Inuk

As most of you probably know or have heard by now, Inuk sadly passed away last Saturday February 20. It was a rough time for not only the whale team, but staff, volunteers, and the community as a whole. The whole day felt like my head was in a fog. No one could really comprehend what had just happened. I was pretty upset he was gone, but what really hit me was seeing the trainers. You form such incredible bonds working with the animals they essentially become part of the family. Many worked with him since the time they started working at Mystic. So it was hard to see them lose an animal they loved. He touched so many lives during his time here. Everyone will never forget his wonderful and charming personality! He truely was an amazing animal! I am so grateful I was able to spend some time with him during my internship and get to see how awesome of a whale he was! I will never forget his victory 'head nod' with both eyes closed, mouth wide open, and strands of drool hanging out the corner of his mouth! It's definitely going to be different around the exhibit. It will always feel like somethings missing -- the unused triangle shape for start of sessions and the empty red/white buckets sitting on the shelf :( But we must look at the bright side of things and carry on! I hope all find comfort in knowing we gave it our all and provided him with the best care possible! We all fought just as hard as he did, but it just wasn't meant to be. He passed on his own terms and we really couldn't have wanted it any other way. He will always hold a special places in many peoples hearts including my own and I will cherish all the great memories I had in my short time with him!

Now that things are slowly getting back to normal at work, my list of behaviors on the girls is growing! I have lots of different vocals including low and high range, chirps, clicks, and beluga style foghorn! I also learned head nod yes, ball/ring toss (where you place a ring on the lower jaw and they fling it up for you to catch!), and my personal favorite high fives! Thats right...I said high fives! Its not everyday you get to high five a beluga whale :) Pretty soon I will be doing my 'whistle exam' where I will get a training whistle to use as my bridge! I never thought I would be so excited to get a whistle! But once I get it, my behaviors are endless! I will be able to send the whales out to do lots of stuff away from the beach! My mentor, Lynn, was talking to me about the seasonal position during the summer. She said I should look into it and it sounds like it would be a lot of fun! They help with all the encounter programs during the summer and its paid! I will definitely have to think about it! It would be a fun summer job -- a lot better than pop testing thats for sure!

My family is coming to town tomorrow! I'm excited to see them! I am going to try and get them into the aquarium on Monday and show them around so they can see where I work! But other than that no big plans! I just hope we have pretty decent weather while they are here. The past 2 days it has been raining and now today it started snowing! Crazy!

I will leave you all with some thrilling pics from Boston since I didn't post any last time..

Old City Hall

Quincy Market

Boston Skyline from Bunker Hill Monument

Cat and Myself in the Boston Common

Where everyone knows your name!

Shipping Up To Boston

Yikes! Almost 2 weeks since my last post..whoops! But its alright, everyone can relax now because I am finally updating! Between caring for a sick whale and still managing to take care of the other whales, work still has been keeping me super busy. I literally have been working, eating, and sleeping with an occasional break thrown in there! They just switched up my schedule and changed my days off. So I worked 7 days in a row and am now finally enjoying my weekend! With all that has been going on with Inuk, I still am pressing on with the internship and learning behaviors on the girls. So far this week, I have learned station spins, low vocals, chirps, and melon shake. Melon shake is one of my favorites so far. I will be learning some more behaviors this coming Thursday! It's so cute, after every behavior Kela does, she makes this 'yay! i did it' vocal! And Naku just makes vocals all the time, especially during after session tongue rubs. All the routine work is just becoming second nature and I can get them done in no time now.

Last Monday, another intern and myself went and checked out the good ol city of Boston (or Bahston). It was about a 1.5 hour drive from New London to get to a subway station known as the Boston T. From there it was like another 20 minute ride into downtown Boston. Along the way into Boston, we passed Fenway park -- home to the Red Sox. I would love to check out one of their games while I'm here! The city of Boston was really neat -- lots of really old brick buildings. It was not the typically big city you think of (like Chicago). Its not as tall and you can walk majority of it in no time. We did the typical tourist trap of walking the Freedom Trail. It basically took you through all of downtown Boston to all the different historical places. We got to see Paul Reveres house, the church where the lantern was hung to warn of the British coming, old burial grounds, the site of the Boston Massacre, and other places. It took us through different neighborhoods like a Pub alley and little Italy. We stopped at Quincy Market where they have different food vendors lined up and down the building. They had every type of food imaginable and I tried a canolli for the first time -- delicious! We went across the harbor into Charlestown where we saw Bunker Hill. They have a monument with 294 steps to the top. I thought of the brilliant idea to climb up all those stairs to see the top (spiral staircase nonetheless). By the time we reached the top both of us were huffing and puffing and my legs could no longer move. But the view from the top was worth it. You could see all of the Boston skyline and the inner harbor. We walked back to downtown and had dinner at the place where Cheers was filmed -- the place where everyone supposedly knows your name, but they didn't know mine. By the end of the day, our feet were aching from a good walking trip in Boston! There are alot of places we missed that I will have to go back and see!

