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I leave my house for work and get called over by two village women awaiting their chance to do business with the chief. The first smiles...

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Spirit Ocean Adventure

Our two-week high school program along the coast of Maine was a huge success. Not only was it the longest program in the (short) history of the ship, but we were sailing in Maine! During the trip, I led a number of fun activities such as Schooner Jeopardy, Elimination, a hike up Acadia Mountain, and classes on Marine Mammals, Gulf of Maine formation, circulation, and biodiversity, Marine Birds, etc. We spent Independence day sailing around Mount Desert Island, pulling into Bar Harbor for fireworks and surprise ice cream sundaes.

Personally, I learned huge amount from this trip. One of the biggest affirmations was trusting my instincts. We had a student with a two-week old cut on his foot. It had healed at the skin level, however, he was in more pain than he had been when it was fresh. I took him to the emergency room and was told there was no infection. After a phone conversation with the ship's doctor, we returned to the ER the next afternoon. Sure enough, infected foot. I still have a hard time not imagining a worst case scenario if we had headed offshore with that foot. It reminds me of the examples from my Wilderness First Responder course.

Throughout the trip, the students and I wrote updates about our activities for the South Carolina Maritime website. These can be viewed at their website. Enjoy!

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