With yet another Small Craft Advisory posted, Bravo Team spent the day ashore. Luckily, we had plenty to do as we wrap up our environmental project and get ready for our journey (we leave in 10 days!!!).

We started class talking about a typical day on journey– what does it look like to meet our basic needs of food, water, and shelter while living on a longboat together? Then we went through our packing list, with Sonia pulling out each piece of gear and explaining why it’s important. Finally we talked about the clothesline anchor process- how to we get ourselves and our boat to shore?

Then we headed out to install our finished Purple Martin bird boxes! Last Sunday we came together, with the help of many volunteers, to build the boxes in the NW Maritime Center shop.

A second group of us drilled the posts and uprights, then headed over to Point Hudson the dig holes, mix concreted, and set the posts.

Extra special thanks to Jim Poore for heading up the shop team, Arrow Lumber for donating the materials, and Waterfront Pizza for a delicious lunch! We also enjoyed having volunteers Kevin, Michelle, Joseph, and Amos join us for the day.

Today we screwed the boxes to their uprights and bolted those onto the posts. The doors are open and we hope the soon to arrive Purple Martins stop and investigate soon. We don’t expect the birds to nest this year, but hope to have the boxes used next year.

After our snack and Moment of Silence on the beach, we headed back to the classroom where we all recieved our new Bravo Team sweatshirts! While most of us were sad that we couldn’t get on the water, we all enjoyed being outside in the sunshine and getting to see our bird boxes installed.