Also during this past week I survived my first Nor-easter! These are the big storms that occur in the Northeastern part of the US (hence the name). They were predicting about a foot or more of snow to fall in the area. It was weird to see everyone kind of freaking out about this snow storm. Everything began to close way before the storm even came. Back in Michigan, its not uncommon for us to get lots of snow and snowstorms. And they tend to cancel things as the storm hits or after. Here it was a little bit different and it probably didn't help that the DC/Baltimore area was getting hammered with snow. Everyone was closing up shops the day before and stashing up on supplies. The aquarium was declared closed the day before too. The storm finally arrived and hit was pretty heavy, thick snow that was falling. I shoveled the beach on the exhibit and 5 minutes later you couldn't even tell I shoveled. It was nice to see a good snowstorm -- reminded me alot of back home :) Driving back home was a real treat. I was averaging about 30 down the highway and since I live on a hill, I had to gun it up an unplowed street. I thought I was going to get stuck a couple times but I made it back safe and sound! The go figure the next day it was 37 degrees and all the snow began to melt.

Since its Fat Tuesday I'm off to go find a yummy paczki!

Birthday Weekend

What a crazy, chaotic, emotional, and stressful week this has been! I am so lost on my days since I have practically lived at the aquarium since Saturday. A situation arose on Friday that caught everyone off-guard. Inuk, the male beluga, wasn't acting like his normal self and was showed no interest in his food. It was a clear sign that something was wrong. We were able to run a blood test and it showed he was going through renal (kidney) failure. Not the best of news to hear. He has been receiving care and fluids throughout the day. And everyone has been so awesome and going out of their way to help and be supportive -- its truely amazing! I felt it necessary that I help out as much as possible. So I have been going in as much as I physically can and helping out with the procedures. From a veterinary aspect, this is great experience to see how whales are treated and see how marine mammal medicine is conducted in an extreme case. Everyone keep their fingers crossed for Inuk and send prayers and positive thoughts his way for a speedy recovery :)

On to other news, Gertie Bomb (my aunt Gertie) came up to visit this past weekend to celebrate my birthday! I went and picked her up at the train station and we went to eat at Mystic Pizza. Famous place because of the movie, but the pizza is alright. Its no Peppinos like back at home though! After lunch we decided to do some road tripping and try to find a local beach. During our travels down Route 1, we came across signs for a winery. So wouldn't you know it, we went looking for a beach and found a winery instead ;) We were left with no choice but to do some taste testing from the Stonington Winery! For the most part, most of the wines were alright -- there were only 2 that I really liked and would recommend buying. We then visited downtown Stonington and randomly came across the Old Lighthouse Museum (although it was closed) and the DuBois Beach.

We headed to Newport, Rhode Island on Monday for a day trip. It was a little over an hour away and we crossed some pretty neat bridges with awesome views. Newport is an interesting place but in a cool way! A lot of old buildings from the 1700's and even cobblestone streets! Some of the streets are just wide enough to fit one car down. So driving downtown Newport was a little tricky and had skinny streets going in everyway possible. Luckily with my driving, we didn't get lost :) We had planned on having a nice lunch at the White Horse Tavern which is one of the oldest operating taverns! But we arrived only to find a sign saying 'Winter Hours Thurs - Sat'. Just our luck. So we looked at our tourist map and picked out another resturant just up the street. We walked along an old cobblestone street with cute little shops. Got to the resturant and it was all boarded up for repairs. Strike 2. Finally we found a nice pub to eat at and enjoyed a nice lunch after a couple epic fails. We went and walked the Cliff Walk a little bit that went along the ocean and the Newport Mansions. Gertie Bomb yelled at me a couple times because I playing on the rocks and getting to close to the edge. We saw some pretty huge houses such as The Breakers which was owned by the Vanderbilt family and was their summer 'cottage'. Some of the mansions had tall fencing around them making it hard to gawk at them.

My birthday was on Tuesday. Another year older! I'm getting to be an old fart! I received a nice surprise at the aquarium. The rents ordered a beluga cake that was delivered to the aquarium for my birthday. It was delicious and had this yummy chocolate mousse type stuff in the center! It went over pretty well too with the staff and volunteers. It was a huge sheet cake and over half of it was eaten. But I think the best present I got was a good nights sleep! Up til then, I was running on little sleep and exhausted from caring for Inuk the whole weekend! So a nice 8 hour sleep felt wonderful!

I apologize for the lack of blog posting lately. Things have been crazy lately as you can tell and I just have been a little pre-occupied with other things! But now that things are beginning to become a bit more organized, I will continue to update with everything going on at the aquarium! Time for some pictures! Enjoy!

Old Lighthouse Museum -- Stonington, CT

Old Cobble Street -- Newport, RI

Beach on the Cliff Walk -- Newport, RI

The Breakers Mansion -- Newport, RI

Sitting on the Cliffs -- Newport, RI

My Birthday Cake