Weekend Post 02: We Can KNOT Wait

Three days left until sunshine and beach! 

As we anticipate our Wednesday morning (12/5) departure to Eluthera Island, we have all (hopefully) began to pack our suitcases. Including everything from clothes and suits, to sheets and shampoo. As there are many items of all shapes and sizes on the packing list, it is very important to go through it carefully and make sure you are not forgetting anything! ALSO! As Ms. Swain has reminded us several times, bring plastic bags of some sort for wet and dirty clothes! Doing so will be very helpful in terms of keeping our rooms tidy and odor free. In addition, it will help keep things from getting mold and mildew.

As we pack, we may start to realize that we do not have everything we need for the trip. In this case, it would have been and IS important to take a trip to Target or the mall to collect these items. For most of the class, this might entail going to get a waterproof watch, or flashlight and batteries, even simply plastic zip-lock baggies for clothes.

I literally can KNOT! In addition to packing, we have also been practicing our knot tying this weekend! :) What do you mean knot tying? Well, when we are down at the island school, we will need to know how to tie a variety of different knots. The knots that we will need are as follows: square knot, sheet bend, clove hitch, taught line hitch, bowline, slipknot, alpine butterfly loop, half hitch, timber hitch, cleat hitch, barrel hitch, and gasket coil. You can see pictures of some of these below. Thus, this past Friday in class, we were each given a rope, a partner, and links to step-by-step images to show us how to tie all of the knots listed above. The reason we practice this now, is so that by the time we get down to the island school, we will (hopefully) be able to tie them without assistance. At least that is the goal.

Another thing that we are doing this weekend is RESEARCH! We have each been assigned a team and a problem that faces the Bahamas, and our goal for this week is to come up with a stronger definition of the problem. However, before we can do this we must do lots of research. As once we have defined the problem, it will then be our mission to come up with a feasible solution by the end of the intensive. Pretty cool! Nevertheless, it will also require a lot of hard work, planning, and communicating with those who might know better than we might!

In Excitement,

Grace