July 11, 2011 Ocean Safety Training

Water Safety Training!
5:00AM Breakfast
7:00AM Board bus for the ocean
(I just put the times here to impress you with our sacrifice.)

We rode about an hour, and all along the paved, 2 lane roads were impoverished villages, crammed right up against the pavement. It was Sunday, early AM, but people were out and bustling. They smiled and waved and called greetings as we went. It was like looking into peoples living rooms.
Once at the ocean, we were to demonstrate our proficiency to save ourselves in an ocean emergency, As per our instructions:
We donned my gov't issued life vest and inflated it.
We waded out into the ocean and climbed into an old, beaten-up island outrigger, along with 10 others.
We went out from shore about 20 yards.
We dropped off the boat into the foaming brine, first off one side, then the other, so as not to tip the boat. Our vests have little lights on the shoulders, which alight as soon as the vest gets wet. We looked like bobbing ETs.
We gathered and linked arms to practice awaiting rescue, then broke and swam back to the boat and climbed back into the boat, the edge of which is about 3ft above the water.  Getting back into the outrigger boats-imagine manatees climbing into a pick-up.

The beach we trained at.

I did it! Cool!