08: Crab Friends!

Hi! Today was the last day at the Mala! So sad. We got to work with the clams in the morning first so that was fun. So in the morning we went straight to the Moli'i Fishpond, our supervisors were Ty and Josh. We helped them sort oysters into groups of large, small, and medium. This way, when they put them back into the ocean they can be put with oysters of the same size while they are growing! The larger ones we can put into containers that have less holes, and we sort them so any small ones won't fall out of the large oyster containers. And the smaller oysters have really tiny holes so the small ones cant fall through. We also had to identify and get rid of dead oysters, you can spot a dead oyster by checking to see if the goopy center is there, if its just a empty shell the oyster is dead. They don't know why the oysters die, but they think its because of what they are filtering or where they are. Also, while we were sorting, I found two crabs, but both of them just disappeared, it was so weird, I put them out by the side, but then I think someone thought it was a shell and threw it away. I was so sad, I had really bonded with those guys. Josh and Ty gave us a tour after we sorted, it was really cool! We saw the different places where the oysters were. They are spread out around the fishpond in mesh baskets. In fishponds a makaha lets the ocean water to mix with the freshwater and is controlled by a gate, the gate also keeps fish in. We had lunch there, then went back up the the Mala, we spent the rest of the afternoon there, we ripped out a row of weeds and beets, layed out weedmat, and weeded the amethyst beans. We ripped out the beets because they were way too small for market size and wouldn't grow anymore. We said our goodbyes, and even to Anthony who we had not seen much of but he helped us weed the beans. I had a lot of fun in the Mala these past few days, I also can't wait to see what we do in the lo'i!!! I learned a lot, including how to set weedmat, rake to get the little paper pieces out, and doing a LOT of weeding. I think the weeding was fun, we also got to come up with fun games to play while we were weeding so that was fun! And thank you too all the supervisors, you guys were super nice and taught us a lot, we are very grateful!

Some Pictures from today! All from Mrs. Peeler:

The containers for the oysters!

all of us sorting the oysters!

The Fishpond!

Laying out the weedmat in the Mala!