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2010: March-April Sinclair Sailings
2010: February-March Sinclair Sailings
2010: December-January Sinclair Sailings
2009: October-November Sinclair Sailings
2009: September-October Sinclair Sailings
2009: August-September Sinclair Sailings

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Location: LDS Church
26529 Duthie Hill Road
Issaquah, WA 98027

Class Periods:
Each class will have at least 1½ hours to cover the material. We hope to use the last 15 – 30 minutes to sign off Merit Badge blue cards and move to the next class.

8:30 AM Check In
9:00 AM Class Period 1
10:45 AM Class Period 2
12:15 PM Lunch (on your own)
1:00 PM Class Period 3

All merit badges, except Electricity and Electronics, will be taught during each class period.

Merit Badges:

Art
Electronics
Astronomy
Family Life
Citizenship in the Community
Finger Printing
Citizenship in the Nation
Fish and Wildlife Management
Citizenship in the World
Orienteering
Communications
Personal Management
Computers
Photography
Electricity
Veterinary Medicine

Registration: Alpine District. Bring your own blue cards and your own lunch. Online registration deadline: March 23rd, 2010. Classes will be limited in size. Classes that were not filled during online registration can be attended on a first come first serve. No fees or charges—it’s free.

Map: 26529 SE Duthie Hill Road, Issaquah, WA 98029-9137 US

Contact: Gary Yukish
garyy@live.com

Scouts who wish to earn the merit badge are expected to complete the requirements before class. It’s not possible to earn a merit badge from scratch in the time available. Partials will be given where necessary.

Three different options are offered to the Scout. This is a great badge to do in conjunction with an introductory Biology, Botany, or Life Science course.

requirement 1 – flowering plants

There is an excellent graphic and explanation here. The graphic without the labels may be found here.

requirement 4 – grow

Hint: Radishes grow to fruition in as little as 25 days. Plus, they love the cool, wet weather here in the Northwest.

requirement 5 – native plants

Native plants of Washington

Some visit choices for the different options:

Horticulture: Requirement A

The Horticulture option requires a visit to one of the following: a public garden, arboretum, retail nursery, wholesale nursery, production greenhouse, or conservatory greenhouse.

field botany: requirement E

Rare plants in Washington state.

field botany: requirement F4

Visit the Burke Museum Herbarium.

The requirements are:
a. Write ahead and arrange to visit an herbarium at a university, park, or botanical garden; OR, visit an herbarium website (with your parent’s permission). Yeah, we all know the website option is supposed to be for those people with transportation issues. You’ll get a lot more from it if you visit the website AND the physical location. The UW’s Herbarium is conveniently right next to the Medical Center.

b. Tell how the specimens are arranged and how they are used by researchers. If possible, observe voucher specimens of a plant that is rare in your state. They’re arranged by family, genus, and species. The most common use is by people writing books.

c. Tell how a voucher specimen is mounted and prepared for permanent storage. Tell how specimens should be handled so that they will not be damaged. They’re stored in acid-free, lignin-free paper. While we were there, one volunteer was transferring seeds from thousands of decades-old folded paper into a better quality paper. She had to relabel, by hand, every specimen.

d. Tell about the tools and references used by botanists in an herbarium. Biggest tool they have? A freezer. Yep. Just like you have in your kitchen. They freeze the plants and seeds first to kill bacteria and insects. Very low-tech for a high-tech field!

The web work they’re doing is great! You could spend hours and hours just in the plant identification section. While we were there, Dr. Giblin walked us through several different sections, showing us various ways to search and sort. Who knew there was such diversity in Washington?

This was a very interesting trip. I was surprised at how much there was to know, and can see how someone could make this their life’s mission.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s west coast operations are currently based in Seattle. What a wonderful opportunity for those of us who live here.

Oceanographic Institute

The Marine Operations Center is open for tours by reservation. This tour is brief (less than 60 minutes including a movie), and can easily be combined with a ship tour to get the most out of the trip. Located on the East Side of Lake Union.

USS David Starr Jordan

The David Starr Jordan is a retired research vessel ported at NOAA’s Sand Point facility. A full tour of the three deck ship is available at no charge (tour time is approximately 90 minutes). You will need to pre-arrange tours with Lt. Paul Chamberlain. Scouts’ names need to be made available to security in advance of the tour, and those over 13 should have a photo ID. The tour is mostly inside the ship, although there are very interesting things on the dock and outside as well. There are steep stairs and it is not wheelchair accessible. This is a good tour, especially for those boys who come armed with questions. Lt. Chamberlain is intelligent, engaging, funny, and likely closer to the Scouts’ ages than the SMs . Read Joshua’s field trip report here.

The Sand Point facility is directly north of Warren G. Magnuson park in Seattle.

