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Monday Morning, Camp Outpost : Round Valley, May 10th Round Valley is located in a remote rural area of the Eastern Sierras, closer to Nevada than to the Pacific coast. Each year teacher Ralph White organizes a right-of-passage type of expedition for a small group of a dozen students and they head out to Catalina for a challenging physical experience combined with terrestrial and marine learning experiences. Some of these students had never touched the ocean before, and for all it was the first channel Island adventure, and one destined to be remembered as a powerful life / learning experience. Crossing to Two Harbors from San Pedro on Sunday May 9th, on the morning of May 10th Round Valley’s heroic hikers walked into the Wrigley Institute for a morning presentation by Bendan, a staffer from the Catalina Islands Marine Institute (CIMI). They learned about the geologic history, marine mammals, and undersea invertebrates that inhabit the channel waters off Catalina. Using the outdoor amphitheater overlooking Big Fisherman Cove, the group roll played geologic history, and learned how kelp and algae are used in our mainland toothpaste, ice cream, baking, and even car oil products. Next stop for the group was the live touch tank, a covered outdoor facility approximately 15’x15’ square. Everyone crowded around the tank to see the Sea Hair’s soft undulating movements and egg laying (which looked like angel hair pasta), the Swell Shark that can swim into narrow openings and then swell up to protect itself from being captured by a predator, two types of sea urchins with their long spines and flexible suction cup filaments, and the soft but spiny looking sea cucumber that can eject its internal intestines to distract a predator from eating all of it. This first visit to the touch tank was a ‘dry’ run for the live Internet video broadcasting provided by Doug from the Wrigley staff to enhance mainland classroom’s ability to participate in the on-island expedition. A computer on a cart and camera were rolled into the touch tank area, connected to the Wrigley LAN and bonded ISDN lines, and by clicking on the Wrigley dock camera icon on their web site, it was possible to see and observe the students clamoring around the touch tank, clowning in from of the camera at items of course, and also lifting up the sea creatures and sharing them with the mainland viewers. From their time at Wrigley, Round Valley then hiked over the ridge of the island to Little Harbor for a camping adventure, eventually hiking to the Airport in the Sky and taking a mini-bus down in to Avalon to hike at Hermit Gulch.
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