Sea Scouts - Future Acorns

September 03, 2010

Last night, I spoke at the Sea Scouts, Fifth Annual William I Koch Cup which this year is being jointly hosted by the Coast Guard Academy and Connecticut College which are located across a highway from each other in New London CT. I was told that Connecticut College used to be all women and the Academy used to be all male but their convenient location allowed for plenty of social interaction at 'dances and such'.

We have come a long way. It was wonderful to see such diversity in this elite group of Sea Scouts which happens to be a coed division of Boy Scouts of America. This was one of the natural points in my presentation. Another topic that dominated the questions and answers was safety. We discussed how important safety harnesses are - at all times, as well as medical care and stitches and simple surgery offshore. I included the story of French single-handed sailor Jimmy who bit his tongue off during a jibe and had to sew it back on with advice being given over the SSB radio. I was greeted by a lot of ewwwes. I went on to explain that he must have done a good job because a few years later, my friend had kissed him and couldn't notice the scar at all. Lots of giggles :-)

Overall the energy of the evening was plentiful enough to fuel my 3 hour return trip to Oyster Bay, via Ferry and highway. What a cool group of young people and very likely some future Acorns (http://wwwoakcliff.org) will come from this group.