Thursday afternoon a massive thunderstorm hit camp. Our weather station registered wind gusts of 35mph! The rain was blowing sideways with penny sized hail! The camper was rocking & rolling – it was wild!

Friday morning was calm and cool so we decided to visit The Oceanarium. We went last year – loved it! And this year it’s even better!

They now have two of the cutest axolotls! These aquatic salamanders are *much* bigger than I expected, coming in at about 9″ long!

The Oceanarium also now has a lobster nursery! An female lobster can release 10,000 eggs but in the wild their survival rate is dismally low. Approximately 1/10th of 1%, or just ten lobsters survive to adulthood! Some researchers say the actual survival rate is even lower at 1 or 2 lobsters per 10,000 eggs. 👀

The first three stages (10-25 days of life after hatching) are the riskiest as the tiny critters just float in the ocean as helpless but tasty little snacks. In stepped the Oceanarium! They collected an egg-laden female & kept her until her young hatched! She was then released back to the ocean while the Oceanarium staff raised her brood for a month until the safety of Stage 4, when they resemble teeny, tiny adult lobsters! This is the stage when they swim down to the ocean floor to hide, eat, and grow.

The Oceanarium takes the Stage 4 babies out on a boat and sends them down a tube to the ocean floor. They released 525 Thursday and will release about that many again on Saturday!

Conservation in action! Very exciting! Tonight we walked over to the center of our campground where a platform & tables were set up for stargazing with the Penobscot Valley Stargazers providing telescopes & expertise! It was very cool!

And when we got back to the camper, sitting on the deck with the pups we saw a shooting star! Perfection!!