Volunteers Marine Mammal Center day 2

Yesterday ended with a fun excursion with the Monday crew to mill valley for dinner at carlos santana's restaurant. Great pupus, margaritas and getting to know wonderful volunteers!

Today was quite an experience.

The tuesday crew has two volunteers that helped with kp2's rehab: marie and suzanne - it was great to get to know them better.

We started out the day helping transport a couple of sea lions to the medical center. It got real interesting when the door on the carrier broke open and one of the sea lions escaped. It took off running and so Rafe and I took off after it while Dana ran to get crowding boards. Luckily we were able to stop it going out of the center and back into the carrier. The nearby construction workers got an eyeful and we got some exercise and some great experience.

We practiced restraining elephant seals and that was a little intimidating but we all did great.

The vet, Nicola, introduced us to the two Greek biologists that are here for a month and they are staying at the hostel too so offered to give us rides to and from the center. They needed to go to the grocery store so we were thrilled to tag along. It is about a half an hour away so we had a great time learning about the mediterannean monk seals. There are of course many similarities but supprisingly many differences in their behaviors as well.

It was a wonderful day!

Tomorrow we will learn tube feedings and go on a release of three different pinniped species: a fur seal, sea lion & elephant seal.

Aloha, Jen, Rafe & Dana