Visiting Toyon Bay: Catalina Island Marine Institute

     When I was in middle school, there were certain field trips that was only available for certain students.  Majority of these special field trips were offered only to the gate students at my school, which I felt was unfair.  The biggest trip, which I desperately wanted do to go to in middle school, was a trip to the Catalina Island Marine Institute (CIMI) at Toyon Bay.  This field trip featured learning experiences in the marine sciences, which at the time, my dream job was to be a marine biologist.  My sister was on the gate team when she attended middle school, and she was able to go on this field trip.  Today, I still love the ocean and geek out about marine sciences.  My mom is a science teacher at the middle school that I attended, Clement Middle School, in Redlands.  She had planned a field trip to CIMI.  Unlike my years as a student, when only the gate kids can go, any 7th grader and 8th grader was able to apply to go on this field trip.  My mom was in need of male chaperones for the trip.  She had decided to give me the opportunity to become a male chaperone and go on the trip.  Money was an issue, and my mom had offered to pay my way since she wants me to not just chaperone, but also photograph the field trip.  I took the opportunity, and it was one of the best trips of 2013 that I have taken.  This is my blog post about how this amazing trip took place.

Friday, October 25, 2013

Approaching Catalina Island

     The morning started before the sunrise.  We had to be at Clement Middle School at 5:00 am.  As the students arrived, I helped them get their luggage organized.  After everyone arrived, we got the students split into 5 assigned groups.  Each group had roughly 15 youth and two adult chaperones.  Majority of chaperones where either teachers from Clement or parents who volunteered to help.  I was the only chaperone who wasn't either of those.  Because of this, I quickly became the most popular and awesome chaperone.  What makes me a unique chaperone is because I will participate with the youth, and have a good time hanging out with them.  The other chaperone in my group was a mother, and she always stayed in the background.  Didn't do much when it came to chaperoning.  After we split them into groups, we boarded the two charter buses, and we headed down to Long Beach.  We arrived at the Catalina Island Express facility next to the Queen Mary.  We would board a ship that would take our group and a high school group to Toyon Bay, where the main Catalina Island Marine Institute (CIMI) facility is located.  We were the first group to board, which I was excited for, because we would have first bibs on the top deck, which is an open outdoor deck.  It took us two hours to get to Toyon Bay.  One of the students was amazing at how smooth the water was.  It reminded him of video game water.  The exciting part of the ride was seeing several Common Dolphins.  Many of the youth who were around me had several questions, and since I had most of the answers, I educated them a little bit about dolphins.  A week ago, whale watching tours had spotted Killer Whales in the Catalina Island Channel, and I was crossing my fingers of a sighting of Orcas.  We were not that lucky.  As we arrived at Toyon Bay, we saw a large crowd of people waiting on the pier, which were the groups who were leaving to head home.  The CIMI staff where there to give a warm welcome.  The excitement that all of us were feeling could not be expressed by words.  

Toyon Bay, Catalina Island

     

     We got off the ship, and went into this court yard that was the closest to the ocean.  The groups got split up, and the CIMI staff gave an orientation to the youth while the chaperones got an orientation at the chaperone lounge.  I was amazing.  I have never been to a place where there was a chaperone lounge before.  They had coffee and hot tea 24/7, they also had wireless internet and even computers.  Of course, I didn't need the computers because I brought my Chromebook.  They also had fresh homemade chocolate chip cookies for the chaperones.  I have to argue that those where the best chocolate chip cookies I had ever had.  Soft, noise, and the chocolate was always melty.  They were extremely addicting.  After the orientations, we got everyone settled into their rooms, and there was free time.  There was quite a bit of free time where the youth can just go and do whatever they want.  From my experiences with 4-H camps, I was not used to this concept.  I liked it.  Some youth in my group wanted to go to the beach.  Of course I said yes.  We killed a few hours at the beach before it was time for dinner.  The food at CIMI was amazing!  They had the standard food for everyone, and they have a special area for adults only, that had higher quality food.  I was right there with the youth in the general food line.  It was amazing.  I had no reason to eat the higher end stuff for the adults.  Of course, I did go over to grab a few things, but never the main adult courses.  

