Beach climber

“Kirstin!” someone calls from behind me. I turn to see David, rolling past me in his truck. 

“My wife loved the broadcast,” he calls. 

“Thanks!” I shout, giving David a double thumbs-up. I turn back to the beach while he drives away. 

My beach spot in Scituate, MA

Our break between broadcasts isn’t that long - just a mere two hours - but I am on a mission. I lift myself over the cement wall separating the road from the beach and gingerly place my left foot on a rock on the other side. I test my weight on the stone - safe enough. My right foot follows, and soon, I am in another world.

I have no idea when was the last time I scrambled over a breakwall like this, but it feels like it’s been since college. My boulder acrobatics would be so much easier in hiking boots, but at the moment, I’m enjoying the fresh air too much to even notice my feet.

Earlier today, a teenager asked me how I identified a sponge specimen we collected from a shipwreck - he wanted details. Truth be told, one of my personal missions is to get more people interested in invertebrate zoology, so I was overjoyed at the student’s curiosity. I described the process of dissolving the organic material and isolating the spicules, then examining them under the microscope. It was my favorite question all day.

Then my mind flashed to yesterday, when my colleague, Calvin, and I had a long wait at our camera stations during rehearsal. We could see each other across the dock, so we filled the time with a socially-distanced dance contest. I think we both lost.

Monitor Kirstin and Real Kirstin are both ready to broadcast.
Photo by Calvin Mires.

This week - telepresence week - is the culmination of my summer. It is the beautiful finale to a long, hard field season. We had to make countless adjustments to our plan because of the pandemic, and it looked like everything was going to fall apart more than once. In the end, I’m glad we pressed on, because it has been so rewarding to examine the wrecks and share our research with the public this week. When it’s done well, outreach is the best part of my job.

I crouch on a rock and gaze off into Massachusetts Bay. The water looks cool and inviting, and I begin to wish I had my dive gear. There are some 3500 shipwrecks in Massachusetts waters, with over 200 in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary alone. This week, we have shared our research on two of them with the public. I can’t wait to discover them all.

We still have broadcasts tonight (6:30 Eastern time) and tomorrow (11:30 am with Exploring By the Seat of Your Pants and 2:30 pm for the general public). You can find us on the Facebook and YouTube channels of the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, or on the project website: https://www.whoi.edu/stellwagen-2020/