This story originally ran in The Asbury Park Press on Aug. 19, 2009
He spent Tuesday at the Shark River, miles away from his classroom, but Ryan Hernandez learned several important lessons anyway.
He learned kayaking is exhilarating but exhausting. He learned that without knowledge of math and science, "you're not really going to do so good" in a boat. He learned how to tie a knot that could help keep a sailboat firmly in place in middle of a river.
Just one problem with all Ryan's lessons.
"At home we're nowhere near" sailboats, he shrugged, "so I can't really practice it."
Ryan is a seventh-grader at Robert Treat Academy, a public charter school in Newark serving 450 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Students at Robert Treat score significantly higher on tests than other children in the struggling school district, but they still are "Newark children," said Steve Adubato, the school's founder.
"You can't believe how limited their opportunities" are for recreation, he said.
So for the last few years, Adubato has arranged for Robert Treat sixth- and seventh-graders to spend a couple of days on the Shark River in Belmar. They take part in the City Sailors program, under which the Friends of Belmar Harbor teach basic sailing skills to inner-city children.
"It's not just about sailing," Adubato said. "It's about showing our kids there's a lot in life that's wonderful and beautiful."
The children cannot really learn to sail a boat in two days, said Michael Mixson, executive director of Friends of Belmar Harbor. But they learn the basics, and they have "a heck of a good time," he said.
"Some of these kids have never been off cement," Mixson said. "We get them out of the city; we get them into the water."
Seventh-grader Taylor Leake was delighted to get out of Newark and into the Shark River.
"I never thought I would get a chance to go sailing and go on boats," Taylor said as she took a break from jumping wildly into the water.
The City Sailors experience did not change her career plan for when she grows up. The 11-year-old still plans to be a brain surgeon, she said. But the experience did make her add weekend sailing excursions to her plan.
"It's a lot of work, being a brain surgeon," Taylor said. "But I guess I can squeeze (sailing) in."
