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home SoundWaters honors towns, educates students on schooner visit
ABOARD THE SOUNDWATERS A couple of second-graders flinched at the algae-coated spider crab, but not Victoria Zheng. The undaunted 7-year-old leaned in for a closer look when Marissa Matsler, a crew member of the schooner SoundWaters, lifted the strange creature they had trawled from the bottom of Long Island Sound. When Matsler asked who wanted to hold the crab, Victoria offered her hand. "What does it feel like?" Matsler asked as Victoria held the creature and touched a finger to its shell. "Dirt," Victoria said. The students sailing on the Sound that day, from Mamaroneck Avenue School in White Plains, were among hundreds of Westchester schoolchildren who sailed on the three-masted replica of a 19th-century sharpie schooner while it was based in Mamaroneck this month. But SoundWaters, a Stamford, Conn.-based environmental group, was here for more than its usual school trips. This year, the organization also took time under its new "SoundHarbors" program to recognize Mamaroneck village and town for their efforts to help Long Island Sound and the environment in general. To mark the award, the group is giving both governments - as well as Greenwich and Stamford - plaques and models of the schooner. Mamaroneck village got the honor for efforts such as Mayor Phil Trifiletti's Water Quality Committee and the installation of a boom to catch debris coming from the Mamaroneck River. The town was cited for accomplishments such as building a marsh viewing platform in the Hommocks Conservation Area and approving an anti-idling law. "It truly is the everyday actions of people ... that is taking the toll," said Mamaroneck Town Councilwoman Nancy Seligson, who is also a leader in the coordinated effort by the federal government, New York and Connecticut to clean the Sound. "We really want people to understand that everything they can do to reduce that impact is helpful." For SoundWaters, the awards and the school trips are all part of the same mission. The organization draws attention to the Sound in the belief that, when people see the waterway and get to know it, they'll be more likely to care for it. "If they don't know it, if they can't see (it), if they've never been there, then they're not going to protect it and they're certainly not going to make any lifestyle changes to protect it," said Diane Selditch, a SoundWaters director. Their boat was docked during its visit near the mouth of the Mamaroneck River. Some 1,500 visitors came on board for a look during the Mamaroneck Historic Harbor Street Fair, the crew said. The group also offers tours to the public from its Stamford base. The recent sail brought the students to the Sound on a mild day, where some saw the estuary for the first times in their lives. After learning about it all year in Denise Tribble's class, they now got a hands-on workout. They helped to haul in a trawl to collect marine creatures. They also raised the sails, led by crew member Matt Brown in a sea shanty, singing, "Heave away, haul away," then "and we're bound for Australia," as Brown sang "Cape Cod girls ain't got no combs. ... They comb their hair with codfish bones." Soon they were plying the calm water under wind power. "All of our movement right now is because of the wind and the sails," said head educator Laura Nelson. "Sails that you guys set, so give yourselves a hand." The students split into small groups to learn about the Sound's history, its marine life and the pollutants that enter the estuary through rivers. At Matsler's learning station, they got a chance to touch the creatures. Matsler asked the children how the crab might fend off attackers. "He could put his legs together and pretend to be a rock," theorized Brittany Moreno, 8. Matsler joked around, noting that spider crabs are also called decorator crabs because they cover themselves with algae and other things to disguise themselves. She dubbed them "the accessorizer of the crab world," and drew laughs when she draped a scrap of seaweed over the crustacean like a feather boa. Back in port, the students raved about their day. "I like when the sun sparkles on the water, and I even liked when we pulled the things up," said Alvaro Rojas, 9. Victoria summed her day up succinctly: "It was really, really fun." Copyright © 2007 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and
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