Super Yacht Skyler Donates Kayaks to Environmental Rangers Youth Group
On Thursday, before hoisting anchor from Charlotte Amalie Harbor to tour distant waters, super yacht Skyler bequeathed a gift to the youth and environment of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.
Four 10 foot RTM™ brand kayaks were donated by the yacht to the Environmental Rangers Youth Program at the Camp Umoja Eco-learning Center at Mandahl Bay.
Toby Naylon, a member of the Skyler yacht crew, gives a thumbs up after loading the donated kayaks onto a delivery truck destined for Camp Umoja.
Karl Callwood, among whose responsibility is the Rangers’ marine training and education, met the crew of the Skyler at the Yacht Haven Marina for a socially-distant, non-ceremonial hand-off.
“This gift has real significance to us,” said Callwood. “Due to COVID-19 concerns, we pulled all of our multi-person kayaks off-line. Our reduced fleet size proved logistically inefficient and was one of the factors leading to the temporary suspension of the Rangers’ wetland activities”.
Camp Umoja Non-profit Eco-Learning Center founding directors, Alcedo ‘Justin’ Francis and Anna Wallace-Francis, take delivery of the RTM™ 10ft kayaks donated by the Superyacht Skyler.
Justin pauses for a picture with ClimateChangeVI.org director, Karl Callwood, who trucked the Kayaks from Yacht Haven to Mandahl.
“These are some beautiful kayaks,” gushed Anna Francis. “We are so grateful to super yacht Skyler and its crew”.
“These will help a lot in reopening our facility sooner,” stated Justin Francis. “Even pre-COVID we always washed and cleaned kayaks between uses. This cleaning, of course, cannot be done in the wetland so we’d waste a lot of time and energy moving kayaks back and forth between the cleaning area and the bay in the middle of the day”.
Additional vessels mean that more youth can spend longer periods of time exploring, enjoying, researching, learning about and assisting the marine environment. Instead of splitting up classes and having to wait for cleaning between sessions, Rangers can now enjoy more comprehensive and distraction free water time.
Camp Umoja has been closed to camping for a year now taking advantage of the COVID downtime to perform some badly needed post hurricanes Irma and Maria self-help renovations. While a reopening date has not yet been set for the facility, the added kayaks mean that the Rangers won’t have to wait for the campground to be at full service to resume. (Adult single-person research activities in the wetland are not affected by COVID-19 restrictions and continue unabated).
The Environmental Rangers wish Skyler fair seas as it visits other ports on its charter route. We look forward to Skyler‘s return to St. Thomas and hopefully we can treat the crew to a nice St. Thomas-style coal pot Thank You Lunch at Mandahl.
