I had the privilege of teaching my ninth year of summer camp programs at the Wells Reserve this year. This summer was one for the record books.

I’ve had the honor of teaching many returning campers, some of which have been coming almost as long as I have! In my nine years as the Summer Camp Coordinator, I’ve heard and seen just about everything. This summer there were a few special “camp records” that were broken that I feel are worth mentioning. To some of you these will seem minor and unimportant, but to a group of excited children they meant a lot.

Our first camp was for 9–12-year-olds and the theme was Stream to the Sea. This camp started the summer out by breaking many standing camp records. This great group of young minds were the fastest walkers we have ever had. They never once complained while walking to the river, salt marsh or to the beach. In fact, they never seemed to get tired! The second “cool” thing they did was find a “mystery creature” at the Merriland River. We spent some time comparing it to the eels we had seen and caught earlier. No campers had an idea of what it was, but I did, having grown up in Michigan and being surrounded by the Great Lakes. At the end of the day, with the help of a cellphone, we were able to confirm its identity as a larval sea lamprey. This was the first sea lamprey ever found during my camp tenure, by our campers.

Many returning campers were eager to ask me “have you caught any blue crabs this summer?" After finding and catching a few last summer, this was the “must-do” activity for many campers, new and returning. Some of you might be thinking “blue crabs, like the ones they have in Maryland?” And you would be correct. These amazing and beautiful creatures are making a home in the estuaries of southern Maine, which adds another exciting critter to our “might see” list. We did in fact catch two females our first week of camp, but it wasn’t until our second to last week of camp that we caught our record-breaking blue crab.

The 12-14-year-old campers were eager to explore the waterways in the estuary, keeping their eyes peeled for a flash of blue. I soon spotted a large crab, funny enough, cozied up against a crab trap set by our research department. Lucky for us, it was too big to fit in the trap! We quickly set up a perimeter and passed out gear, nets and buckets. No one was equipped with a net big enough to catch this crab, so we made a plan to use our biggest bucket to catch it in. Blue crabs are more aggressive and faster swimmers than green crabs. Armed with this knowledge and our determination, we nervously moved forward. Soon screams of concern and excitement and splashing from campers moving forward and backward in the water could be heard. Cries of “where is it?!” and “did we get it?” filled the air. After what seemed “like forever,” we successfully caught our target.

One of the first things we did was check to see what sex the crab was (male) and to look for special markings that indicated if the crab had already been caught by researchers (no, it hadn’t). One camper thought it was fitting to give everyone a high five saying “great teamwork.” And it’s true, we couldn’t have caught the crab if we hadn’t worked together. The campers then named the crab “Voldemort” or “Mort” for short, since they felt saying his name out loud would bring more blue crabs out.

There were many other records made this year, including discovering 20 salamanders on one hike, hundreds of fish in one seine net run, three blue crabs, a glass eel, finding a live sea jelly, and catching nine sub-tropical fish called White Mullets, which were a new species at camp.

Some might wonder why I come back each summer. There are so many reasons. Teaching kids how to treat living things with kindness, to ask questions, to observe what is around them, and to always ask “why.” But my number one reason is to be a positive, enthusiastic, and safe role model for our children. I want to show them that adults can be curious, silly, and “wowed” by nature. You’re also never too old to learn new things or find new things. If you stay optimistic, you never know what you might find, or catch, or see. You just have to come back again next year to find out. And I think I might.