Members of the 169 Admiral Yanow Navy League Cadet chapter, Caine and Tanner Labonte had the chance to apply their newly acquired skills in a search and rescue exercise, held north of Rathrevor Beach Park (Oct. 8).
Assisted by Port Alberni Navy League cadets, and supervised by officers, they successfully completed an afternoon of search and rescue activities.
Following some preparation time and coaching, the cadets were soon on the trail of a missing pilot, making use of global positioning devices. The cadets plotted a course, then navigated from point to point, and radioed in their findings employing a select naval code. Following a few hours of finding clues, navigation and radio communication, the cadets completed the exercise by successfully locating their objective.
“We took advantage of the warm weather, and gave our cadets a thorough afternoon of fun and adventure,” said Lt. Mike Harrison, Commanding Officer of Admiral Yanow. “By day’s end, each of our cadets could not only navigate with a GPS, they were also communicating like real professionals on the radio. Not a real missing person this time, cadets completed the exercise by locating one of my staff officer’s teddy bear.”
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The Navy League program operates in over 260 communities with more than 15,000 members across Canada. Navy League is open to girls and boys, age nine to 12, with an interest in naval-themed activities, leadership, band, first aid, orienteering, water safety, knot tying, geocaching, communications and making new friends.
Admiral Yanow cadets, in addition to weekend activities, meet weekly, Monday evenings, 6:15-8:30 p.m. at 425 Stanford Ave. Training is open to any youth, boy or girl, ages nine to 12. Registration is free and uniforms are on loan free of charge.
“This was just a start,” said Harrison. “We hope to conduct these kind of activities and much more several times this year. Registration is open, and we are seeing new youngsters turn up each week”
For further information, parents may contact Lt. Mike Harrison at: https://navyleague.ca/
— NEWS Staff, submitted