Monday November 12, 2007

by - Anne Lovett

Hey, it's course start day! Seacrest High School in Naples sent 4 crew of students. We have some new faces working and some returning staff. The pairings are Marya and Chavo, Dave G. and Jo Jo, Alan C. and Ariana, Mark and The General. We have a great group of folks here! Julie is doing a great job herding these cats. What a wonderful time was had by all during pre course. We had a smooth food pack out the first day and Anne had everything available, except for one oddball request of relish. Lots of folks were using the contact paper to make cards to go out on course. Talk of recipe cards/cookbook for the everglades is going around. Loading party the second day and I think nothing was forgotten. We'll find out during debrief. We have new equipment this year, VHF radios are now issued gear and as such the safety brief includes a show and tell. The radios are great as they have a distress signal if one needs to contact the coast guard as well as being a weather radio. Folks are learning the alphabet all over again. It is good to work for November Charlie Oscar Bravo Sierra. The staff also were able to try the expired flares. That is always a good time!

Course start was over at the Everglades National Park. The students were a bit late for the 10 am. course start time but better late than never. When the students were assembled in a circle Julie gave a bit of NCOBS history and a talk on the 4 pillars and how the students can try on these ideas while in the field. They then broke off into their crews and began their journey. It was amazing that even though we have a skeleton homefolk group we were able to pull off 4 mobile course starts. This made Carlie the dog so happy as she was able to run around the island all day long!

A huge thank you! goes out to: Luiz who is working so hard in the roll of top logi/site, Jeff who is trying to get Bahamas, budget, program and logi work done each day and Julie who is picking up lots of the slack logi-ing, airport runs, CD-ing...This fall has been full of days where I don't know how we get so much accomplished and the time off is cherished.