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EXPED 2020 1
COURSE ELEMENTS Course Prep
Moving in Place: Exercises to get you ready Pack it in: Gear Tips & Tricks HIOBS in the Stacks: Recommended Reading List
Getting Underway
Hitting the Trail Trail Map: Course Locations Recipes for the Trail Daily Journal Feet over the Gunwale Tending the Garden
Mini Solo: Letter to Yourself Don’t forget to look at the stars
Final
Staying Green: Safety Director Julia Makowski’s Stress Continuum Homeward Bound
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Course Prep
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MOVING IN PLACE: EXERCISES TO GET YOU READY Prepared by Sydney Crispin, Development Coordinator & Former HIOBS Instructor
Test your physical preparedness for expedition.
2 Minute Challenge Complete as many reps as possible in 2 minutes. Rest between each challenge set. Aim for 2-5 minutes of rest period.
2 min rest
Sit Up
2 min rest
Push Up
2 min rest
Burpee
Air Squat
Endurance Challenge
1-3 mile timed run
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1-3 mile weighted walk/hike
Weight a backpack with rocks, dirt, sandbags, etc. Aim for a weight of 10-20lbs.
Join us Saturday May 16 at 9am EST for a Run & Dip Event! more details to come
PACK IT IN: GEAR TIPS & TRICKS Day Adventures 1-Gallon Zip Lock Bag: use to keep items dry or wet items separated from dry items. Also, can be used as a spare trash bag to pack out any litter you might find. Buff or Bandana: endless uses! Washrag, sweat band, head covering. Basic First Aid Kit: a small prepacked one that you can throw into whatever bag you are using. Hydration Pack: drink on the move and ensure you are staying hydrated throughout the day.
Multiday Adventures Sleeping Bag Liner: make your own with an old sheet, cotton, or silk. Recipes: pick some favorite meals and write them on a note card and pack in a water proof bag. Helps with your meal pack out ahead of the adventure and ensures anyone can help make the meals. Trash Bag: to use as a pack cover during storms, pack liner to keep items dry in your pack, separate wet and dry items, or as a trash bag to practice leave no trace. High or Low Package: pick a special snack—like candy or donuts or chips—and save until you reach either your lowest moment of the trip, maybe during a thunder storm or when you slip and fall in the mud, or when you have the best moment of the trip, you see a bald eagle or summit the tallest peak, and break out your special treat! ;-)
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HIOBS IN THE STACKS: RECOMMENDED READING LIST A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
Here if you Need Me, Kate Braestrup
Sailing Alone Around The World, Joshua Slocum
A Wild Way to Eat, Euell Gibbons
Hurricane Kitchen, Rick Perry
South, Ernest Shackleton
About This Life, Barry Lopez
Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
Silent Spring, Rachel Carson
Among The Northern Hills, W.C. Prime
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
To Sail Beyond The Sunset, Susan St. John
Boys in the Boat, Daniel James Brown
Lost on a Mountain in Maine, Donn Fendler
The Starship and The Canoe, Kenneth Brower
Buried in the Sky, Peter Zuckerman
Mind in the Waters: A Book to Celebrate the Consciousness of Whales and Dolphins, Joan McIntyre
Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose
Endurance, Alfred Lansing First You Have to Row a Little Boat, Richard Bode Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela Duckworth
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Moby Dick, Herman Melville National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region, National Audubon Society
Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches, John Hodgman Walden, Henry David Thoreau We Took to the Woods, Louise Dickinson Rich Wildness, Jeremy Charles
Getting Underway 7
HITTING THE TRAIL You all come together to set your intention for the day; a chance to share information, discuss plans, give feedback, and perhaps share a reading to set the tone.
Helium Stick
Swamp Crossing
Goal is to lower the stick to the ground. Grab a broom or mop and have each person hold out their arms and use only their index fingers to touch the stick. Lay the Helium stick down over everyone’s fingers and reminder that everyone’s fingers must be touching the stick at all times without pinching or grabbing it. Watch what happens :)
Find an open area and set a start zone and end zone (obstacles are encouraged). Set a course of “islands” and get everyone across the swamp. Tip: islands can be different shapes and size. Couch cushions, paper plates, pillows, or shoes!
Back-to-Back Stand Up
Raisin Eating Contest
Pair up with someone of similar height. Sit backto-back on the floor with your arms interlocked (behind your back). Stand up!
Eat a raisin as slowly as possible. Time yourselves and see how slowly it can be done.
