I knew that if we waited long enough we’d get a great weekend, and last weekend had to be the best one to come down the pipeline for ages – crisp, cool nights and warm, crystal clear days, several days in a row, even! What a bargain!

It was a great weekend to head to Stonington for the third annual Maine Coast Seminar at Bill Baker’s Old Quarry Ocean Adventures on Webb Cove. The seminar was sponsored by Maine Island Trail Association, Maine Island Kayak Co., Maine Sea Grant, Maine Association of Sea Kayak Guides and Instructors, and Maine Coastal Program in conjunction with Headwaters Institute.

It is the vision of Headwaters Institute “and its associated network of educators [to] strive to be the premier provider of natural history, conservation, and interpretative trainings for professional guides. These seminars encourage and promote a deeper public understanding of the importance of healthy rivers and their watershed ecosystems.” Rivers are not the only focus, hence the interest by the sponsors who are primarily oriented to the sea. The goal of the Stonington gathering was “to provide education that inspires individuals and communities to care for and connect with the Gulf of Maine.”

Michelle Garcia, a science teacher at Poland Regional High School, and Paul Clifford, an English teacher at King Middle School in Portland, did the lion’s share of coordinating the seminar. They both work for Maine Island Kayak Co. in Portland and are friends with Michael Hayes, who coordinated the event last year. They rounded up a stable of speakers to talk about such things as Leave No Trace, aquaculture, geology, botany, seabirds, whales, salmon, the history of the coast, the Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System, and local food and farm connection along the coast.

Sprinkled in were several good meals eaten alfresco and a keynote address by Colin Woodard, author of “Ocean’s End Travels through Endangered Seas.” His description of the demise of the Black Sea and the Danube River were poignant and downright depressing, but great examples of how mankind has misused watersheds for centuries and what can and will happen when these practices go unchecked. The Danube has been used for centuries as a way to get rid of unwanted manufacturing end products, agricultural runoff, and sewage. The Black Sea, fed by the Danube, used to be a food resource for eastern Europe, but today it’s basically dead, a sea the size of California that is home solely to algae and comb jellyfish.

Speaking of jellyfish, did you know there are lion’s mane jellyfish in the Gulf of Maine that are 8 feet across and have tentacles more than 120 feet long? Or that the hold fast that keeps rockweed (seaweed) attached can be hundreds of years old? Or that you can tell the age of seaweed by counting the flotation bubbles in the main stem? Or that periwinkles are not native to our shores? (They came from Europe in the 1800s and they eat seedlings of rockweed.) Or that blue mussels work together to protect their neighbors from attacks by dog winkles by using their bissus fibers (the beard) to pull the snail-like critters away? Blue mussels cannot protect themselves, however, only their neighbors.

Did you know a barnacle in its infancy is actually a small crab?

These are just a few of the facts that Susan Kynast, a marine biologist and researcher at UMaine-Machias imparted to our group Sunday morning. The deep, she said, still holds mysteries, like the 15-foot squid that attached itself to a racing sailboat in Australia within the past couple of years. Until then there had been no documented cases of the animal.

She cautioned that ocean harvesting needs to be examined in relation to the recruitment level, the rate at which the sea can regenerate the harvested species. Often that is not the case. Sea urchins are the most recent example. They were overharvested and the industry basically collapsed. On a global basis, 90 percent of the large fish species have been decimated.

There are population levels below which organisms will not reproduce (stress hold density), Kynast said. For example, reproduction in clams will be affected when harvesting reduces their population below a certain number. When the numbers fall below that stress hold density, there is no reproduction, and we wind up having to try to manipulate matters by seeding clam beds.

Aquaculture, the cultivation of water plants and animals for human consumption, was the topic of another talk, this one by Mike Hastings, director of Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center at the University of Maine. Nationwide, 10 billion pounds of fish are consumed in the U.S., and by 2020 the demand will increase by 65 million pounds. Limits on supply will mean there is a 12 billion-pound deficit. We will look to aquaculture to fill that deficit, Hastings said.

In the U.S., channel catfish represent 45 percent of all the fish tonnage farmed. Next is Atlantic salmon (much of it in Maine waters because of the cold water), then oysters, clams, and mussels. Also farmed in the U.S. are trout, hybrid striped bass, alligators, and ornamental fish. Oysters (the same species all the way from Prince Edward Island to Honduras) are prized by many, and Maine oysters are in great demand because of their special taste qualities. (Don’t ask me, I’m not a fan.)

The university is in the process of studying halibut, haddock, cod, sea scallops, and urchins to see if they can be successfully farmed, Hastings said. Maine has great potential for more aquaculture projects because of its clean water, biodiversity, the infrastructure (transportation, processing, and packaging), regulatory machinery, and on-water skills of local fishermen.

While it seems that conflicts surrounding aquaculture projects already in place have captured more than their share of press, Hastings reminded us that there are 2.5 million acres of public water in the state and only 1,200 acres are currently being farmed. Of that acreage, 800 are in fin-fish cultivation.

In the near future the university and the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be expanding the cold water aquaculture research station at Franklin, supplementing the work done at the Darling lab in Walpole and at the lab in Eastport at Washington County Technical College.

And what seminar on coastal use wouldn’t be complete without a session on my favorite topic, Leave No Trace? Michelle Morgenstern, director of environmental education at Chewonki Foundation, provided the leadership for a great review of the seven principles by having seven of us research and present the key elements of these principles. The seven are: plan ahead and prepare, travel and camp on durable surfaces, dispose of waste properly, leave what you find, minimize campfire impacts, respect wildlife, and be considerate of other visitors.

To help ease into the mini-research project, Morgenstern set out slips of paper with faux pas on them and had us pick the ones that most offended us and tell others why. These included such things as illegal fire rings, trees stripped of vegetation, pets off their leash, improper disposal of human waste, hikers who don’t carry maps and get lost, vandalism to historic sites, trash and garbage left behind, or loud and inconsiderate campers.

We wrapped up the weekend’s activities with a five-mile kayak tour, stopping on Russ and Hell’s Half Acre islands. I relished the opportunity to visit Hell’s Half Acre because I was able to check on the tent platform I helped to build there a couple of years ago. The island is one of a handful of public islands in the area, and is managed by MITA. Last weekend MITA was in the area doing the annual spring cleanup, so the little island looked neat and ready for another season. The two tent platforms looked like they’ll weather many more seasons.

Jeff Strout can be reached at 990-8202 or by e-mail at jstrout@bangordailynews.net.