Land yachts Sea Scout style

Caught a couple of videos of the scouts sailing their land yachts on Thursday night, thought I would share

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Otaki Forks Chill Out Christmas Camp

Well, let me tell you a story.  Once upon a time there were a group of scout leaders, who being keen on traditional scouting activities like camping and tramping decided they would like to share their fun with another bunch of scouts.  Happily they picked us as the lucky invitees.

Negotiations began in September.  Being a sea scout troop, all these activities have to be held around our normal schedule of regattas.  And at this time of year, they come thick and fast.

After much too-ing and fro-ing between us the dates were settled and the location agreed and the programme was aligned and the menu deemed satisfactory (Actually, Tina told us what all this would be and we said "Yay!")

And so it began on Friday evening, arriving at Otaki Forks camp ground, we set up our tents, decorated for Christmas and settled down to meet all our contemporaries in the other troop.

Saturday

Saturday began very slowly.  This was a Chill Out Camp after all and everyone was up by about 8 and had breakfast.  Scrambled egg and bacon - gets us all going every time.

This was followed by a good game of soccer out in front of the tents.  It pretty soon became quite clear that I had chosen the team of better sports persons, as, for every goal that was scored against us we doubled our efforts to get one in return.

We then took a short walk to orient ourselves in the camp site (read: find the swimming hole!), before all getting ourselves ready to do the mornings tramp up to the old Otaki Forks Boilers.  The walk was done at a leisurely pace and took a whole 20 minutes to get up there!

We did have a tricky bit where a slip had taken out a small section of track to negotiate, but easily done for a group of scouts.

Lance gave us a short talk on the history of the area and the reason why there is an old steam boiler, nearly 100 years old, sitting out in the open in the middle of the bush!

After a short refreshment break, we took the track back to the camp site.  We took an obligatory group shot in front of the information board.

(left to right - back row: Thomas, Matt, Hamish, Alfie, Jamie, Fletcher
middle row: Connor, Laurie, Jasse, Quinn, Daniel, Marcus
sitting: Penny, Pebbles, Rosie, Adam, Zac, Calvin, ..., Connor)

We even sang some Christmas Carols while waiting.  Mostly it was "Last Christmas", but when it came to videoing it, everyone got shy and all we could get was "Jingle Bells"

Then came a quiet lunch of mac & cheese back at camp followed by swimming.

The excitement of swimming in a flowing river was only exceeded by the fun found in finding new and more creative ways to enjoy this new pleasure.

The temperature at this point felt like it was in the mid 20's and deserved a fair amount of time cooling down.  However, more fun was in store:  Catapults, not just any catapults though, water balloon catapults!

The practice tennis balls got VERY accurate, with one of the teams able to put them through the triangle of the others catapult with almost every shot.  The balloons brought everything to a new level.

Then it was back to the river for another dip as the afternoon just seem to be getting hotter.

Even our lovely leaders joined in the fun!

Then came the discovery at the top of the section of river we were swimming in of a small rapid that gave a short but fun ride.

"Christmas Dinner" - the excuse for a fantastically impressive meal to be served to a bunch of scouts in the middle of the bush - meant everyone was looking forward to dinner.  A few games of "Nuke Ball" - a new game the scouts taught us leaders - entertained us until the dinner as ready and then we were blown away:-

• Roast Leg of Lamb, marinated in rosemary and Moroccan spice and then slow roasted, served with a mint yogurt sauce
• Roast Beef - with traditional gravy
• Roast vegetables - potatoes, pumpkin, carrots - all grilled in garlic

I think that would be impressive for a home Christmas Dinner.  It's all the more impressive that Tina & Izzy, turned this out off a BBQ and a Pizza oven in a campsite!  Even the tables were decorated.

After dinner came a visit from “Heidi Claus” offering lollies off a Christmas tree

Saturday ended well with some quite games of cards before heading off to bed.  The outstanding part of the evening, was that while we were telling some scouts to turn off lights and go to sleep, others in the group could already be heard snoring!

Sunday

Sunday began with a few early morning cloud bursts, just enough to damp everything but it didn't take long to warm up and allow things to dry.  A Scouts Own, lead by one of Waikanae's senior scouts, moment of seriousness and contemplation before starting into the next level of fun was followed by bags being packed.

Another intense game of Nuke Ball followed with various teams opposing each other - Ngati Toa vs Waikanae; Patrol Leaders and Venturers vs everyone else.

Tents were packed and returned to bags, and some equipment made ready to pack.