About a week ago, I went with [some of my troop mates], to go take a tour of a marine research vessel. The ship was called the David Starr Jordan. The type of boat was a NOAA Boat, which can fit 18 passengers and sustain them for approximately a month. The boat has many different types of sensors and equipment, nets and cables for checking the environment by checking air pressure, water pressure, fish populations, gas presences, gas chemical and nutrient levels, weather, and charting depths and topography of the bottom of the ocean. They have many different versions of each type of equipment for getting the best results, such as 10-20 communication radios (2-3 just to talk to people on the boat, and the rest for talking with other boats or communicating with the base/homeport.) They have many different types of collision prevention alarms, a computer screen with report guages directly behind the control room, about 10 different cranes and wenches to lift different instruments and sensors from the bottom of the ocean.

To be safe in stormy weather, or in case the boat is sinking all doors are quick-seal hatches, which have levers all around them for really rough weather. They keep all their emergency equipment, such as fire extinguishers and emergency supplies throughout the ship so that if an emergency is keeping them from getting to the emergency locker, they can still get to supplies to take care of the emergency. The emergency locker is a small room with one of the quick-seal doors that has special emergency equipment such as breathing devices, medical supplies, extra fire extinguishers and tons of tools.

There are metal hatches over the port-holes so that the light from the lower decks will not disturb the driver’s night vision or keep other boats from seeing signaling lights. The engine room always has to have an engineer present. It has an extra little room that has gauges and emergency steering. The amazing thing is that the engineers don’t need a degree to work with the mechanics and electrical devices, but it does require special training. The boat has three different recreation rooms, a huge galley, two repair shops to repair anything from a broken pocket knife to a broken anchor. The medical staff on board the boat use their own cabin as the medical office. All the cabins on the boat are as small as a half bath, and most of them have to share a room with another person. Only 2-3 people on the entire boat get to have a cabin to themselves: the captain, the engineer, and someone else.

The boat’s home port, Sand Point, is the center for all testing and scientific research, such as chemical compositions, what the fish are eating, how old the fish are, and making 3D charts of the ocean, piecing together all the info their boats have recovered. It’s so amazing that all the boats from around the country send their information to Sand Point here in Washington! The facility just bought four new scanning and charting boats, and they own two other medium size boats for charting, weather and fish populations. They also showed us on the field trip a giant four hook crane that can actually drive around, and has two padded, super strong ropes between the four hooks to be able to dry dock or move boats to trucks.

The David Starr Jordan is actually a very old boat, and it started costing them too much money to keep it running. So, now, they are selling it for $x (and it’s as big as our house!) My favorite part of the boat was the helm, with all the buttons, levers, computers, and electronic equipment was so cool! The only bad part about the field trip was that the security was super tight.

Join us for two Tuesdays of a special Snowboarding (Snow Sports) Merit Badge. March is a great time for snowboarding, especially this year! Snow is expected to dump toward the end of February, and March should be sunny with a decent base.

For a special price of $119, you’ll receive eight hours of lessons, equipment rental, and a modified lift ticket. (Note: Money is paid directly to Snoqualmie Summit.)

Tyler Dewey, Snoqualmie Snow Sports Supervisor and Eagle Scout, will be tailoring the lesson directly to the badge.

The plan (subject to modification) is four hours of lessons in the morning [broken into two two-hour sessions], lunch, then practice afterward.
The most difficult requirements are:
* On a moderate slope, demonstrate an ollie, a nose-end grab, and a wheelie.
* Make a controlled run down an intermediate slope and demonstrate the following:
1. Skidded, carved, and jump turns
2. Stops
3. Riding fakie

Most Scouts in reasonable physical condition should be able to perform the required skills after the completion of the eight hours of instruction time.

This activity is limited to Scouts 12 and older. At time of posting, there are seven spots still available in the class. Contact kitsapscouts@gmail.com for further information.

Please note: This is not an official Scout function, troop outing, District or Council event. Just as you might visit your local or state park for Environmental Science, or a horse farm for Animal Science, you’ll be visiting Snoqualmie Summit for Snow Sports. They are simply accommodating our request to tailor the lesson to the badge by adding instruction time and reducing the price.

March 6, 2010 9:00 – 4:00
Chimacum LDS Church
Hwy 19 & Anderson Lake Road
Bring your sack lunch.
Doors open at 8:30 for registration, classes start promptly @ 9:00, ending times vary.
Classes will be filled by pre-registration date. Have a second choice in case first choice is full.

* The Blue Merit Badge Card signed by your Leader is your ticket to get into the class.
* Attendance alone doesn’t earn any merit badge.
* Some requirements may need to be completed outside of class.
* Wear your Scout Shirt & Be Prepared!

Merit Badges

Textile – Stamp Collecting – Scholarship – Collections – Public Speaking – Crime Prevention – Pulp & Paper – American Labor – Reading – Sports – Horsemanship – Golf – Photography – Cinematography

The most current worksheets can be found online at USScouts.

