Coast Guard Station

On Friday Eli's science class got to tour the Coast Guard Station. They usually don't do tours and class visits etc but one of the Coast Guards is the dad of the girls in Eli's class and he did a special tour just for them! I think it was one of the best places Eli has ever visited and he wants to be a Coast guard now! One of the things we learned was that in Canada all the Coast Guards are volunteers and that the Nanaimo Station is the busiest in all of Canada. I was quite surprised by both facts. Although I guess there aren't that many cities along the Coastline of Canada. Anyways they have two boats and the kids were allowed on both of them (even Imogen which she thought was fantastic!) they let the kids all have a turn using the fire hose, talking on the radio, using the loudspeaker, flashing the sirens, they even demonstrated, at a k-2 level the (very high tech) GPS system to the kids and best of all (for Eli anyway) did a rescue demonstration using the pulley/crane thingy (highly technical jargon there!) with the stretcher and a dummy. He talked non-stop all day long about being a Coast Guard one day!

Trying on the Coast guards life vest

Eli climbing onto the boat

Demonstration of GPS system

Eli's turn with the hose

Eli helping to fasten the dummy onto the stretcher

Hoisting it up - Eli was shouting orders to the Coast Guards! He thought he was part of the crew I think. Shouting "bring her up" and other random things like that at the top of his lungs!