Mystic Aquarium

After spending over a week working in pen three, Romy threw me a curveball by assigning me to pen ten. Luckily for me I was working in pen ten with Gay. She has been volunteering with SANCCOB since 1999 and was even there during the Treasure oil spill. That oil spill was so large that over 19,000 African penguins were oiled and needed to be cleaned. These pens with 60 chicks have been giving me a run for my money so I can't imagine taking care of that many! Needless to say, Gay has a lot of experience and showed me the ropes.

Another exciting aspect to working in pen ten is that it is the last pen the penguins go in before being released. Nola came down in the morning in order to do the final check on 17 of the penguins that were released later in the day. I held the penguins while Nola double checked their tags and files and gave their bellies a quick spray with a washable pink spray paint to signal they are penguins that have been released. Once they were checked and sprayed they went into release boxes and were loaded up onto the truck that would bring them to the boat they were to be released from.

Once the truck left Gay and I went back to taking care of the rest of the pen. This pen is a little more complicated because some have to swim for an hour and some swim for twenty minutes depending on their feather conditions. Gay showed me the system she has worked out for keeping track of them and getting them the swims they need. The day ran really smooth and we were able to finish at around 6 p.m., which is probably the earliest I've ever gotten out while working at SANCCOB.