Calling Mr. Mike Rowe...Mr. Rowe...are you there? Bring your show and camera crew/editing crew to Jekyll Island...STAT...PRONTO!
If you are unfamiliar with that name, Mike Rowe is the host of the hit television show, 'Dirtiest Jobs' on the Discovery Channel. He goes around the world trying to find the most gruesome and messiest places to work for the day and helps him/her with their everyday jobs. Well...I think that our Raven 3 team should contact him. He should come on down to Beach Creek and see how messy it is in the soupy, slimy mud planting these oyseter bags and palettes.
This week was another successful work week with the squad as we knocked out the whole Beach Creek with bagged shell within the first three days of the week. Those were the most treterous of our whole SPIKE project. But as a whole, we have officially planted roughly 10,000 bags with at least 100 palettes in the mud in the 5 weeks we have been here. Let's just say, our service is both efficient and fairly quick. We sometimes are even looking for other jobs to do if we end up finishing a couple hours earlier than expected. As the hard 3 days are done and completed, we had a more of a calm and relaxing remaining days which was very pleasant. We EVEN found out about our next SPIKE location, but I will tell more about that later...
Once again I took deligent and detailed notes on what exactly the group did each day of this week beginning with Sunday...
SUNDAY
- got together with Raven 3 and completed the Weekly Progress Report as a team
- headed down to the beach for a couple hours working on the wicked tan :)
- did the weekly ISP 4 hours at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center; this week they had us paint eggs, weigh them down with rocks, and tie strings around them for their Earth Day Celebration
- we are teaming up with the Center and volunteering at the Earth Day Event a week from today from 12-4 PM. From this event either myself or my CAPping partner will be setting up a table during the event and recruiting
- played some ultimate frisbee with some of the Sea Turtle interns and people in the Extension program for an hour which was very fun
- end up going to bed early since the tough days are Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
MONDAY
- like stated above, it seemed as if we worked a total of 30 hours within in the next 3 days with the prep work, planting, loading, etc.
- spent the first part of the morning loading oyster bagged shell into about 7 boat loads with our sponsors to be distributed in the remaining destinations on the creek
- took a break for lunch, then headed back out in the afternoon and planted the shell and palettes in the hard substrate areas and avoiding the fairly soft and soupy-like areas
- planting became fun and fun as the days went on with various cannonballs and mudslides
- crew leader in New Orleans for the Summer of Service program application is completed and already emailed to the unit leader; I end up filling out the application because it seems to be a great opportunity to grow as a leader
- the program is basically teaching and aiding boys and girls ages 14-17 by doing several service project within the New Orleans area; crew leaders are in turn like the team leaders in AmeriCorps by managing a team of 10; it will be interesting if I end up getting the position (pray for me :))
- we find out if we make it to the next round sometime this coming week, which then 1-on-1 interviews are set up during transition in Jackson, MS
TUESDAY
-received an extra hour and a half of sleep due to the high/low tides and woke to moving, bagging, and loading shell for the first 5 hours
- we had to replace all of the broken shell bags by re-bagging roughly 200 that day because of carelessness of tossing them foolish-like; not trying to complain here...
- in the afternoon we canoed back into the mud and planted again, boy...does that mud really play tolls on your physical body because it fatigues you so quickly, once you climb out and end the day all you are thinking about is laying down!
- most of the time we are so worn out from the busy days, none of us are really motivated to do any social activities...it's a struggle to get people out of the house...but I managed to go on a nice 30 min bike ride after and gutted it out
- at night the squad went to a Service Learning volunteer meeting at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center for a couple hours; at there we learned more about the 3 main points of concentration in their missiong statement: research, education, and rehabilitation, then we got to learn more about the injured/sick turtles by getting a tour, then ended the seminar with a quiz (I ended up winning a sweet Kemp Ridley turtle during the Bingo portion of the meeting!)
