Sailing

Words: sailing, starboard, catastrophe

The wind blew heavily and the glass shattered. Henry and Sam decided the best place to be when a storm was brewing was out in the open. The only place that seemed safe was the lake. The boys had no knowledge of what to do or how to sail a boat but they had seen many T.V shows about it. They went with their gut and got on the boat . They sat there for awhile because they didn’t know you had to row to get the boat to move there was always a motor that made the boat move. Without knowing they still sat there waiting for the boat to start and it did finally not the way they had planned but it started alright. The tides of the lake became bigger and bigger drifting them into the middle of the lake. The boys panicked, the storm was getting worse and the boys thought that they needed to lighten the load so they threw the paddles overboard. The weight of the boat didn’t make a difference so they sat there asking themselves why they threw the paddles overboard, starboard and not portside.

An hour went past and the storm was still going, not as bad as before but there was heavy rain and shrieks of thunder now and then.  The boys sat on either side of the boat mocking each other and blaming each other for the whole thing. With no way to get back to shore they had nothing to do. Henry finally decided to break the fight say that it was no ones fault it was just a bunch of bad luck! “No, it is way more than that it is a catastrophe!” The day passed with the boys listing what it was. Whatever it was.

Darkness started to appear the boys shivered with fear and because they were cold. They couldn’t help but to say sorry. Saying sorry wasn’t going to take them back to shore though and they both knew that. They snuggled next to each and drifted off to sleep dreaming of happy places. In the time that they slept another storm brewed and left only this time it floated them back to shore.

In the morning Henry thanked sam for sailing them back to shore and Sam took full responsibility for it but he knew he didn’t do it. His thoughts were  that Henry was just saying that so Sam would be as cool as him but Henry didn’t do it either. No one thanked the storm.

Bears

Bears

2. What is your favorite bear?  Milly

3. Have you touched a bear before? -sam

1. What encouraged you to start liking bears?- Heith.

4. Bears are often found in myths and many cultures connect with them spiritually.  Why do you think this is?  Mrs Roil.

There are many different species of bear, this includes the Brown bear, Asian black bear, Sun bear, Giant panda, Spectacled bear, Indian sloth bear, and finally the Polar bear. The atlas bear is one of the subspecies of the brown bear, which is the only bear native to Africa. Sadly the Atlas bear has been extinct since the 1870s. The most widespread species is the brown bear, which comes from Western Europe eastwards through Asia to the western areas of North America. The American black bear is restricted to North America, and the polar bear is restricted to the Arctic Sea. All the remaining species are Asian.

Ever since I was little girl I tried forcing my mum to buy me a bear, she took it the wrong way and brought me a stuffed toy. I always said we could keep a real bear in the shed with a dog bowl of water. She refused.  I first started liking bears when I was 1 and a half when my grandad started hunting. He read me heaps of stories about bears in America and how he was going to travel there and be the first of his friends to kill one. When I was little I was convinced that a grizzly bear was the only bear in the world. I found out not long after that there are other bears and I then decided that sun bears are my favourite. I like the very long tongue that sunbears use, and how they stand on their back legs to look around.  I was lucky enough to feed a sun bear at the Wellington zoo. The zookeeper said when sun bears are tired they are very restless.

Because of their spirit-like appearance, spirit bears hold a place in the oral stories Scientists have found that black bears are not as effective at catching fish as white bears, as the white bears are less visible from the perspective of the fish. While at night the two colours of bears have similar success rates at catching fish, such as salmon, during the day the white bears are 30% more effective. Which is why the white kermode bear is most known as the spirit bear.

The Kermode bear was named after Francis Kermode, former director of the Royal B.C. Museum, who researched the subspecies and a colleague of William Hornaday, the zoologist who described it.