     After dinner, everyone was able to hang out for awhile before doing the evening activities.  For the rooming, I would be responsible for two of the boy's rooms as their chaperone.  My room would be in between them.  I was the lucky one.  I got a room all to myself, and was the only room with a view of the ocean.  I had brought some homework and 4-H work with me to do in the evenings, so it was nice to have my own room so I can keep the lights on and do some work.  The groups met back up for the evening activity an hour later.  Each group got assigned a CIMI staff person, which would be running all the activities the group would be doing.  For the night activity, the youth would learn about the biology and anatomy of squid.  They each got a squid that they had to dissect with their hands.  They had to find certain parts of the squid, and identify them.  After the activity, it was mainly time for bed.  The boys in my rooms were quite rowdy, which is normal for middle school ages.  I find this age group quite fun to hang out with.  They are just getting into puberty, and they are in a in between age from their childhood to headed towards adult hood.  Because of this, what they say can be quite funny.  For the most part, they did behave.  They did get a little rowdy at times, and had hard times staying in their rooms.  I finally got them to go to sleep.  I sat outside in the courtyard for awhile with my laptop working on homework and talking to people on facebook.  

Saturday, October 26, 2014

     This would be one of the best days of the trip.  The morning started with breakfast and then some free time.  A group of students were interested in going on the hiking trail that took you to a view point where you can get a great view of Toyon Bay.  I agreed to take the group up there.  The trail was mostly very large switchbacks.  At the top of the trail would be a view point.  Interesting, there was a fireplace and chimney at this point.  I guessed a house was built up there, and was probably destroyed by a natural disaster...probably fire.  Behind the chimney, was a skeleton of a bison.  It seems this bison decided to lay down at this location, and died.  CIMI left the body their to decompose.  Most of the body was decomposed.  The bones and hide were all that remained.  The view was beautiful from up there.  We could not see that far off, for there was a marine layer that morning.  A shame, because we probably could of seen the main land, as far as the San Bernardino Mountains, if it was clear.  The hike was still a nice way to start this amazing day.  

     After the free time, the different team would move around different educational science labs.  These labs covered many different fields of marine science.  We began with learning the different type of marine life phylums.  The second lab took our team to a room of tanks.  These takes were filled with invertebrates.  My favorite animals in the tanks were the Octopus.   The crabs, lobsters, and sea stars were also cool to see and examine.  The third lab took our group into a large room filled with bones of different marine mammals.  The students had to find information in a scavenger hunt.  While we were walking to the large room, we spotted three mule deer that were walking through the camp.  The last lab activity for the day was on plankton.  The students used microscopes (which were connected to computer monitors) to find and identify plankton in their water.  After the labs, it was lunch time.

     The rest of the day was quite amazing.  It was time to head out and go snorkeling in Toyon Bay.  We put on our wet suits, and group by group, we headed out into the bay.  My group was amazing.  I did have one kid who stayed behind on the shore because he could not swim.  We saw loads of wildlife.  Schools of fish, a few sharks, sting rays, California Garibaldi, and much more.  

Sunday, October 27  

     The third lab my group went to was about algae.  We sat at a table that was also a holding tank.  The tank was filled with different algae.  The most common would be kelp.  We got to do some algae pressing (just like flower pressing).  We also got to eat a red algae right from the tank.  I normally wouldn't do it, but I said why not.  I took a nice big bite.  Once you got past the salt taste, you got a taste of carrots.  

UNFINISHED.  I didnt have time to finish this blog post.  It has been collecting digital dust for over a year.  I figured I would publish it just to have some sort of record on the trip.  Good thing is I will be returning to Toyon Bay in October.