WEDNESDAY
- this 9 hour work day began with moving shell from the recycling center on Jekyll Island into several trailer beds and taking them to the beach to be dropped off, from there we loaded into the motor boats to be dumped (remember this is all during high tide...boat riding during high and then planting during low) into the needed spots
- head-honcho sponsor, Dr. Alan Power, was very pleased at the progress of the creek and he ended up helping with the planting on monday and tuesday...first reaction pre-planting he was feeling nervous about it, but those nerves soon calmed over after glancing at our progress
- jumped in the mud in the afternoon and planted the remaining of the bagged shells
- once arriving back from the day, I received several phone calls and updates from other teams because they had found out about their up and coming 2nd SPIKE location...but our team still did not know where we were heading to...made us super eager...our TL agreed to tell us in the morning
THURSDAY
- begin the morning at the recycling center cutting and sizing down the already collected bamboo stalks
- as sponsor Daniel was discussing the layout of what the future job tasks were going to be, Andrea hands us a bagged oyster bag and tells us that our 2nd SPIKE lies inside...we ripped open the bag collectively as if we were 8 years old at Christmas!
- on the back of some of the shells were words and clues that we had to spell out the sentence, about 20 minutes later the 9 of us figured out that we are heading to New Orleans to help out at Camp Hope! SWEET! (will go into more detail about the next project in next blog and once I find out)
- we are all stoked about given the opportunity to be going to New Orleans
- in the afternoon we continue to cut bamboo and cement the tops of them; we are prepping today for next week as then we will be placing the sticks, stalks, and PVC into the mud for the Marine Extension Service to experiment oyster levels
- after a not-so-tough day, some of the team goes out to the mall and relaxes! Myself, Stan and Bill end up going to see Horton Hears a Who...and it was quite hillarious! I would recommend it!!
- we find out that tomorrow was going to be a relaxing day as well and no work will be performed, instead a nice 4 hour boat ride on the Bull Dog shrimp boat!
FRIDAY
- first of all, Happy 20th Birthday Mr. Stan...we celebrate his birthday first by going on the boat ride in the morning portion, very fun and peaceful...got the chance to soak some rays on top of the boat
- we traveled from Brunswick, GA to Darien, GA...which driving would be 16 miles and take about 30 minutes...but the boat ride took 4 hours since we were traveling at 8 MPH!
- captain Lindsey took us on the ride with crewmates Marty and John...the reason for the boat ride also was this weekend was the blessing of the fleet...in a nutshell...it is another way for several shrimp boats to gather and get a special blessing from a priest and then celebrations and gala events follow with music, games, food, etc.
- to continue with Stan's birthday the team gathered up after the boat ride and went to dinner at a place called Georgia Ribs and ate a scrumptious pork rib sandwich, along with dinner we went old-school rollerskating for a couple hours....that was a blast!
SATURDAY
- today was a very productive day that began with working with Habitat over in Brunswick for 5 hours, they had us scrapping the dried paint on the ground inside the house, then sweeping up the remains, and then using the shop vaccuum to make it accessible for the tile and glue to be put down later in the week...they have us tiling the house next saturday
- I then went to the beach for an hour awaiting our next team activity, and that was a historic tram trolly ride learning about the Jekyll Island...very interesting the tour was and alarming in some parts
- I plan on going to church in a bit on the island with Stan and Lauren, so that is very good I have the resources to go to a Catholic mass every weekend, I surely hope next project is the same with that conveinance
Well...there you have it! Seems to me like a super busy week with several tasks and things to do. Tons of positives and lots of smiles on this end. Hope everything on the other side of this update is doing fine and everyone is healthy and smiling! More to come is planting the spat sticks in the mud, helping out at 2 Earth Day Celebrations, awaiting the 2nd oyster roast, and many more. I am bitter sweet right now about the project...sad it is almost over, but super excited about transition and the social aspect by seeing all the friends accumulated from training in Perry Point. Less than 2 weeks and I am looking and feeling trimmer, getting tan, and getting stronger...can't really fret upon that...right? :)
Until next update, keep your heads up! Looking forward to the remaining 2 weeks and what is in store for us. #1 thing is staying flexible and that is the thing that our team has greatly excelled in since arriving and from this AmeriCorps journey!
