Educational Passages Podcast
Educational Passages Podcast
The Sea Eagle Has Landed
Season 4 of the Educational Passages Podcast continues with our “Imagine This” series - Where the magic of miniboats come alive through the voices and visions of those who make it all possible.
Each episode will paint a vivid picture of discovery, connection, and curiosity — not just tracking the voyages, but exploring the challenges and unexpected outcomes behind them.
Now press play, close your eyes, and imagine this:
What happens when a high school marine biology class sets out to build a tiny boat and release it into the Atlantic? An extraordinary three-year odyssey ensues... It's about more than just tracking ocean currents, this project evolved into a powerful lesson about persistence, collaboration, and global connection.
Listen in for the full story and find out where it ended up!
Visit https://educationalpassages.org/boats/seaeagle/ for more information about the boat and project, as well as https://educationalpassages.org/boats/gryphoncruiser/ and https://educationalpassages.org/boats/hope/ for more information about the other boats mentioned in the podcast.
Educational Passages is a non-profit organization that seeks to connect people around the world to the ocean and each other through unique global experiences.
Welcome to the Educational Passages podcast. Educational Passages is a nonprofit organization that seeks to connect people around the world to the ocean and each other through unique global experiences. I'm your host, Cassie Stymiest.
Cassie:Welcome everybody to Season 4. Get ready to set sail on a brand new adventure as we launch our Imagine this series where the magic of miniboats come alive through the voices and visions of those who make it all possible. In this series, each episode will paint a vivid picture of discovery, connection and curiosity not just tracking the voyages, but exploring the challenges and unexpected outcomes behind them. Now press play. Close your eyes and imagine this.
Cassie:The Sea Eagle has landed
Cassie:September 2nd 2022. A mini boat in a box is mailed to Jacksonville, florida, for Ms Janet Buford's marine biology students at Episcopal School of Jacksonville, who are ready to start their adventure and learn all about ocean currents. Just two days later, a mini boat named Hope happened to find its way to a beach just 14 miles east of their school. Hope had been relaunched off the coast and all were hoping it would travel into the Gulf Stream, but after only two days and 15 hours at sea, it found its way to Jacksonville. The kit arrives - their new, unassembled boat at the school two days after this, on September 6th. Their blank canvas. On September 8th I got an email from Janet that said "Hope is safe at ESJ and that they opened her up, and my high school students especially love the notes and pics from the children. We should be adding some goodies to the hall early next week. This presented a truly unique opportunity for the students to see what a completed mini boat looks like and provided the opportunity to connect with the class back in Boston, massachusetts, where Hope was originally from.
Cassie:The students in Jacksonville work every day to turn their blank campus into the Sea Eagle, a nod to their school's mascot, the Eagle. They build their boat, ballasting and installing the keel, decorate it, assemble messages and treasures for the finder and put them in the cargo hold. They decorate the sail with a Jacksonville Jaguar, florida Orange Blossoms and the Episcopal E. Their boat is ready by the middle of November and so it's time to talk launch. But knowing that Hope was launched twice, I should add, in good spots but came back to Florida in only days, we all wanted to make sure that the Sea Eagle could get out far enough while there was good weather. December comes in a blink of an eye. The GPS units were tested and all was ready to go, but no launch. Mid-january there's another potential launch opportunity, but again it just doesn't work out. Same thing in March, but then on April 10th, another mini boat arrives in Florida, this time in Daytona, about 80 miles south of where Hope had landed.
Cassie:This one is the Gyphon Cruiser from Beaufort, South Carolina. It had been launched off the coast of South Carolina only two days and 16 hours before. You may be wondering how a boat went south from South Carolina to Florida. Well, it was to our surprise as well, and shows the power of the weather and currents. And although her voyage was just as short as hopes, this landing provided another opportunity for students to connect. Even further, Gryphon Cruiser's mast had been damaged, so its captain, Ms Ann Ritchie, was given a professional day from the principal and drives down to retrieve it so they could make repairs and relaunch it.
Cassie:As Ann and I were talking, I asked if she'd be willing and interested in picking up the two boats in Jacksonville during her trip so that all three could be launched together further up into the Gulf Stream and therefore a better chance of longer journeys. Ann said something like well, if I'm grabbing one, why not grab another or two. So I quickly connected Anne and Janet together with really only a couple days notice and on April 26, the students in Jacksonville warmly welcomed Anne to their campus. They even commented on email an hour before her arrival and said that they were so excited to finally see this boat head off our campus and eventually out to sea.
Cassie:Ann picks up the two boats in Jacksonville Sea Eagle and Hope. She meets Janet and the students and they send the boats off with Ann. Ann continues driving down to Daytona and picks up the Gryphon Cruiser as well. She drives them all back in her truck on a custom cradle that her husband built. All three boats get resealed and ready to go by the middle of May. They're dropped off with Charleston Harbor Master and our good friend Jay Stewart. Jay is well connected to lots of ships coming in and out of Charleston Harbor and he said he could place them all on a container ship within the week, but only three days later they were all on their way.