Tip: push through your legs and into your partner for support. Bonus if you can stand up and sit back down.
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TRAIL MAP: COURSE LOCATIONS OK, crew, here's the plan. It is time to get underway, and since this is virtual, we're going to be visiting some all time HIOBS favorites. Find these now on Google Earth:
+ Wheeler Bay Basecamp + Cross Island
Add to this page: small screenshots from Google earth. Student quote.
+ Old Speck Mountain + Mahoosuc Notch + Marshall Point Lighthouse + Cape Sable + HIOBS Florida Basecamp + HIOBS Newry Basecamp + John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park
Click to open Google Earth map
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Start Exploring
RECIPES FROM THE TRAIL: COOKBOOK Here are some tried and true HIOBS favorites, and don’t be afraid of the sizes—we know you might now have 13 people to feed right now, so you can either cut down on the ingredients, or freeze some for future meals! Mashed Chickpea Salad Serves 13
Spices: Salt and Pepper
Chickpea and Potato Curry Serves 13
Ingredients: Carrots - 3, shredded Chickpeas (Garbanzo) - 7 cans, drained Celery - ½ bunch, chopped small Apple - 2, chopped small Onion - 1, chopped small Pitas - 4 packages Mustard - 10 spoonfulls Garlic - A few cloves, cut small, minced Lemon - 1, juiced
Directions: Drain chickpeas. Shred carrots, chop apples, onion, and celery into small bits. Put all ingredients into a bowl/pot. Add chickpeas and blend/mash in the bowl. Mix thoroughly with the lemon juice, 10 spoonfulls of mustard, 2 spoonfulls of minced garlic, and salt and pepper. Serve on pita bread
Ingredients: Rice - 3.5 cups Vegetable Bouillon - 10 cubes Potatoes - 7 lbs, chopped Chickpeas (garbanzo) - 3 cans, drained Curry Paste - 16 oz. Canned Peas - 2 cans, drained Cauliflower - 1 head, chopped small Coconut Milk - 3 cans Garlic Powder - Spice capful Onions - 2, chopped Spices: Garlic Powder Salt and Pepper - 1 spice capful, to taste
Directions: We follow the recipe on the Ingredients: back of the Nellie & Joes bottle! 3 egg yolks, beaten Which you can find here. Except, 1 can sweetened condensed milk we make our own crust, and ½ cup Nellie & Joe’s Key Lime we cook the pie in a pan on our Juice propane stove top on the pulling 1 package graham crackers boats :). So get out your pocket (crushed and smushed into the rocket and see if you can cook 10 bottom of a pie pan) this one up in your backyard! Florida Keys Key Lime Pie
Directions: Add rice, 10 cups water, 10 boullion cubes into large pot. Bring to a simmer and cover. Let simmer for 5 minutes. Add potatoes, chickpeas and onions. Cover and let simmer for another 15 minutes. Add in remaining ingredients except peas and more water if it’s dry. Cover and let cook until vegetables are tender, and rice is cooked (about 5-10 minutes). Before serving, add canned peas.
Food prepared with love and joy nourish those who eat it on a deeper level than protein and vitamins. This seems obvious in a family situation, but it is equally true when you are cooking for scores of people. When you are selected to cook for a group, you become a leader. You have the power to improve the physical and mental health of everyone you serve. If you cook with love and joy, you can experience your position as a cook as one of great influence not of drudgery. Your power as a cook can be a healing power. — Rick Perry, Hurricane Kitchen
DAILY JOURNAL The following are excerpts from Susan St. John’s book To Sail Beyond the Sunset, which is a brief history of Hurricane Island Outward Bound School—the first OB sailing program in the U.S.—and is filled with funny and beautiful stories like these from our earliest staff and instructors. When I asked Susan how her time at HIOBS prepared her for this current pandemic, she wrote back: Solo? On my first three-day solo, I began to learn how to live with myself. As a widow living by myself, it turns out this solo is a good practice for Covid! Living Outward Bound prepared me for the unexpected. These times, all times, give us the unexpected! Cheers, Susan
Everybody Always Helped with Everything
Who Knows What People Can Do?
Everybody always helped with everything. When the food boat came in from Rockland, everybody went down and created a line to pass the food. No one cared who was the boss and who was a flunkey; everybody was there doing it, and doing it cheerfully
Once at the morning dip, there was a sixty-somethingyear-old grandmother who could not jump off the pier. Every day we rooted for her: “Come on, you can do it.” And she said, “I’ll try tomorrow,” but never did. On the last day, she tottered her way out to the edge of the pier, stood there shaking, pivoted around backwards, leaped off and did a back flip. “Oh, that felt much better,” she said, and added, “Well, I used to be a gymnast.” Who knows what people can do.
