Urban Snorkeling

[urbpan]

Well, as planned (but delayed), I went snorkeling in Ward's pond, in Boston. It was fun, a little scary, and I was very impressed with the reporter who accompanied me. She's a much better swimmer than I (who isn't?) and had no misgivings about simply slipping into the water and following me around. She eventually got bored of me and swam in different places taking pictures. We saw sunfish, which I expected, trout, which I didn't, and got a couple glances at sticklebacks (I think). No turtles, unfortunately. We also saw these large, coralesque bodies attached to sticks. I've seen these in the water at Mt. Auburn cemetery before, but not in Ward's pond, though they were deeper than I usually go. Unfortunately, I've forgotten what the damn things are. I'll do some research, but if anyone recognizes them on sight, that would be very helpful. They aren't frog eggs (too tightly packed, and only one or two species of frogs live in there) or salamander eggs (our only species of salamander near the pond is very small).



First picture is the mass under water (this one was the smallest one, on a stick that I could move).
Next I pulled it to the surface, then all the way out to look at it. The last picture I'm holding it up to the sun.

Also, the reporter wore capris, with buttons all the way up the sides, that looked very piratey, for talk like a pirate day.