Day 34-36: July 5th

Jing Chen writes:

It was the Fourth of July weekend. We were originally planning to sail down to Santa Cruz and spend the weekends there. Unfortunately the plan fell through and we were here in San Francisco ><

Tim kindly invited us to a party at Treasure Island. We grilled and chatted with many different people. Pin and I went on a floating mattress looking thing and paddled around the water. It was fun :)

We went to the Golden Gate Park the next day and enjoyed the music by the Golden Gate Band. The park was gorgeous and I am definitely going back. I really want to visit de Young Museum as well as the Academy of Science (Third Wednesday of the month is the free day!). Only if the wind was not so strong and the sun was not so shy, it would be even better.

This Monday, Corinna kindly offered us free sailing lessons! She is a friend of Lorraine’s and a very experienced sailing instructor. She even has the captains’ license. The weather was not suitable for us to go out, so we had a crash course on sailing and learnt a 2 day course in 1+ hour. Though that was A LOT of information, it really got me excited about sailing. Later on, we went to a boat docked at the harbor to identify some of the parts we learnt in class. Corinna also shared with us some of her interesting sailing stories. I can’t wait to get into the water now!

Day 33: July 2

Pin Pravalprukskul writes:

This morning, Genea and I took a small trip to the Golden Gate bridge see if we could find the ebb tideline there. The tideline is the where the flood and ebb currents meet, and trash supposedly accumulates along it. We didn't see the tideline, but we did get to enjoy the gorgeous view from the bridge! Truly breath-taking.

"Most Beautiful Steel Bridge"

When we got back, we cleaned out our samples from the Bay Tow on Tuesday to see if we got any plastic. We removed seaweed and other organic matter, and guess what we found?

We didn't get any large pieces of plastic this time, but there were tiny, colorful specks floating on the water. These could be smaller fragments of plastic that broke down in the water through wave action.

Day 31: Wednesday June 30

Genea Foster writes:

Today we held a fundraiser on the Embarcadero by Pier 40. We were trying to sell our signature chocolate covered pretzels, to passing Giant's fanatics. Most of them were focused on getting to the game and did not want to stop for chocolate. However, we got lucky with some children and people who heard us chanting for a long time. Alex and I would shout "Do you like chocolate and care about the environment? Support a local non-profit, Sea Scavenger!" and "Do you like trash in YOUR bay? Us neither, support Sea Scavenger and buy our chocolate covered pretzels!" We got a lot of "Thank you"s for working towards cleaning up the bay, but I think with these hard economic times people are extra-hesitant to donate money. But we did, end up selling all of our pretzels by the end of that day with the help of Lorraine.

Day 30: June 29

Kelli Stephens writes:

I’m back!!! So today I was not able to do much in the way of research or writing my paper…(no worries, I can explain everything.) Once again, Pin and Genea went out with Lorraine in the morning to do a tow of the bay, leaving Jing, Alex, and I with a tasty task…chocolate-covered pretzels! And no, before anyone begins to wonder, we were making them not eating them (such a shame I know). Sea Scavenger is holding another fundraiser tomorrow, this time catering to the patrons of AT&T Park and so the three of us were making the preparations for that. Other than that, nothing else (strictly in the focus of Sea Scavenger’s academic/organizational program, if that makes sense) really happened today. To give you details on the stage of my paper, it is already looking to be a long one. Yet that is not always a good thing. I don’t want my paper to be boring and bland… I want it to have fire! So that was Tuesday in “The Office;” also Pin, Genea, and Lorraine did not get back from their tow til really late (in the context of work hours) so I hope their tow was successful! And because I promised to do better in the way of photos…I have a drawing I made (because I took no photos.) C’est la vie!

Day 28-30: Jun 26-28th

Jing Chen writes:

For the past two weeks, I had been living at Nicole’s place and a temporary life of stability. Nicole, a generous lady who has offered to host each of the interns two weeks in her sweet house this summer, has a super cute dog Ollie. Not only can we get off the boat for a while and enjoy a stable life, but also can we enjoy the company of Ollie. He was so well trained that it was easy for me, who had never owned or lived with a dog, to take care of him. He never gave me any hard time. Well, actually yes. He stole food! He was so clever in finding food, it was difficult to keep things away from him. He has stolen my bagel, ate my Tofu (dogs eat Tofu too, apparently.) and tasted a leftover fish dish place high above the shelf! When we ate popcorns at movie nights, he would quietly lie there and stare at us with his pitiful eyes. His gaze would follow the popcorn from the bowl to our hands then mouth. Occasionally he would stand up to sniff the caramel popcorns (yes, we made caramel and pop the corns ourselves!) but he never made any noises. Ollie is so adorable that I miss him a lot. No wonder Nichole would send a postcard to Ollie when she was away. Ollie is just too cute to be forgotten.

Here is a photo of Ollie.

Isn't he cute? ><

Day 27: June 25

Pin Pravalprukskul writes:

This week we've been taking turns to volunteer at the South Beach Yacht Club Junior Sailing camp, and today was finally my day! It was also the last day of the first camp (there will be two more this summer), so the Junior Sailors raced to show off the super sailing skills they learned over the past week. I helped with food preparation, and afterward was on the 'Mother Ship' most of the time, watching the young sailors manipulate the sails and... wow. I was very, very impressed by how quickly they had learned! They were darting all over the small cove, changing direction with ease. Of course, there were a few capsizes, but that didn't put a dent in their enthusiasm at all - they used their weight to pull their boats upright, and just went right on sailing! Definitely makes me want to learn how to sail now.

Day 26: June 24

Alex Nagourney writes:

This morning, Lorraine and I had a meeting with StopWaste.org, an organization aimed to reduce the waste stream in Alameda County, about our grant application. Sea Scavenger is applying for both their mini grant (for our Bay Tow Study) and the large grant (for our organization and the Gyre trip). We want to connect with Alameda County because the wind carries trash from the San Francisco shoreline to the Alameda shoreline. We are reaching out to Alameda to clean their trash, too, and analyze it in our Bay Tow.

The meeting went very well. We explained what Sea Scavenger has been doing- Tows, Shoreline Cleanup, fundraising, etc.- and the woman we were meeting with sounded very interested, especially in the research aspect of our Bay Tow Study, such as analyzing the plastic, possibly to find a source of pollution.

After the meeting, Lorraine and I met with the Harbor Master at the Jack London Square Pier about the "Trash Slip." It is a special slip that collects a lot of trash because of the wind, currents, tides, etc. He told us he can't rent it to a boater because it is so dirty. Lucky for us, he offered it to us to analyze! We will be coordinating something with him and getting a key soon. That was really exciting!

This is the "Trash slip" in Jack London Square