Here were some of the things we saw on our treasure hunt:
Spanish moss...
The beach...
The slip...
The lighthouse (which was tooooooooooooting pretty loudly by that time, because it was drizzling and the fog was coming in)...
A stone wall (some of these date back to the 1700's-- they were put there to keep the sheep contained)...
And our favorite stop: Butt Rock! Look, the baggie even calls it that!
Next, we had a little mutiny, and the adults decided that all of the kids were garbage and stuffed them into trashbags, and as soon as we get back to shore we're going to stuff them into the nearest dumpster. And then we're going to have a party!
Just kidding! This was a part of a lesson on survival. You can use trash bags as emergency shelters, which keeps the most important parts of your body nice and warm. Just make sure you have a good-sized hole for your nose and mouth so you don't suffocate.
I wish I had gotten a video of the kids scuttling around the room in these, hermit-crab-style.
And then... well... then adults were asked to volunteer to take part in a survival situation. I very hesitantly raised my hand, but Elaine laughed and said, "I hope you don't mind getting wet, Miss Newell, because you are going to go for a little swim!"
These are survival suits, for people who need to go into the water (say, if your ship sinks). The suits are waterproof (at least, they are supposed to be, as I found out!) and the only part of you that is uncovered is a little bit of your face. Getting them on was just like getting into footie pajamas, but they were made out of this very heavy neoprene material... imagine getting into a thick suit made out of the same stuff mousepads are made of!
The funny thing is that all ships that go more than 3 miles offshore need to have one of these suits for everybody on board, and you need to get into your suit in less than a minute in case your boat is sinking. It took us a lot more than a minute to get into them--and we needed lots of help!
We had to blow into these tubes to inflate the pillows on our back, which was weird. You can see Mibee blowing into her straw.
Look, it's an Elmo convention! Or a bunch of red astronauts!
The biggest problem was that my gloves were inside out, and my arms were too short to push the fingers out from the inside-- so it looks like I am doing something very bad with my finger! (That's Mr. Stevens saying "don't raise your hand up!")
And into the 47-degree water we went!
I can't put my legs down!
In an emergency you want to huddle together like this:
Or if you want to go somewhere, like to a bell buoy, you'd clasp yourselves together like this to make a caterpillar, then move your arms like rowboat oars.
We weren't that coordinated.
I promise you I am not trying to be rude!
My suit started to leak very badly so I needed to get out of the water. I wasn't cold, since the suit keeps you nice and toasty! I was just very tired from trying to swim in that heavy suit.
Mr. Stevens, Katie and Mibee jumped in to see what it would feel like to jump in with those suits. It's a weird feeling, like the suit tightens all around you (like when you wear a rubber glove and stick it into a sink full of water).
Mibee was very uncoordinated getting up the ladder, and I am laughing at her because she ended up crawling across the dock like a baby.
(My thanks to JH who took all of these fantastic pictures!)
Next up: Going Home.
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