Planning takes time and that happened today as Bravo Team did not go out on the water due to the Small Craft Advisory.  After weather observations showed us that wind speeds were in excess of our COI, we had a fun relay where the tasks were to:  don an exposure suit, each team member must tie a bowline, whisper-sing a sea chantey chorus and verse, and name 3 birds and 3 marine mammals we might see out on Port Townsend Bay.

Next we gave the group an initiative called Mars Rover.  One person is blind-folded and they are ‘the rover.’  Another group plays ‘the camera’ and they are only able to see the room and gesture without any words.  Another group plays ‘the microphone’ and they are limited to only seeing the camera’s gestures and are able to use their voice to give the rover direction as to the mission.  Today’s mission was to help rescue the peg-leg bear from it’s hiding spot.  We had two separate missions with a few variations.  Learning to communicate without all of our ‘tools’ challenged us today.

Both were successful and we had a quality debrief after to relate this activity to longboating.  A few students related this by commenting on how it’s easier to accomplish a task when there is clear direction from one voice and how it took trust for the rover to move in the room without sight.  Leadership and communication are pieces of the program we continue to focus on as we prepare for our May longboat journey.

We headed back to the classroom to look at our Environmental Project of building Purple Martin bird boxes for Pt. Hudson.  A clear plan was laid out around setting benchmarks, hashing out details, and continuing to gather more information.  We met with Larry Aase, Maintenance & Construction Manager from Port of Port Townsend out at Day Marker #4.

Bravo Team students represented the Who, What, Why, Where, When and How for Larry and we will partner with the Port as we dig holes and potentially install signage to show people what the bird boxes are and why they are there.  We’re looking at a work day in April.  Stay tuned on more information if you’d like to help!

The usual snack and Moment of Silence happened in the chilly wind.  Class ended with high tide / low tide and a few folks’ thoughts were: we loved the games we played, we made good progress on the environmental project, we loved climbing the tree, we didn’t like not going longboating, our hands were cold, and we had a fun day anyway.

It’s hard to believe it’s already March and we’re excited for the warmer weather and progressing skills as we move into spring.  Thanks for following along!