PTMSC's Amazing Volunteers, Part 2

The Port Townsend Marine Science Center is focusing on our impressive volunteer corps during the month of November 2017. Here is our second mini-profile, written by AmeriCorps Citizen Science Coordinator Lily Evanston.

Chas Dowd has been volunteering at Port Townsend Marine Science Center for two years as a docent in the Marine Exhibit as well as a beach naturalist. Chas has always loved salt water. His personal connection to the Salish Sea comes from getting close enough to observe and experience it.  

Chas has sailed it, rowed it, and dove into it, and has found every minute of it fascinating.

“If you want to find weird and unusual, go down 18 inches in salt water. You’ll get all the weird and unusual you can handle,” he says.

Chas and his wife Debby have taken their 17-foot rowboat just about everywhere in the Salish Sea and had amazing encounters with nature and wildlife. One time, he says, a baby seal nearly climbed into their boat -- and would have -- if its mom hadn’t intervened!

Chas is a great story teller, so come find him on a day he’s in the Marine Exhibit if you want to hear more about his adventures with the Salish Sea and all the weird and unusual things he’s discovered in it.

During the month of December the Port Townsend Marine Science Center is raising money to support place-based, people powered, hands-on learning.Your donation will fund activities that inspire, such as youth summer camps, beach walks, touchable tide pools, and tours of the Orca Exhibit. Please send your gift or donate online at www.ptmsc.org by December 31st to receive a tax deduction.

Interested in becoming a PTMSC volunteer and working alongside inspired volunteers like Chas Dowd? Fill out our Volunteer Application! Questions? Contact Volunteer Coordinator Gabriele Sanchez at 360-385-5582 X 120, or send an email to volunteer@ptmsc.org.