Register today: lbutler@waypt.com
Event questions, Call Kris 437-0115 or Lonnie 765-0328.

prerequisites

American Labor – (9:00-2:30) Requirement 2 – visit website and work on questions.
FULL! Cinematography – (9:00-2:30) Bring $2 for supplies
Collections – (12:30-3:30) Requirement 1 and bring your collection or a portion of your collection.
Crime Prevention – (9:00-12:00) or (1:00-4:00) Requirement 2- Home Inspection & Requirement 4- Neighborhood Inspection
FULL! Golf -(9:00-3:00) Bring your clubs and no coolers or boots are allowed on the course. Scouts golf free, adult golfers are welcome at a minimal charge. Scouts will golf Discovery Bay Golf Course.
FULL! Horsemanship – (9:00-4:00)
Photography – (9:00-12:00) or (12:30-3:30)
Public Speaking – (9:00-3:00)
Reading – (2:30-4:00) Bring completed worksheet anytime from 2:30-4:00.
Scholarship – (9:00-12:00) or (12:30-3:30)
Sports -(9:00-12:00) Requirement 5
Stamp Collecting -(2:30-4:00) Bring your completed requirements and collection anytime from 2:30-4:00
Textiles – (9:00-3:00) Requirement 2 – Bring samples of five different fabrics as described in the requirement.

time schedule

Merit Badges Morning (9:00-12:00) Afternoon (12:30-3:30)
Public Speaking All day class
Cinematography All day class (ends at 2:30)
American Labor All day class (ends at 2:30)
Textiles All day class
Golf All day class
Horsemanship All day class
Photography Session 1 or Session 2
Scholarship Session 1 or Session 2
Pulp and Paper Session 1 only
Sports Session 1 only
Crime Prevention Session 1 or Session 2
Collections Session 2 only
Reading 2:30-4:00 meet with counselor
Stamp Collecting 2:30-4:00 meet with counselor

Merit badges are EARNED; they are not given. Do not shortchange yourself by cutting corners. Read your merit badge book before class, do those requirements that cannot reasonably be done in a clinic setting, and come prepared.

The first thing I had to do was pick up my books and DVD. A 4.5 hour DVD and a 250+ page PADI book later (complete with questions and quizzes that needed to be done), and I was ready for the classroom. We had two classroom sessions and five exams. I got 100% on two of the first three exams and was feeling pretty good about it. And then came the dive tables. One of the women in the class had no problem at all, and got all the answers correct. The rest of us just squeaked by. Thank God for computer programs.

Off to the pool! Two days of practicing in the pool, learning how to deal with various emergencies, playing follow the leader, and demonstrating skills, and we were deemed ready for open water.
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Brrr! The water was so cold in the Sound that when I took my mask off for the mask-clearing skill, it felt like a bunch of hard, little diamonds on my face. The best part was seeing the octopi right in front of me. They aren’t afraid of divers, and are very curious creatures. The cold was the most difficult part of the dives (48 degrees in the water; 42 degrees and raining outside). One of my classmates started to hyperventilate because of the shock of the cold and her nervousness, and she had to come to the surface early. She’s going to redo the open water days in the next months’ class. The rest of us were able to brave the cold. The wetsuits keep you somewhat warm… somewhat. We ran through all the drills in the ocean. The hardest one was taking my weight belt off and putting it back on. My fingers were numb by that point and getting the clasp to hook took a lot of effort (and a little luck!).

Scuba is a great sport. Expensive, but fun. I’d like to dive again, but this time in warm water.

Parent’s note: I was extremely impressed with the instructor, Steve Fornoff. He definitely had a safety-first style of teaching; was firm, but kind; and had an intuitive manner about each student. Even though he is certified and capable of teaching eight students on his own, he brought in a dive-master for each of the pool and ocean sessions; just for safety’s sake. The whole organization is wonderful. They don’t make any money on winter certification (David brought home over $200 worth of gear and books for a $295 class), but do it to make sure people are able to pursue their Scuba dreams. If he had the time, with gas and food figured in, the Sound Dive camp would probably have been the same cost. Both are excellent choices.

The weather and scenery couldn’t have cooperated any better. Within minutes, we were already beginning to strip off layers of jackets and vests as we walked the Spit. Even the tides were on our side, so that we could mostly walk directly on the beach rather than scamper across the rocks and driftwood. Dungeness is the longest natural sand spit in the United States, and juts out 5.5 miles from the Olympic Peninsula and ends at the Dungeness Light, once a manned Coast Guard station that’s now automated and has volunteer guides who live in the old Lighthouse Keeper’s house for a week at a time, year round. There’s a beautiful grass lawn and a fresh water well at the Light. After lunch and a climb up to the top of the Light, we loaded up and hiked back. It was a little over 11 miles round trip, with Dante taking “honors” (if you want to call it that) for hefting the heaviest pack at over 60 pounds. Please don’t ask what he was carrying, but we can all testify that it was natural, organic materials. Staying hydrated was important, as well as making sure our packs fit well and shoes and feet were cared for. Everyone changed out at least their sock liners once we reached the Light, and relaxed our bare feet on the grass while eating lunch and watching the ships sail by on the Strait. It was truly a day to take in the beauty of the Pacific Northwest.

As reported by Crew 1042. Used with permission. Are you interested in an active Venture Crew (for young men and women 14-20) in the Silverdale area? Contact Crew 42 for information.