When there was something to be done, you just had to call for volunteers. Nobody said, “Why me?” or, “It’s not my turn,” or, “Let somebody else do it.” People jumped at it. It was a wonderful feeling to live in a community where everybody was proud of what was going on, and everybody was anxious to help and do what needed to be done. Bob Rheault 1971
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Tino O’Brien 1971
My Body Responded to that New Life We lived outdoors, as a watch of twelve students and two instructors, a convoy of three watches; convoys and cooks and climbers; bosuns and boat drive. Weather was a part of us, as close as our skin. We ran, swam, rowed, sailed, climbed (and, very occasionally, walked) outdoors; we prepped, cooked, ate, cleaned up and slept outdoors, in all weather, sunny or foggy or dark or blowing or quiet or stormy or rainy. We moved in the weather, planned for it, dressed for it, made contingency plans for it, taught it and taught in it, learned about it and learned from it, exulted in it, laughed, cried, questioned and sang in it. We didn’t avoid the weather, because we couldn’t. . . When I awoke, the sun was lowering in the west behind me. My body had found a new equilibrium. I was not planning ahead, not reviewing what had been, just being. Careful not to trample the bushes—remembering Tino’s edict not to make a new trail where none was desired—I wove in and out among the junipers, heading downhill. Gaston’s Cove was down there somewhere. Moving slowly through the waning day, I paused beside a young spruce tree, all glowing green in early June. Raised in Mexico City, I had never witnessed the miracle of a spruce tree blossoming. At the end of each branch, of each arm, of each finger, new life was bursting forth, fresh light new green, the size of the first knuckle on my index finger, attached to the darker green behind, budding forth quietly from its brown papery skin. The green I held between my fingers was reproduced all over: on every little branch, on every larger branch, on every spruce, the pale green softly glowing, growing. On that soft spring afternoon—the students still on solo, the sun still warm, the breeze still quiet, me still with no destination—my body responded to that new life: glowing, growing, living, regardless of weather. Susan St. John 1973
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If you would like to learn more about those early days of the school and the power in its teachings, please write or call Susan to purchase a copy: susan@midcoast.com or 207-596-3218.
FEET OVER THE GUNWALE: WHY WE LOVE RITUALS Abigail Brenner’s 10 Ways Rituals Help Us Celebrate Our Lives
Bridge between outer and inner world
Give us a sense of belonging, meaning & purpose
Connect with nature and the seasons
A sense of renewal
Way to structure our lives
Connect to family, past and present
Remove us from ordinary flow of life
Help us access our authentic selves
Provide essential tools
Mark major transition points in our lives
This is a chance for the students to have a moment to themselves after a day of expedition travel. There’s a journal prompt, an opportunity to skip rocks, look out over the water, take a short nap, meditate, or even take part in spiritual practice. Students come back from this time calm, ready to prepare dinner, and take on the evening. Many students reflect on this time as their favorite part. Taking the time for reflection reinforces the lessons of the course and allow students to opportunity to consider how to incorporate them into their everyday life. PLAYLIST
Sitting on a Rainbow Julia Makowski • 1 hr 6 min
Click to open playlist in Spotify
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On course rituals can be especially welcome as a way we create a frame for our lives away from home. Today—when so much is unsettled, unknown, and we are missing the consistency and comfort that we are used to—rituals can be an essential tool for us. By finding a way in our day to create our own rituals, we too may be able to reconnect with ourselves and find solace in that moment. So get your feet over the gunwale, wherever that might be for you and spend a moment just breathing into the day, breathing into yourself.
Reflection time, which is also known as some other things: Woosah, Me time Tree time (Cal’s favorite), Journaling Time, Kick back and Relax time, or “Feet in the dirt” or “Feet in the woods” on the land side and “Feet over the gunwale” on the sea side.
