On Friday, June 22nd, the class hopped aboard the R.V. Flatfish to go clamming; our ship was piloted by Captain Jimmy, a veteran waterman, and we were accompanied by Mary and Grant, two educators from the Marine Science Consortium. We left the docks at the NASA visitor center, traveled up Mosquito Creek to a mudflat in the middle of the salt marshes between the mainland and Chincoteague Island. We hunted for and dug up clams from the mud, collecting over two dozen before a storm rolled in and chased us back to land. The clamming trip coincided with our reading of Curtis Badger's
Salt Tide, a memoir about his growing up in the salt marshes of the Virginia Barrier Islands. Particularly fitting was his chapter on "Clam-Sign," a moving description of the subtle joys of clamming.
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| Leaving the Dock |
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| Mud flat |
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| Digging for Clams |
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