We toured Woods Hole starting with a presentation by our tour guide about the history of WHOI and their current work. We learned cool discoveries made by WHOI and saw neat videos such as a shark biting their probe with GoPro camera. Then we had a tour of the docks. Their big research ship was in dock and the crews were active including a diver just up from the water. We got to touch the capsule of the deep-sea diving Alvin and saw the Mayflower 400 which is the first unmanned ship to cross the Atlantic.

The weather was sunny and mild, and there were no crowds which made parking a breeze and it felt like having the area to ourselves. The aquarium was open but we didn’t have time to visit.

This trip combined the boy scouts (6) and cub scouts (3).

We started by visiting the US Navy Submarine museum in Groton, CT. We toured the USS Nautilus which was the first nuclear submarine. The museum has many interesting exhibits including hands-on equipment from submarine control rooms.

Then we went to Mystic Seaport museum and started with lunch from the cafe. The weather was sunny and mild, and we ate outside on a deck. We started our tour of the museum with the firefighter boat that was in service in NYC for 70 years. We went aboard the Morgan which was a whaling ship. We visited some of the shops including the blacksmith and went to the shipyard. Then we walked into town which was about 1/2 mile from the museum. Town was very crowded probably because of the Christmas light boat parade. We were stopped as the drawbridge was open to let in some boats for the parade. We went to Mystic Pizza for dinner which had a long wait to get in. We walked around town a bit during the wait. They seated us all on a long table upstairs. After eating our fill of pizza and sodas, we walked back to the museum.

The main museum event was the Anchor Watch overnight program. We met up with two museum guides who took us into the museum through the afterhours entrance. We got to watch the start of the Christmas light boat parade without the crowds because only a few people were on the museum grounds. Then we had a private show at the planetarium with an energetic guide who had lots of interesting information about astronomy and navigation.  For the overnight, we slept on the Joseph Conrad in the mid-ship section that had bunk beds tightly stacked in columns of 3 beds. It was lights out by 10pm and then we were up early and enjoyed a beautiful sunrise.

The morning program stared with breakfast of waffles and sausages in the cafeteria. Back on the Conrad, we got to climb the rigging up to the first level. Then we carved our own scrimshaw on plastic ovals that looked like whale bone. Our guide then brought us to the museum exhibit to see real scrimshaw and other crafts that sailors made. By then, we had our fill of sightseeing and decided to head home and save the Mystic Aquaruim for another trip.

 

We returned to Scout-O at Camp Nobscot and enjoyed nice sunny and mild weather during the day although it did get cold at night. Our water bottles froze overnight.

We arrived around 10am, dropped our backpacks at our campsite and went out on a training course with an orienteering instructor. Then we went back to camp to setup our tents and make lunch. In the afternoon, we did an Orange Level (most difficult) practice course and found all the controls. We also hiked to the top of Mt Nobscot but didn’t see good views because the fire tower at the top was locked. Paul cooked us a nice dinner as part of his work on cooking merit badge. After dinner was the Night-O which is a 1 hour race with all 200 scouts to find as many controls as possible. After finding two controls, a couple of the younger scouts decided to go back the camp and then the older scouts continued and were able to find all the controls.

Sunday was the main orienteering competition. The older scouts tackled the Orange Course and the younger scouts completed the Yellow Course. On our drive home, we stopped at McDonald’s in Plymouth.

We were assigned the Haydenland East campsite which was in an open field and didn’t have a fire ring. We moved over to the North campsite which had a nicer setting and a large fire ring. There was also a large wood pile nearby that we used for our campfire.

We camped Friday and Saturday nights at the Pequot site at Camp Greenough. The weather was sunny and warm, but we weren’t allowed to have campfires because of the drought conditions.

The main event was the camporee on Saturday. We did muzzle loader rifles, tomahawk throws, BB guns, ropes course, climbing wall and zip line. Our troop also performed the closing flag ceremony.

For meals, we made our own dinner Friday night of burritos. Saturday morning, we made breakfast sandwiches with eggs, bacon and cheese, and lunch was mac and cheese. For dinner, Greenough had a nice bbq for everyone and an ice cream sundae.

   

We hiked 3 miles along the beach on Saturday morning and had a lunch break along the way. After setting up camp, a few scouts hiked to the end of the peninsula. Then we played games on the beach including frisbee and wiffle ball. The campsites had new picnic tables and the ranger drove out wood for our campfire. For dinner, we had Mountain House meals. The weather was warm and sunny, and the sunset was super colorful. We had a campfire and retired several US flags. Then we roasted marshmallows to make smores (note the auto roasting stick stuck in the sand). In the morning, we packed up camp and hiked back on the marsh side trail.