TENDING THE GARDEN On the Maine course at the end of each day, we all gathered together to discuss how we did sailing, how we interacted as a group, what may have bothered you in the course, or about somebody so that we could clear the air and all feel comfortable. We called it Tending the Garden. Doing this each day helped us work better as a team because communication is essential on a tiny sailboat. It was always very positive, even though some people had to learn to agree to disagree. But everyone felt heard, and I think that was very important to help us work better together. Tending the garden, that was our restorative justice. —Rebecca Jimenez, 2019 alumna Last summer, Rebecca Jimenez, a student from James Baldwin in NYC and a participant in NYC Outward Bound, did a 21-day sailing course in Maine with HIOBS, thanks to a generous scholarship. Often at the end of the day on course all are tired, all are sweaty (or freezing), and all have nerves that might be slightly frayed. Evening meeting can be a time to rest, reflect, on the day, and to get out any grievances you might have brewing. I bet many of us currently weeks into shelter in place with our family and friends can identify with the need to discuss, in a proactive way, anything that might be bothering you about your housemates behavior! You can read the full text of the interview with Rebecca on the NYCOBS website, and it is well worth doing so!
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Mini Solo • Write a letter from yourself now to y ourself before the pandem ic. • Write a letter from yourself now to y ourself after the pandem ic.
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Only in the darkness can you see the stars. —Martin Luther King Jr.
DON'T FORGET TO LOOK AT THE STARS SkyView® Lite 4+ SkyView® Lite brings stargazing to everyone! Simply point your iPhone, iPad, or iPod at the sky to identify stars, constellations, satellites, and more! Downloaded over 27 million times.
You don't need to be an astronomer to find stars or constellations in the sky, just open SkyView® Lite and let it guide you to their location and identify them. SkyView® Lite is a beautiful and intuitive stargazing app that uses your camera to precisely spot and identify celestial objects in sky, day or night. Find your favorite constellations as they fade in and out while you scan across the sky, locate the Moon, discover distant galaxies, and witness satellite fly-bys.
For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. 16
—Vincent Van Gogh
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground. —Theodore Roosevelt
Final
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Safety Director Julia Makowski shares:
STAYING GREEN: STRESS CONTINUUM As Outward Bounders, we inherently know that stress can compel us to action and move us into productive performance or it can have a negative influence, resulting in fatigue and feelings of helplessness. The stress continuum, originally developed by the US military, is a tool to assess stress response and resilience. It provides easy language (green, yellow, orange, red) for describing how healthy we are, how ready we are to respond to a stressor, and can call attention to the tipping point when someone is no longer coping with the stressors. Stress injuries (also known as PTS) occur when we are not able to return to the “green.” Green does not mean stress-free, but it does indicate our ability to manage stress with good coping skills. Resilience to stress is the underlying theme- building it, maintaining it and restoring it when necessary. Again, as Outward Bounders, we know that resilience can be built by growing and bouncing back from challenges. In a group, one person in the green can be the tipping point that brings the community back to a place where they are ready to respond. Over the course of the next couple of weeks and months, we will all need to rely on each other. We will all have different capacities that affect our resilience.
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Take some time to identify what helps you and what you can do to get back to green. Reach out, make a connection, and share these with someone else. Identify one person that you will tell what’s really happening and how you’re feeling.
HOMEWARD BOUND: HOPE, HUMOR AND HAPPINESS In my personal effort to stay green and clear my head I went for a bike ride yesterday evening. As I was slogging up the hill, I found myself chasing a flock of birds, pushing them ahead of me. Staying low to the ground with quick wing beats they would just pop up high enough to land on the pinon trees showing off brilliant blue feathers. Being surrounded by these birds, I realized they were the bluebirds of happiness. I smiled. It made me feel hopeful. We must continue to hold on to hope. We must find humor and laughter in our daily lives. Hope and humor are the things that will keep us sane and healthy. They are the things that will allow us to find our green, the things that allow us to be there for each other. —Julia Makowski, HIOBS Safety Director and Associate Director of Education and Innovation
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As we head home, please remember that there are lots of ways to still join us. Share a favorite back country kitchen recipe, a story from your course, or one of the ways you are staying in the green through social media. Our alumni community is a big one, and right now is the perfect time to reconnect. That is why, beginning in May, HIOBS will offer two remote, experiential course components: Solo and Evening Meeting. Both of these programs lean into connection, community, and compassion for our current reality. The challenges of these uncertain times have encouraged us to reflect on some of the most foundational components of the Outward Bound wilderness experience. We encourage you to lean into the teachings of your past expedition and create a new “remote” community through one or both of the options in this series. By joining us now you can re-engage with Outward Bound and stay “on expedition” through these foundational rituals that will add meaning to your journey and clarify purpose in your life. Check back with our website about in early May to register for these remote programs!
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