Pool Practical

Our last day of Basic Safety Training Week was about personal survival at sea so we had a pool practical that evening at a local college pool. First we had to don these orange gumby suits in 2 minutes, here's Ray finishing up.

Then we each had to jump in the pool in a certain manner and 'swim' to each other to do a huddle and then to make a train. I was having quite a bit of difficulty staying upright and kept flipping either onto my back or onto my face. Then I started laughing because what else could you do? Then when we made the train I kept laughing the whole way through the exercise so here we are with Ray in front, two friends inbetween and then me, 4th person from the front, laughing of course.

We were finally able to take the gumby suits off for our next exercise. Here I am pulling the anchor of the life raft, and still laughing it appears. Our final exercise of the night was to flip the life raft from upside down to right side up. Everyone in our class was able to do this though it took me two tries to get in the right position to get it to flip.

The next morning we had our final class and then two days later we flew out of the Dallas airport for Cotonou, Benin.