linda D’Anna. This class is more focused on human dimensions of coastal usage and takes a socio-cultural approach to coastal management. We will also be learning about collection of qualitative data, which will be a huge part of our Capstone project.

After a lunch break, we had a Capstone, where our professors offered critiques and suggestions on the proposals we had submitted the week prior, and gave us some good practical feedback that will help us narrow down what we will be researching.

Wednesday was our first day of internships! All of us were placed in different internships, and it was interesting to hear about everyone’s experiences after our first day. The internships vary from positions at the District Attorney’s office, the Town of Nags Head, an environmental consulting firm, the Outer Banks Center for Dolphin Research, and many more. My internship is at the latter. The Outer Banks Center for Dolphin Research is a non-profit dedicated to logging the various dolphins seen in the Sound through photo identification and tracking their movements up and down the East Coast. It promotes conservation as well as education of the bottlenose dolphins. They are actually able to identify the dolphins based on distinctive markings on their dorsal fins, and enter them into the national database FinBase. Some of the “famous” dolphins include Onion, who has been spotted as early as 1990, and Flounder.

My first day consisted of going on two dolphin tours, which included mostly tourists itching to see some dolphins. Both sightings did not disappoint, as we saw around 12-15 dolphins on each survey. I was also tasked with recording the data, including how many dolphins we saw, their activities, any recognizable dolphins we saw, as well as things like salinity and water temperature. The data sheet is pictured below, along with a few of the dolphins we saw.

Don’t ask me which dolphins are pictured. I am not an expert on the identification part (yet).

Thursday was another day of classes for us, as we had our second day of the Economics and Management classes in the morning, as well as the first day of Coastal and Estuarine Ecology class with Dr. Lindsay Dubbs. This class is one day per week, but Fridays will consist of a lab or field trip (overnight in some cases).

Our first lab of the semester was the following day, as we arrived at the Coastal Studies Institute at 9 AM and boarded a boat to go out on the Sound. We collected water samples, and recorded data from 3 different sites around the Croatan Sound. We spent almost all day on the boat, and it was definitely a fun yet informative experience. We took measurements on water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll A, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) at multiple depths at each site. We also used something called a Secchi disk to measure the clarity of the water. After visiting the 3 sites, we stopped at a small beach to learn how to take soil cores (which was very difficult) and have some free time to roam around before returning to CSI.

Marium and Emma (respectively) collecting some data

All in all, it was a great first week of classes, and we ended it on a good note by going to First Friday in downtown Manteo, with live music, great food, and beautiful views of the Sound.

We all decided to dress up for the occasion. Only 8 of us are pictured here, as the rest of the group had gone to the beach and met up with us later on in the night. Front row (left to right): Jenn Allen, Elizabeth Kendrick, Kat Bell, Emma Karlok, Emma Szczesiul, Marium Konsouh). Back row: Harris Kopp, Conor Howachyn

Swamps, ropes courses, and planes, oh my!

Our second week of orienting ourselves to our surroundings here in the Outer Banks proved to be as fun and informative as the first. A brief overview includes hiking in the swamp, completing the equivalent of most of a 300 level GIS class in one day, and taking turns flying in a tiny plane, but I’ll zoom in closer on some of the highlights.

Monday was our first official Community Advisory Board (CAB) meeting – we all gathered in a meeting room at the Nags Head Woods Preserve and got to know each other over enormous sandwiches, chips, and cookies. We enjoyed rotating through stations of CAB members to bounce our project ideas off of them and hear where their concerns lay in wastewater management. Following our lunch, a few CAB members and our motley crew of 13 went for a short guided walk through the woods. With no shortage of “get out me swamp!” references, we saw turtles, snakes, grasshoppers, and lots of spiders.

Students and CAB members admire snakes, birds, and turtles in Nags Head Woods Preserve.