Lunch was a quick hot dogs.  Then one of the scouts dared to challenge a leader.  The terms were water at close proximity.  The scout, bless her, thought one water bottle was enough.  Little did she know!

At lunch, we did have a sudden scare, when the gazebos that made up the mess area were caught in a strong gust of wind and lifted off the ground a couple of metres.  That was the one and one blast of that strength, but we decided to bring all the gazebos down after that and pack the equipment.

Then back to swimming again.  More rapid running, jumping from rocks and enjoying the cool water.  Due to the cooler temperatures, this session was a little shorter than previous ones.

Both scouts and leaders were completely packed up and ready to go home by 2:30pm.  All thoroughly happy and the camp was a great success.

A huge thank you to Izzy and Tina for all the catering and background organisation and Lance and Steve and Robin and Vanessa, who all gave up their weekends to ensure the scouts all had a brilliant time.

Heres to doing it again next year!

There are more pictures here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZrSQuAatRSxaFqWK7

Derrick

Petone Regatta

This years Petone Regatta was challenging.  The highlight for me was the brave young juniors who, in the face of strong gusty winds, decided to give it a try anyway and went out and sailed.  One of the two sunburst crews actually finished quite well, while the others failed to start due to an equipment failure.  Unfortunately I got no photos of the event, but below are the results of the races that did run.

Date: 2019-11-24
Location: Petone foreshore
Status: Terminated - weather
Water temp: 18.00C
Average wind: 18.00kt
Predominant wind direction: NNW

Attendance

Age Group	Number
Junior	28
Intermediate	20
Senior	20
Adult	16

Group Points

Group	Points
Britannia	16
Eastern Bays	0
St James	36
Ngati Toa	16
Paraparaumu Beach	0
Kotuku	0
Westshore	0

SAILING

SUNBURST	1st	2nd	3rd
Junior	St James	NTSS	Britannia
Intermediate
Senior
Open

CUTTER	1st	2nd	3rd
Junior
Intermediate
Senior	St James	Britannia	NTSS
Open

ROWING

	1st	2nd	3rd
Junior	St James	NTSS	Britannia
Intermediate	St James	Britannia	NTSS
Senior	St James	Britannia
Open	St James	NTSS

Painting banana boxes for jamboree

This week the Scouts painted their banana boxes for Jamboree.  Every Scout and leader will take have two boxes.  We use the boxes because they fit well into the (really tight) space in the truck taking our gear to Jamboree and then they fit easily under the camp stretchers to keep tents tidy and everyone's gear easy to find.

The Scouts not going to Jamboree helpfully painted boxes for Leaders (including one for Derrick which says in bright orange letters "I am a girl".)

2019 Pauahatanui Inlet Cleanup

Every year the Guardians of the Inlet organise a cleanup of the Pauahatanui Inlet.  This year we have a fantastic turn out of scouts to help out with cleaning up our environment.  We found all sorts of wonderful rubbish that pollutes our waterways, from tyres found and labouriously rolled back by Alfie and Gabi, to old drain pipes found by Ruby and Ciara. Lots of bits of plastic and old bottles and glass were retrieved and sent off to the landfill where they can be better dealt with.

We split into two groups, so that with the incoming tide, the younger Scouts and Cubs were kept in Ivy Bay to clean the surrounds, while the older scouts trekked to the end of Golden Point to clean up from there all the way back to Ivy Bay.  Both sets of Scouts (and Cubs) worked really well and between us we filled 6 bags of rubbish and a tyre!

The younger Scouts looking through the high tide rubbish for plastics and other bits of rubbish

Will, Hamish, Harry, Alfie and Rosie completing the last bit of the Golden Point to Ivy Bay beach

Gathering the rubbish bags (and tyre) to return to Browns Bay.

As a resident of the area that directly benefits from these efforts, I applaud and thank the scouts for their efforts and look forward to doing it with you again.

More pictures here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/yAFK4DJRTt5gfPrY7

Onepoto Regatta 2019

This labour weekend we kicked off the Regatta season with the usual style.  The Onepoto regatta is a full weekend of all the Sea Scout major activities: Sailing, Rowing, Kayaking, Iron Scout and Seamanship.  We also did our usual camp on the domain over night.  This year a change in dinner providers also saw a change in menu, with the Ngati Toa parents excelling themselves in producing what looked to me like 100+ pizzas.

