Yesterday the canoe tour went well, I am learning more and more that the people going on the tours aren't giving a structured judgemental critique of how good a personal guided tour you give, and how well you remember the script and how many species of birds and plants you remember to point out to them. Most people just want to paddle their canoe and don't really care what you say or how well you say it, so I am feeling more relaxed and confident and I think in doing so am now becoming a better tourguide. This time, me and the tourists had a spectacular treat, in being the first tour group so far to have seen an alligator. Out on Mill Creek we saw him swimming towards the pond grass, upon seeing us he dove under it with a splash, but soon after, as we had turned around, he came back and swam the other way. We watched him for a good minute or two until he finally dissappeared under the dark tannin waters. How amazing! At 1:00 we (us interns, me, Mike, Amy and Megan) were given a personal behind-the-scenes tour of the North Carolina aquarium. I love seeing and learning about the whole operation of things like that, and I especially love zoos and aquariums, even better, we were shown (rather randomly) a blue tongued skink and a hedgehog which we got to pet and hold. There were no turtles currently in their turtle rehab clinic, which is good! We were there several weeks ago and watched them release all of their sea turtles on the beach of Cape Hatteras right next to the famous light house, they released all five of the ones they had at the time. I got it all on video. I should show it to you sometime. Unfortunately we couldn't see behind the scenes of their otter exhibit, because, well, with something like a mammal exhibit they're kind of strict on rules and regulations about who they can take back there. We did get to see the big 250,000 gallon tank with the sand tiger sharks in it, and met the interns who dive in the tank every friday to do tank maintenance and even answer people's questions through a dive mask microphone in a special presentation they give. Once the tour was over at around 3:00 or so the other interns just went home, but I stayed several more hours by myself and relaxed and enjoyed the place to all its worth. The snack bar outside the aquarium is incredible, every snack, candy and vintage soda you can imagine is sold there. Someone could seriously spend too much of their money in there if they're not careful... .....hey, don't look at me! okay go ahead and look at me, that's exactly what happened....
That evening I went on to Pea Island to meet up with Mike and Amy, who were spending the night at the house there to get up early the next morning for turtle patrol. We went and ate at the Froggy Dog restaurant in Avon (kind of a long way) and got some pretty good salad and seafood pasta there, and afterwards went over to the bar and sang karaoke, I was the only one brave enough to go up and sing, of course, couldn't get Amy or Mike to do it, and yes, I suck at singing, I'm not going to deny it and get my feelings hurt, but damn if I still didn't sing a mean "I'm your Captain yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah" by Grand Funk Railroad.
Late that night after getting back I walked through utter pitch darkness on pea Island down to the beach. I could not see my hand in front of my face, but the entire milky way hung above me as bright as dawn, the stars flashed like sequins and the milky, whispy "backbone of the night" domed above the world. I could even clearly see the vast dust clouds of the inner western spiral arm that blot out most of the great stellar mass at the center of the galactic spiral. The waves crashed in front of me with a deafening roar amidst the quiet night, and I could only make out the great white forms of breakers appearing and disappearing in the darkness close ahead. I looked down and to my astonishment, in the sand too tiny lights blinked and glowed, luminescent plankton washed ashore flashed to every footstep I took. Unfortunately, this little trip to my own personal Pandora was a bit ruined by the biting flies, which soon chased me back indoors. I will be back another night, with off on. You don't need James Cameron and blue cat people to experience magic in our world.
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