“Get out me swamp!” – probably someone while I took this picture when we first arrived

On Tuesday, we remembered very fondly the previous day’s exploration in the woods as the day was filled with what Andy’s daughter (and current UNC grad student and GIS expert), Cory, aptly names “GIS headaches.” We were inside all day, looking at computers for most of it, and very confused for a large majority. I think everytime she asked if we were ‘all good’ my response was a confused ‘no,’ and anytime she asked if anyone needed help she looked straight at me as my hand went up and computer screen filled with things that no one else was looking at. We can all agree, however, that finishing the day with somewhat decent-looking, hopefully accurate maps of water temperature, pH, and E. coli in Dare county was an extremely satisfying experience. The workshop is epitomized in the below picture of Kat:

Kat visually demonstrating how we all were feeling, photo credits to Emma Szczesiul

After such a frustrating day, Wednesday easily ranks as one of the best of the semester so far for me. From 10AM-3PM we were outside together completing group bonding activities like champs and then climbing like monkeys on the high ropes course. The course was challenging and incredibly fun – with three vertical levels each consisting of 3 different courses, it’s safe to say most of us finished the day bruised, sore, with huge smiles on our faces. The physically exhausting day was topped off with a wonderfully relaxing evening on the beach.

I don’t think any of us really realized just how soon all of the group dynamics information would become so scarily relevant – but Thursday sure showed us exactly that. After staying up Wednesday night to finish our individual proposals, we spent Thursday afternoon reading and critiquing each others and then trying to agree on two ideas to expand upon for our group proposals. There was lots of back and forth, but not as much arguing and stalemate as one might expect from a 13 person group project, luckily we had our handy group dynamics toolbox from the previous days’ workshop to thank for that. After hashing it out a bit at CSI, we met up again at the house to complete and turn in both proposals by 10PM the day before they were due with minimal interpersonal damage sustained, which I count as a group win in my book.

I’ll end this post with a photo series to describe our beautiful Friday morning plane rides over the outer banks.

From left, Danesha, Marium, Autumn, and Jenn begin boarding the five passenger plane. Jenn and I rock-paper-scissored for the cockpit position.

Autumn and Marium were all smiles with their headsets on just before taking off…

A view of Jockey’s Ridge from above – making it look a lot more flat than it felt climbing up the dunes.

A selfie to commemorate Danesha’s FIRST EVER plane ride!

I find myself constantly needing to remind myself (and anyone who’ll listen) that “We LIVE here!!!!” – looking at this picture is one of those moments

A group picture with our pilot

We talked to this beautiful pup’s owner and pilot in training the entire time the last group was in the air – I think we all came away from the conversation seriously considering getting a pilot’s license.

From left: Danesha, Lynn, Alex, Harris, and Marium leaving the beach. That’s a wrap on orientation, folks.

Lichen that Lichen

This past week, we took a trip to Ocracoke for an overnight retreat. One of the things that we did while on our retreat was tour Portsmouth Island, an abandoned settlement across Ocracoke Inlet. The town was primarily a fishing village and had a peak population of approximately 680 but a combination of economic and environmental hardships steadily forced people off the island. The last residents left the island in 1971 and since then the island has been a historic site with some standing building for tourists, OBXers, and ex-Portsmouth residents to visit.

The island is home to a very prominent maritime forest as well and within the forest, there are lichens carpeting the ground. To be honest, I barely knew what lichens were when we got to the island but I was intrigued by them when I saw them. Therefore, I decided to look into their ecology so that I could better understand their value to ecosystems.

At first glance, I think most can recognize that lichens are a sort of fungus and that is partly true. Lichens are actually a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae or in some cases, cyanobacteria, and are an important part of the biological soil crust (Ahmadjian, 2017). In the relationship, the algae or cyanobacteria photosynthesizes while the fungi works in the acquisition of water and nutrients (Luecking, 2016). They are found across all terrestrial habitats and can also be found in aquatic and marine habitats. Lichens are known for being able to thrive in the harshest of regions, such as boreal forests, on any kind of inanimate object and play a large role in the wellbeing of these ecosystems (Ahmadjian, 2017). Much of the research that has been done on lichens has been on the European and North American continents and so there is still a lot unknown about the ecology of lichens (Will-Wolf, 2006). Although, studies do theorize that there are a similar number of species in all kinds of regions (Luecking, 2016) It is known that they offer significant habitat and food for invertebrates and small vertebrates in harsh ecosystems too (Zedda and Rambold, 2015).

Furthermore, lichens have ecological value as bioindicators and biomonitors of pollution and air quality (Jovan, 2008). Studies show that lichens are very sensitive to air pollution and so many people have begun using them as a way to monitor for specific pollutants and overall air quality. The presence of lichens on Portsmouth could point to this trait of lichens since the island is largely cut off from human disturbances. Lichens have also been found to be a cheaper way to monitor air quality than most conventional methods (Luecking, 2016). Lastly, since lichens are so sensitive to environmental change and anthropogenic impacts, they have been cited as a good indicator of climate change (Aptroot, 2009).

