New Twist on Boat School

Well, it’s not a completely new twist on “boat school” as we tried a co-op boat school session in Barra de Navidad (see “Same Bat Time” entry).  On Friday, we got a group of about 12 boat kids together and ran a “kid seminar” on the upcoming trip that most of them will be making to the Marquesas. 

We went over the map and the kids drew in the equator (on the rare Pacific centered map – hard to find).  Our old dock neighbors from Seattle, Brian and Erin on Delos did some research and did a quick role playing demo of what a King Neptune Ceremony might be like as we all cross the equator and go from being pollywog sailors to mighty shellbacks.  I showed how volcanic islands form and then become atolls (Marquesas are newer volcanic islands and the Tuamotos are atolls).  Annie from Oso Blanco used the map to show the kids how the island groups were settled and she had a great time which used an additional 15 feet of dock line to illustrate just how long Polynesia has been populated.  She couldn’t fit the dinosaurs on her time line as they would have shown up somewhere twenty some odd miles from where we were!!!  Courtesy of Behan on Totem, we also learned a few words in Marquesan because even though French is the official language, we found out that it might not be some of the islanders favorite way to communicate – they are rumored to prefer their own languages to French. 

 

Brian as King Neptune  

All in all, no matter what form the kids’ boat school programs take, it seems like they enjoy getting together and doing some group learning.  Next Topic:  BOAT SAFETY