Cassie:Hope is loaded on the MV Hawaiian Highway which is headed for the UK. It was launched on May 21st and spends 53 days at sea, mostly in the Gulf Stream, but then got knocked out and sailed to Maine. It was recovered safely and is actually now back at the USS Constitution Museum where it originally started. Gryphon Cruiser and Sea Eagle are loaded together on a container ship headed for Suriname. The MV Flevogracht. Sea Eagle is launched on May 20th at 22:05 UTC and the Gryphon Cruiser 15 minutes later at 22:20 UTC. Two days after the launch, a storm comes through and we thought the pair was heading back right to Jacksonville. They were riding waves over two and a half meters and winds were pushing them southwest for a few days, but luckily they take a turn eastward and find their way into Gulf Stream.
Cassie:Phew!
Cassie:On June 1st, as the school year comes to an end, the school shares about their project and their reflections. "I think the bigger lesson here turned out to be a lesson in patience and perseverance, said Mrs Buford. Aside from this, students really learned the meaning of it Takes a Village, beginning with Graham Riley's support and ending with a boat captain of a container ship headed to Suriname. Students were able to get a glimpse of true collaboration,
Cassie:And the adventure continues over the summer. At the end of the month, janet says "I've been checking her whereabouts every morning. Such fun, and the students were tracking her too.
Cassie:On June 28th Gryphon Cruiser ends up in Nantucket, massachusetts. Another effect of the wind and current, certainly, but could that 15-minute difference in launch time really make that much of a difference? Because, sea Eagle, she kept on going. By September 2023, one year after the adventure began, the Sea Eagle is in the middle of the Atlantic. The Sea Eagle is in the middle of the Atlantic
Cassie:In March 2024, I'm in Ireland, visiting schools around the country, talking about mini boats that have found their way to Irish shores, and the Sea Eagle seems to be approaching. It comes within less than 100 nautical miles, but goes . south for
Cassie:It heads into the Bay of Biscay for the summer, circles around southeast and goes up the coast of France, coming within just two miles in February 2025, from landing in Brittany. But nope, she keeps on going into the English Channel. Will she catch the tide and sail further, like Inspiration did years before? Nope,. she She goes west, hangs out for a bit, seemingly going nowhere. Will she go back north to Ireland, back into the English Channel? Nope, she goes south, right back down the very same path as she came up the coast of France on earlier and all the way to the coast of Spain, turning east again. She comes within five nautical miles from the border of Spain and France and decides to continue eastward.
Cassie:It's September 2025, now, three years after the kit arrived at the Jacksonville school as a blank canvas. Their boat is now an intrepid explorer, the Sea Eagle. She comes as close as two miles again, and so I called Janet on September 4th. Tonight could be the night I don't want to jinx it, but we were all just so excited. The next morning on September 5th, I awake to an email who says "I'm a lifeguard at Cap de Lomé Beach in L'Itemix, france. My name is Baptiste Duportet. I found your boat. I immediately reply and share this with Janet.
Cassie:Janet starts to contact her alum as she was still connected to many of them. They respond with excitement and surprise. One student named Henry, who was a junior at the start of the project, is now in his second year at Jacksonville University. He said "it's amazing to see the shape that Sea Eagle is in and this is great, seeing the boat I participated in building go this far. Another student, caden, who is now a junior at the University of Florida, had this to say I built this little boat back in 12th grade and sent it off. Honestly, I figured it would sink in a week, but instead it decided to take the world's longest senior trip. Guess it wanted a study abroad program more than I did. It's so great to hear that some of the students have been following right along with us this whole time.
Cassie:The day the mini boat made landfall, the local police in France shared a video and pictures of the boat on social media. Her mast and sail are gone, (which is no surprise given the way she traveled the last couple months, actually), she was covered in barnacles on the hull (but not completely covered, which is amazing for how much time she spent at sea), But the contents were completely dry. All the messages and gifts from the students were there In the video. They share the findings, history stuff, a school pin, a coin, a bell from the school, explanations about the project and a note for the finder, even in French.
Cassie:After the weekend I was interviewed by the local radio station there and made a plea to the students in France, asking them to respond. While the students in Florida are feeling a sense of successful completion now that the voyage is over, I just think there's more to the story and connection and can't wait for them to correspond with each other directly.
Cassie:But their original learning goal was exactly this" to track the boat's journey as we studied currents throughout the year, and so, since Sea Eagle traveled 2.3 years covering 14,000 kilometers across the ocean, for now I'd have to just say mission accomplished.
Cassie:You have been listening to the Educational Passages podcast. Thank you to educationalpassagesorg slash support. If you're enjoying this program, please consider subscribing to the podcast in Apple Podcasts, spotify, google Podcasts or from wherever you download your podcasts. Thanks for listening, thank you.