At face value, lichens seemed to be just an aesthetically pleasing part of the ecosystem on Portsmouth Island. But after some research, it is clear to me that they play a much larger role within the island’s maritime forest and the global ecosystems.

Works Cited:

Ahmadjian, Vernon. (2017). Lichens. In AccessScience. McGraw-Hill Education. https://doi-org.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/10.1036/1097-8542.380500

Aptroot, A. (2009). Lichens as an indicator of climate and global change. In Climate change: Observed impacts on Planet Earth. Edited by T. M. Letcher, 401–408. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier B.V

Jovan, S. (2008). Lichen bioindication of biodiversity, air quality, and climate: baseline results from monitoring in Washington, Oregon, and California. Portland, OR: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station.

Luecking R., Will-Wolf S. (2016). Lichen Ecology. Oxford Bibliographies on Ecology. Oxford University Press.

Will-Wolf, S., L. H. Geiser, P. Neitlich, and A. Reis. (2006). Comparison of lichen community composition with environmental variables at regional and subregional geographic scales. In Journal of Vegetation Science.

Zedda L., Rambold G. (2015) The Diversity of Lichenised Fungi: Ecosystem Functions and Ecosystem Services. In: Upreti D., Divakar P., Shukla V., Bajpai R. (eds) Recent Advances in Lichenology. Springer, New Delhi

Dropping Temperatures, Rising Workload

Hello from the Outer Banks!

As the temperature is dropping, our workload is rising here in Manteo. With internship presentations coming up, a Community Advisory Board to impress, capstone research to complete, and birthdays to celebrate – there has been no time to waste! Even though we’ve been super busy, we were all still looking forward to our Ocracoke retreat…but it got canceled! (hopefully rescheduled) The weather is to blame here – and that completes the hat trick of altered retreats due to weather! Regardless of that bittersweet reality, there’s still much to report.

Marcia Cline’s “Sunset” size: 2 ft x 4 ft

Monday was an exciting day at my internship at the Dare County Arts Council. We got three new teachers signed up to teach Power of Art classes in 2018, I opened up some awesome new fused glass supplies, and I helped finish hanging a new exhibit in the gallery! The artist’s name is Marcia Cline, and she paints beautiful scenes from around the Outer Banks.

(from left) India, Amelia, Tara, Danielle, Bianca, Mark, and Saxophone-Brett pose behind the movie station

Monday was also Emily Pierce’s birthday. We welcomed her into the early-twenties club with Brett’s surprise saxophone solo (it was also national saxophone day) to the tune of happy birthday, a sizable cookie-brownie cake, and a resourceful movie-watching area for her favorite movie ever: Mamma Mia! (we all still have ABBA stuck in our heads).

Steve Trowell discussed the CAMA/Dredge and Fill General Permit 7H.2700 in his presentation on living shoreline permitting

Tuesday brought the unfortunate news of the Ocracoke Retreat’s cancellation, but Steve Trowell from the NC Division of Coastal Management helped us through it with a fresh take on Living Shorelines. He elaborated on the intricacies of, advances in, and future goals for streamlining the permitting process for living shorelines in North Carolina.

Wednesday became a field collection day (instead of an Ocracoke day) and everyone dispersed to various capstone gas sample collection sites. It was a cold and rainy day, but most groups found sampling success…most. Paris, Tara and Mark drove all the way to Hatteras only to find that the sample sites were flooded, so they came home empty handed 🙁 On the other hand, we devised an efficient system to process core samples, and it’s been going well!

Tara stares down the pins, Brett gets too excited about his turn, Kurt stays bitter about his score, and everyone else keeps having fun!

On Thursday we started working on a group code-book to use in analyzing our interviews for the human-dimension aspect of our capstone work. The code-book wasn’t finished that same day, but since everyone had worked really hard, we went out for a well-deserved night of group bowling!

Featuring Tara and Brett: a dramatized re-enactment of what it mentally felt like while finalizing a group code-book

On Friday, a few of us wrestled to the finish line and completed the code-book in a stressful but productive two hours.

It’s always an exciting time here with the OBXFS2017 crew – tune back in next week and see what we’re up to then…thanks for reading!

A Wild Semester at the Center for Wildlife Education!

