On our final weekend of construction before needing to get the raft off the Aquarium lawn and into the water, volunteers and support poured in from all ends. Critical help at the 11th hour.
Saturday and Sunday, during a suffocating heat wave, volunteers showed up to help toil and sweat, pulling labels off hundreds of plastic bottles, stuffing bottles into old nets to form pontoons, and keeping spirits high as the prospect of moving this massively heavy beast loomed in the air.
Here's the crew, mugging for the camera after several sweltering hours. AMRF board member Duane Laursen (with the Beach T) vacuumed upwards of 300 pounds of sand from the inside of our airplane cabin, while High School students from Lennox Academy sacrificed their Sunday to sweat for the cause.
We also had two new sponsors join the project - Kashi Cereal and Shifting Baselines.
Shifting Baselines director Randy Olson even trekked down to Long Beach to visit our site, and wrote about the project on their science blog.
All is coming together miraculously on schedule, including today's monumental feat - heaving the raft - airplane fuselage and all - into the water. Stay tuned, pix and stories to come.
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