9-11/02/09: Museums and Authors

We met the curator of Nelson's Dockyard museum who gave us full approval to update the Environment exhibit and access to the library and the museum’s display resources. The kids picked a topic each: Jamie chose the mangroves, Alex the beach. They spent time in the museum deciding what to do, time in the library and the internet researching the topics and time on the computer writing captions and fun facts and true/false questions. What an opportunity!

We also met an author called Beth Leonard who was interested in interviewing “cruising kids” for an article she was writing for a magazine. Chris was soooo excited! She wrote one of the books he planned the whole trip around and he couldn’t wait to meet her and talk to her. She interviewed the kids, took some photos and passed on some great advice about seasickness. Beth has circumnavigated the globe a couple of times and has a wealth of wildlife pictures that she uses to lecture to schools around the world. We were privileged to have a private lecture and saw fascinating pictures of icebergs, dolphins, whales and orcas, sea lions and elephant seals -- males fighting, females fighting, pups as they grew at an extraordinary rate over just 3 weeks. Amazing. However we also saw some of the weather they faced around Cape Horn, so I think we’ll be satisfied with the pictures!

Here's a link to her photo gallery: http://bethandevans.smugmug.com