Hey, everyone! It’s Cassandra, here to tell you all about

An injured sanderling that was brought in to the Center

the best internship anyone’s every had here at the OBXFS, also known as an internship at the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education. By best, I mean that everyone I’ve worked with has been amazing, I’ve learned so much, and I’ve really never felt like what I’m doing is work. As well, just to point out how much I’ve enjoyed it, it’s generally an hour and fifteen minute drive from Manteo to the Center, and I can’t even complain about that!

Let me take a moment to talk about my internship mentor, Karen Clark. My first day interning, she invited me to sit in on a NEST sea turtle nest dig the next evening. Just like that. She always has great stories and great ideas, and is the most understanding, knowledgeable, and competent person I’ve ever met. She’s the Coordinator for the entire Center program, and also works with NEST and MMSN, the Marine Mammal Stranding Network, on top of who knows what else. Long story short, I’ve been incredibly lucky to have worked with her and to have been able to learn from her amazing experiences.

One of the storage shed’s resident tree frogs

Woody the woodchuck takes a beating during archery class

I’ve done a ton during my time here. At the start of my internship, we were still in summer programs, so I helped teach beginning archery for children and adults, an educational story time and crafts for young children and an interactive cart teaching people about seashells and other beach finds. I was also lucky enough to be able to participate in a lot of NEST activities, like checking turtle nests with volunteers and sitting in on nest digs. As the tourism season started winding down, some of our classes were rotated out, and I began helping run a kayaking trip, an educational maritime forest walk, and a “Sampling the Sound” class, where kids and their parents can use nets to catch fish, water insects, and other organisms living in the water here and learn more about them. I’ve also been able to help set up and collect wildlife cameras in the nearby maritime forest preserve, and then go through the photos to identify what sorts of critters have been living their lives in the area! Among the best photos I’ve seen are pictures of feral horses, coyotes, raccoons, and several resident white-tailed deer.

An injured box turtle I rushed to the vet

On top of helping out with classes and activities, I also was put in charge of designing a new educational board as my own personal project. I chose to focus on the habitat value of both ocean and sound shorelines, with an interactive and multi-media approach, using flip-up cards, fabrics, and 3-D animal cutouts to create the final product. Hopefully people will see it as a fun and interesting approach to learning more about the animals that call the marshes, dunes, and waters of the Outer Banks home!

A beautiful cottonmouth spotted on one of our kayaking trips!

Although I’ve really enjoyed and learned from all of the educational activities I’ve helped run and participate in, my favorite part of my internship here has been the wildlife. Anyone in my field site group will tell you I adore snakes, and there have been so many here! From cottonmouths on the lawn to black rats sunning themselves on the steps, I’ve been able to get a ton of great photos and just appreciate having them here. There are also resident tree frogs in the shed, and a gray fox that I’ve been lucky enough to glimpse on occasion. The grounds here are home to a great many raccoons, and you can see their tracks running across the mud by the boat ramp every morning. Being able to see and be a part of nature here while helping teach other people, especially children, more about the world we live in has been an eye-opening experience, and has definitely made me consider environmental education as a career path more strongly than I might have before.

Boat Days are Better than Field Trips

Week of 9/11-9/15/17

Hey, y’all! This is Cassandra, writing to tell you all about how miserable (read: exciting), exhausting (as in exhilarating), and completely dreadful (meaning absolutely and positively amazing) the second real week of classes here at the OBX Field Site has been! I’m going to start off by giving props to Corey Adams, our internship coordinator, for setting me up with the most amazing program I could have asked for; I’m at the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education, which means on Monday I got to set up wildlife cameras, learn about sea turtle strandings, and help create a trail for the Center’s new herping expedition! If that isn’t cool enough, some of my other duties include story time and teaching kids archery.

My internship mentor invited me to come to a sea turtle nest dig on my second day!

Tuesdays and Thursdays are when we take “actual” classes, all of which have so far been both interesting and relevant in terms of this area and environmental topics in general. Since we are only in the second week, much of the material has been introductory, but I’m definitely already learning a lot, and having such a small class size means that we are all able to get clarification when we need to, which is great compared to many of the huge lectures I’ve taken in the past. However, this Wednesday we had our first intensive Capstone day, and by intensive, I mean INTENSIVE. It’s really incredible to me how much a group of people can get done in a single day when we all work together. Right now, we’re working in two different directions: learning how to conduct qualitative interviews and write an interview guide on one side, and planning our ecological sampling methods and testing them out to see what will work best for our sampling sites on the other. We started off with an interview workshop, then took a mini field trip to the living shoreline at Festival Island Park, where we tried out different potential sampling methods and ate our lunches on the boardwalk. Finally, we returned to CSI for a second interview workshop, and left for the evening with a far better understanding of how our interviews are going to work and what we need to do now.

