Yellow Pages
ANACORTES — Katie Reyerson is no stranger to sea life, but she normally has to rely on television or magazines to see it.
On Saturday, the 8-year-old aspiring marine biologist from Anacortes dared a dreary, chilly day to have a closer look at the creatures in the nearby bay.
“I’m freezing,” Katie said as she reached into cold tanks of water to pick up a sea slug on a dock in Fidalgo Bay.
The chill didn’t bother her much though; she was too excited.
“To tell you the truth, this is like my favorite part,” she said. “I was dying to see this.”
Other children gathered around Katie and Lauren Chomiczewski, a 22-year-old master’s student at Western Washington University who was explaining a variety of colorful sea creatures caught by the Shannon Point Marine Center. The tanks and sea life were part of the fifth annual Fidalgo Bay Day at Seafarers’ Memorial Park in Anacortes.
The day, filled with all things aquatic, is meant to expose children to the sea life in Fidalgo Bay, in hopes of sparking an interest to protect the bay as they grow older.
Chomiczewski dipped her arm into one of the tanks and picked up a purple sea star, or starfish, and flipped it over to tell the children about how it eats.
“They eject their stomach onto whatever they’re going to eat and digest it on the outside of their body,” she explained.
Nine-year-old Parker Hennessy scooped up a dark brown sea cucumber.
“Why is he all jiggly and squishy?” Parker asked.
“Because he has water in him,” Chomiczewski said.
Katie held a striped sea slug about the size of a squished kiwi, but the color of a banana.
“It feels like a sponge with holes in it,” she laughed. “It’s starting to tingle.”
Katie said she’s “always” wanted to be a marine biologist.
“If there is one thing that I like about marine life, is stuff that actually moves,” she said.
She has a special affinity for jellyfish, which she watches on the Discovery Channel.
On Saturday, though, the creatures she’d read about and watched from a distance came to life.
“I’ve heard about those,” she told Chomiczewski about a small caterpillar-like sea animal. “But it’s just a lot different than what I saw in my magazine.”
Other children and their parents tasted sea critters in free samples of oysters, clams and chowder donated by local restaurants.
For 10-year-old Olivia Graham, eating the clams out of their shells was the best part of Fidalgo Bay Day. She also had a seal painted on her face and made a bracelet with a fish charm on it for good health.
Ten-year-old Angela Kline was more interested in the sea’s plant life. Volunteer Mike Mohundro explained five different types of seaweed to her.
“You’ve eaten seaweed because it’s in ice cream,” Mohundro told Angela.
Fidalgo Bay Day is hosted by the Anacortes Community Maritime Center, the Skagit County Marine Resource Committee and Beach Watchers, with the help of other donations and volunteers.
n Tahlia Ganser can be reached at 360-416-2148 or .
