Author Bonnie Henderson will speak at the Columbia River Maritime Museum about her experiences monitoring one mile of beach on the central Oregon coast. Submitted photo

During Oregon schools spring break, the Columbia River Maritime Museum will offer a week of family fun with hands-on interactive activities and displays. The program runs from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday, March 22 through Friday, March 26. Family programs are free with paid admission to the museum and always free for museum members.

The topic for spring break 2010 is “Rescue at Sea.” See if you can get into a survival suit in less than 30 seconds, just like a real fisherman. Climb inside an inflatable 20-person life raft and sample the survival food and water stocked inside. Learn how to use Morse code and other life-saving techniques and make your own “man overboard” signal flag to bring home.

The museum will offer a spring break special presentation at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, March 27. Noted travel writer, amateur naturalist and avid outdoorswoman Bonnie Henderson will read about her beachcombing experiences as depicted in her latest book, “Strand, An Odyssey of Pacific Ocean Debris.” In “Strand,” Henderson traces the stories of wrack washed up on the mile-long stretch of Oregon beach she has walked for more than a decade. The burned hull of a long-abandoned fishing boat, a glass fishing float, the egg case of a skate, a beached minke whale, an unusual number of dead murres and an athletic shoe are Henderson’s starting points for stories that reach across the globe. As Henderson uncovers these odysseys, she takes a thoughtful look at the surprising far-ranging journeys of what washes up on our shores.

Author of multiple books, Henderson lives in Eugene. In 1995, she began volunteering for CoastWatch, a program of the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition that monitors changes, natural and unnatural, on every inch of Oregon’s shoreline.

The Columbia River Maritime Museum is located at 1792 Marine Drive. Regular admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors older than 65, $5 for youth ages 6 to 17 and free for children younger than 6. Museum members are admitted free of charge. For more information, call (503) 325-2323 or log on to www.crmm.org