As you can see, we all rocked our waders and enjoyed the break between interview workshops to go to Roanoke Island’s Festival Island Park for sampling practice.

In the spirit of ending the week on an especially high note, this Friday we took a boat trip around the Roanoke Sound in order to practice different water measurement and sampling methods, as well as to get a firsthand look at an oyster aquaculture facility in the area. We definitely learned a lot about different measurement methods and tools, how much water quality can vary, and how to handle some extremely expensive equipment, but I think it’s safe to say that our educational drive momentarily disappeared when we encountered a pod of dolphins, not once, but twice! There was also time built in to explore an island near CSI and take a dip in the Sound. The day was a blast, and our professors and faculty know exactly how to plan a trip that’s a lot of fun while still giving us research skills and educating us along the way!

I have high hopes for the rest of the semester, but this week was a winner. I’m so grateful to have been accepted into this program and can’t wait to see what we do next!

Some of the equipment we used to test water parameters including salinity, turbidity, and oxygen content.

Manteo to CSI (and Jennette’s)

Orientation

For the first two weeks of our semester, we were on an orientation schedule in which classes did not meet regularly and we were guided through trips and presentations that acquainted us with our surroundings and our course of study and also encouraged us to take time to explore the area ourselves. Here are several of the elements of orientation that were most meaningful to me.

First Day Activities

Solar Eclipse

Our very first day at the Coastal Studies Institute coincided with the solar eclipse. We all got eclipse glasses and were able to watch from the front patio of the building. We observed as the sky changed shade to a deeper blue, the vegetation cast crescent-shaped shadows, and our own shadows on the concrete started to look a bit fuzzy. Supposedly we viewed over ninety percent of the sun being covered by the moon, though that meant we still had to keep our glasses on the whole time and it never really got close to darkness.

Jennette’s Pier

Shortly after the peak of the eclipse we drove out to Jennette’s Pier where we participated in a class called “Catch it, Clean it, Cook it”. We learned how to fish from the pier and fish that we caught that were big enough to eat were saved for preparation and consumption on site. I caught two fish that were not suitable for eating and threw them back in the water. India was lucky enough to catch two sizable atlantic spadefish. Since then, some groups of students have taken trips back to the beach next to Jennette’s Pier to catch ghost crabs after dark and to watch a world-class professional surfing competition.

Roanoke Island Exploration

Scavenger Hunt

One of our tasks during orientation was to do a photo scavenger hunt that prompted us to familiarize ourselves with the human ecology of the area. A unique part of my experience at the field site is that I do not have a car. Because I wanted to work on this project independently, most of my photos were taken on a kick scooter trip I took around Manteo. We were prompted to find evidence of development pressure; my response is below.

New development with a recently installed bulkhead near the end of Scuppernong Road

New Route

As previously mentioned, I do not have a car this semester and while it is easy to hitch a ride with a classmate in the mornings to the Coastal Studies Institute or elsewhere at other times, I sometimes do want to travel on my own or get in a little exercise on the commute. Until this year, it was not feasible for students to bike to CSI due to the lack of an adequate shoulder past the Highway 64 Bypass. Now a path is finally completed that runs from the Dare County Government Complex to CSI entirely on trails and back roads. Back in Chapel Hill last semester, Lindsay brought up this exciting development and I was eager to check it out as soon as possible. Even before I arrived in Manteo, I looked online for a map to see where the trail was and how I could navigate it. There were no maps or directions on the Dare County website or popular map sites like Google Maps or TrailLink I could not even find any mention of the trail in local news or public records online. Fortunately, Tara had already scouted out the trail early in the first week, I think with the help of one of our instructors, and she was able to show me the way. Still, I wish there was more publicly available information about this wonderful trail so that it could be used by people who need to commute to CSI as well as fitness and nature enthusiasts. I decided to make a map of the route from the Friends of Elizabeth II Guesthouse, where we live, to the Coastal Studies Institute. It is relatively simple right now and mainly includes the turns and landmarks, but I have taken photos along the route as well and would like to include them eventually. I hope to also submit the data I have collected and will continue to collect for inclusion in the trail databases I had previously searched unsuccessfully.

Category: Student Information