Better Late Than Never: My First Trip on the Bay

I grew up in Baltimore County, Md. I spent the first 18 years of my life living full-time in the Chesapeake Bay watershed before going to North Carolina for college. But it was not until this May, at the age of 23 and eight months after starting work at the Chesapeake Bay Program, that I took my first boat trip out on the Bay. I guess it’s better late than never.

Being one of very few people in this office with no science background whatsoever, my first eight months in this job was quite the learning experience. While my focus is in the communications office, I have to have a basic knowledge of the science behind what we’re doing here. I’ve read books and at this point have portions of our website nearly committed to memory, but none of that education compares to what I got out on the water that first day.

As someone who had never been on a boat other than a ferry or water taxi, I was nervous. But once we made it out of the South River into the Chesapeake Bay, my nerves gave way to excitement. I was out on the Bay for the first time, seeing what I’m working 40 hours per week for firsthand. The further into the Bay we got, the more it hit me: This is what I’m working to protect. I observed the shorelines, I watched the birds, and my heart sank when we passed a motor oil bottle floating in the water.

***

During the boat ride out to Poplar Island, my coworker and our U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service captain gave me a brief history of the island.

The island, which was more than 1,000 acres in size in 1847, was once used as a presidential retreat by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. But as time went on, Poplar Island eroded to less than 10 acres by 1990.

In 1998, a restoration project led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began, creating wetlands using dredged material from the Baltimore shipping channel. Since the project began, the island has been restored to more than 1,100 acres of land.

As they gave me my history lesson for the day, I couldn’t help but wonder how I had lived in Baltimore for so long and never knew about this. The fact that this island, once on the verge of disappearing altogether, has been restored so much and yet still has a long way to go to be complete by 2027 and was a complete mystery to me was amazing. I didn’t realize how ignorant I was to the world around me before starting this job.

***

After dropping off half of our passengers on the island to do some bird monitoring, I set off with my two coworkers and our guide, Pete, to do some sampling of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) or bay grasses. Pete told us about how the water had been “crystal clear” the day before when he was out doing sampling. I was skeptical of this assessment. I thought, “Crystal clear, huh? I can’t wait to see his version of ‘crystal clear.’”

I’ll admit that ever since I spent a semester studying in Australia, I’ve held water in the States to a much higher standard and every beach trip I’ve taken since that semester has been a disappointment. After swimming in clear water, watching fish swim past you and being able to see white sand everywhere you look, everywhere else has some big shoes to fill. But I was pleasantly surprised as we navigated out to some creeks and coves around the island. I was able to look over the side of the boat and, yes, see the bottom, covered in bay grasses.

Many of the areas where we did our sampling didn’t result in much SAV being pulled up with our rake, but it was definitely there. I couldn’t believe it. We could see little fish swimming through the baygrasses, see completely to the bottom and, in my mind, feel completely at ease swimming in that water – something I previously didn’t think about the Bay.

After we spent a long afternoon on the water doing sampling, some more bird watching and chatting, we headed back to Poplar Island to pick up our colleagues. We got to walk a bit around the island and Pete showed me the areas that used to be completely barren, all the progress that has been made on the island. He showed me before and after photos and identified vital habitats that weren’t there a short time ago. It was hard to imagine the island in these different stages – when it was in its peak and when it had hit rock bottom. But I’ll never forget those moments.

***

As we headed back to Annapolis, I felt a bit more adventurous on the boat. On the way out, I had been standing behind the captain’s chair, holding on for dear life and unsure of how I felt about this. On the way back in, I sat on the edge of the boat, still holding on for dear life, but enjoying it far more. I could see the changes in the water on the way back – from the clean and clear waters we’d been working on during the day to the more developed areas, murky and polluted, as we got closer to the shore.

That one day at Poplar Island, I learned what it is I’m working toward. I’m working toward a cleaner bay. That may be a common sense statement, but it’s not something I really grasped until that day because I didn’t know it was possible. Now, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen flourishing habitats and clear water that are fostering biodiversity. I’ve seen it and I’ve felt it and now, I’m working toward it.

I’m looking forward to my next experiences out on the water. Sometimes I think we all forget what we’re working for as we’re sitting at our desks in Annapolis. We go outside and look at Spa Creek when we eat lunch on the docks, but we don’t really see it. I finally saw the Bay that day, and I’m trying to keep that in my mind every day from now on.