Unfortunately not many photographs were taken of the events, but those that we do have are here

Ngati Toa Juniors, winning the rowing

Results look like this:

SAILING

SUNBURST	1st	2nd	3rd
Junior	NTSS	St James	Britannia
Intermediate	Britannia	NTSS	St James
Senior	St James	NTSS	Paraparaumu Beach
Open	St James	Paraparaumu Beach	NTSS

CUTTER	1st	2nd	3rd
Junior	St James	Britannia	NTSS
Intermediate	NTSS	Britannia	Westshore
Senior	St James	Britannia	NTSS
Open	St James	Paraparaumu Beach	NTSS

ROWING

	1st	2nd	3rd
Junior	NTSS	St James	Britannia
Intermediate	St James	Westshore	Britannia
Senior	St James	Britannia	NTSS
Open	St James	Britannia	NTSS

KAYAKING

	1st	2nd	3rd
Junior	NTSS	Westshore	St James
Intermediate	Britannia	NTSS	Westshore
Senior	St James	NTSS	Britannia

IRON SCOUT

	1st	2nd	3rd
Junior	NTSS	Westshore	St James
Intermediate	NTSS	Britannia	Westshore
Senior	St James	Britannia	NTSS
Open	-	-	-

SEAMANSHIP

	1st	2nd	3rd
Junior/Int	St James	Britannia	Westshore
Senior	St James	NTSS	Britannia

New Sea Scout Booklets

Brand new booklets have been  published to help us consolidate our knowledge of scouting, especially Sea Scouting.  The link has been created as a permanent page in the Important Info section on the right:

Have a look and see what you can learn

Cosgrove Gold 2019

Cosgrove Gold Course 18 -20 October 2019

This weekend Adam, Liam, Gabi, Alfie, Harry and Hamish took part in the Kapiti Coastal Zone Cosgrove Gold course.  Cosgrove Gold is a course for our senior Scouts, where they learn - and more importantly get to practice, managing and leading in an outdoor setting.

We met up on a rainy Friday evening at the Otaki A Frame, where we joined 12 more Scouts from around the Zone, as well as the Lance, Ben and Paul who (along with Derrick and I) were overseeing the course.

The first evening was a classroom session.   The Scouts were divided into their patrols for the weekend  and worked through the planning and paperwork necessary for any activity.   The focus was on trip planning, gear planning, menu planning as well as safety and risk management.

 

It was a pretty intense few hours, and finished up with a "Dragon's Den" where each patrol reported back on how they would manage the next days' activities.   Here are the Dragons at work:

Saturday morning dawned grey and damp....

Each patrol collected the supplies they had selected and we headed up into the Otaki Gorge to the Otaki Forks road end to begin the tramp.  

Occasionally the rain stopped.  But not for long. 

Navigation and route finding was a key part of the course, but Alfie showed how it was done, with a clear sense of where to turn at every intersection.   

The rivers were very high after a couple of days of rain, but there were good solid bridges when we needed them.

However even some of the little streams were pretty interesting

The rain continued, but, as we say, there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes.   And everyone was well kitted out for a day in the bush. 

By a very circuitous (but thoroughly planned) route we arrived at Parawai Lodge, where the Scouts set out building some shelter for the night.  Mostly successfully.

It was still pretty stormy however, so we made some additions to the hut - and used some man-made options  - which in the end was where the Scouts slept.

Derrick did sterling work lighting the fire with wet wood  (although he did eventually concede defeat and sourced some of the left over Ngati Toa pallet wood from the A frame) while Scouts prepared some pretty tasty burritos for dinner.    There was an extended, and increasingly noisy game of Scouting Charades, followed by several rounds of Mafia  (which I understood was a quiet game - apparently not....)

Everyone slept soundly on the deck outside  (or at least, I didn't hear anything from my mattress on the bunk in the hut.  Which is essentially the same thing...).

Sunday morning dawned grey and rainy..... 

and we breakfasted on pancakes and bacon.  

Gabi demonstrated her serious pancake flipping skills, and somehow the boys managed to persuade her to cook their pancakes too.

We completed some activities (which I will keep quiet for the sake of Scouts who will do the course in the future), before a serious fire wood collecting effort  - paying it forward to future users of the hut, and the short walk back to the cars, and drive back to the A frame. 

Where the rain had stopped at last.

All of the Scouts were awarded a swag of badges (which I am sure they will have sewn on by now!) including the coveted Cosgrove Gold award, which they can wear with pride.

Well done to all the Scouts  - it is a real achievement, and some great skills learned and demonstrated that will really help you to manage and lead your own adventures in the future.  BRAVO

Nick