Permission to come aboard Sir! (March 24)

Christopher had another nice outing with Boy Scouts! In later March he had the opportunity to visit the Coast Guard base in Seattle and spend the night. He was very excited and had a great time. They had a great turn out with almost 30 boys attending. The base commander is the dad of one of the scouts in Chris's troop and he arranged the whole thing.

We started over early Saturday morning and got right down to work. They split the scouts into two groups to make them manageable and then Chris went off and learned about finger printing. The scouts all seemed to enjoy it and after they had practiced their techniques they went and had a safety talk with a Coast Guard "Chief".

Chris and the rest of the scouts all really enjoyed eating at the Coast Guard commisary. He and the rest of the Scouts "chowed down". You should have seen the grins on the Coast Guard personnel!

After they all stuffed themselves we all had an opportunity to check out some of the smaller craft that they use for patroling the coastal waters in Puget Sound. Afterwards we all got to go aboard one of their larger vessels for a guided tour. The young officer who gave us the tour was the chief technician on board and was a former Boy Scout who had grown up in the area. He was very nice and took us all around the ship to see the various areas. It was neat to see the kitchen, crews quarters, laundry area, and the bridge. There were lots of good questions being asked and all the Scouts seemed quite interested in everything. Grandpa Kunz, being a former Navy man, would have been proud!