Anemone, Barnacles, Muscles too . . .

My daughter Julia just returned from a four day trip to Bamfield Marine Science Centre.  I told her I would interview her for my blog when she got back, because I know a lot of our friends and family will want to hear all about it.  Here she is, answering my questions.  The photographs are hers as well.

1.  How did you get to Bamfield?
First, I went on the ferry to Horseshoe Bay.  It was 20 minutes long.  Then I went on the Nanaimo Ferry.  It took about one and a half hours.  Then I took a charter bus to Bamfield.  It took four hours.  For two hours, I got to watch a movie called The Spy Next Door.  On the way back, I watched Gulliver's Travels.

On the ferry to Nanaimo

2.  Where did you eat at Bamfield?
I ate in a cafeteria that looked small on the outside, but big on the inside.  It always took a long time if you were last in line, so you had to get their quickly.  When I first got there, I ate pork, glazed carrots and potatoes.  They had a lot of beverage choices like milk, and a lot of different kinds of juices.  There were two coloured juices that were blue and pink.  Someone found out how to make purple out of it by putting pink and blue together!  It was very popular, even some of the adults there did it!  The food was marvelous!

Main building at Bamfield

The cafeteria is in the back

3.  What did you do there?
The first time I went on the boat was when I first got there.  We tested the water to see the temperature higher up and lower down.  We also collected plankton to look at in microscopes.  A couple days later, after we collected the plankton, we looked in the microscopes.  It was creepy at first, but then I got used to it.  They looked like little aliens and bugs.  I showed a picture of them on the television.

Plankton on T.V.

Microscope we used

Plankton in a petri dish

At Brady's Beach:  We had to take a boat to get to the second part of Bamfield.  We had to take a one-kilometre hike.  We had to do an activity where you had to go to a tidal pool and look at all the creatures in it and make a little song or rap about it.  My group made a little rhyming song about what we had in our tidal pool.  It went like "Anemone, Barnacle, Muscles too.  If you don't like that, then Boo Hoo Hoo!"

The coolest part about the tidal pool was the Sea Anemones.  We touched them and they stuck to us a bit when we tried to pull away.  They were cute!

Where we crossed the water to Brady's Beach

Thank you Julia for your excellent pictures and answers.  I'm sure glad you got back safe and sound!!