Floating School in the Sea of Corterz
Cruisers bring Science Ed & Fun to Remote Communuty
by Allison Porter
The idea of the trip started innocently enough at a pot luck held on the beach, on the Magote, a spit of land in the La Paz bay. My family and I have been delivering school supplies to some of the remote communities up inside the Sea of Cortez for the past 5 years. 2 years ago we acquired a 73 foot schooner with the hopes of expanding our school delivery project to one that also included bringing a teacher and a curriculum to the communities we have been working with.
It was at the afore mentioned pot luck where I had the luck to run into Jack,a retired science teacher from the states. We started talking about my idea of taking a teacher and the schooner to San Evaristo, a small fishing village about 50 miles north of La Paz, and doing some kind of classes with the kids in the school there. Jack was interested in my ideas and we left the party with plans of connecting up later and discussing the viability of doing something together in the classroom in San Evaristo and on the schooner. With in a week, Jack and I were meeting to discuss curriculum and what I was hoping to accomplish with this trip.
There was a lot to consider as Vltava, the schooner, had not been moved in about 8 months and the boat needed a lot of work to be ready to go and materials and supplies needed to be collected and organized for the classes Jack was writing up. Jack wrote up all the curriculum and started taking intensive Spanish lessons so that he could communicate with the kids in San Evaristo, and I focused primarily on getting Vltava ready to go. We, of course, needed funds to make this all 
happen and I immediately got on the net in the morning and let the other cruisers know what we were planning and how they could help. The response was amazing from the start! Supplies for the projects started flowing in from cruisers in the area and we held a dingy wash and a bake sale to try to come up with the money to make the boat go and fulfill the supplies list .
Jack and I would meet occasionally to brainstorm ideas, take inventory of supplies and fine tune the plan. The curriculum for the science classes seemed to come together overnight (Thanks Jack!), where the boat was a little more challenging. We had problems with our motor and a few other details so the realization of moving Vltava seemed to be a long shot. The school project would still happen but it seemed as if we may have to leave Vltava behind. To make a long story short a handful of 
people got together and were not going to hear about Vltava not going. They all knew how important this was to me and they rallied around like good cruisers do and would not let me get discouraged or give up!
Jack and I kept meeting to discuss the curriculum, and go over supplies and I slowly got jobs done on the boat. We had a few set backs with moving Vltava but in the end we got her going and moving in the right direction. The trip was on!!! Now I just had to figure out how to get the money together to fill the diesel tanks and take on food, and I had only one day to do it! I contacted one of the crew for Vltava, a landlubber friend of mine who was on board for the trip and told her I thought we would have to scrap the idea of bringing Vltava as I had run out of money and still needed supplies.
The trip seemed to be off! Within 2 hours she had called some of her Mexican friends , described our project and problems and had all that we needed donated by them. Thy were very interested in what we were doing and stepped up to the plate when we needed them most. The trip was back on! We had three days of science projects scheduled and the title of the science extravaganza week, as we named it, was “Think like a scientist”. We headed out of La Paz with 8 crew on Vltava and about 7 boats “buddy boating” with us to San Evaristo.
We had a few wonderful days in the islands working our way to San Evaristo with the crew getting used to working the boat and working as a team. When we finally arrived in San Evaristo the teacher, Reyner, and the kids were ready for us. We spent three days doing hands on science experiments with the kids such as learning about force and pressure, electrical circuits, and gravity, just to name a few and the response was amazing. The kids loved Jack ,who is an amazing teacher even in a language he wasn’t fluent in (yet), and really got excited about all the new concepts they were learning. We ended each day with working on personal pinatas for the party on Friday for la Dia de los Ninos (kids day).
We were able to borrow a fancy telescope to look at the stars and the whole town came out to share in the experience! One of my personally favorite days was when we were able to take out 25 people for a day sail. The wind was accommodating as it started calm as we were loading people on board but picked up enough, when we got out of the bay, to do some fun sailing. When asked who would like to make the trip back to La Paz on Vltava all the hands were raised and a cheer went up. They were really loving all of it! We finished our week with a party at the school to celebrate kids day. It could not have been a more appropriate celebration to end our spectacular week in San Evaristo!
We are back in La Paz after having an exciting return trip where we lost our engine and had to be towed in. None of us really minded as we were still riding the “high” of our amazing time in San Evaristo and Kevin and Nick, the ones who came to our rescue, made the tow easy. We are now back in La Paz and already dreaming of next years project. It is time to get the boat ready for hurricane season and, hopefully, fix the things that need to be done to have another successful trip on Vltava this fall.