05 Jul Diving In

This Week at SF Maritime was another in which I experienced a number of “firsts”! First on the Firsts List is that I went kayaking. A few weeks out of the summer SF Maritime partners with San Francisco State University for special, invitation only, kayaking outings with community organizations in Aquatic Park Cove: home to a number of sea birds and marine mammals but also two hundred year old clubs, one for swimming and one for rowing. Just about everyday this week I was able to go out in the water and learn with them not only how to kayak but to build effective and clear communication skills. All of the kayaks are either double or triple person kayaks, so being able to work together was key to staying afloat, especially on the triple person kayaks which many people had a hard time on. Another cool thing (and 2nd first of the week!) I got to experience was working in the park’s small boat shop where I got  to work on was helping build a replica yawl boat that will be done in time (hopefully) for SF Maritime’s NPS Centennial Celebration. The small yawl will be part of a larger restoration project that’s been happening on the C.A. Thayer. a wooden-hulled, three-masted schooner, designed for carrying lumber. She was built in 1895 in Northern California. The yawl was used as a ferry from the Thayer to shore. What’s also really cool about this particular aspect of the project is that they are building the yawl from plans that were digitally extrapolated from 3 archival images of the Thayer itself, a great example of how the archive in general can be used to reconstruct history.