Students take part in pirate battles aboard tall ships, as part of DA’s gang prevention program

DANA POINT — At first, Altair Ayoub wasn’t so sure he would like the school field trip.
“Look, we’re almost a mile off shore!” he said as the Spirit of Dana Point, one of the Ocean Institute’s tall ships, sailed just feet from its dock in Dana Point Harbor. “I hope we’ll be OK. I’ve never been on the ocean before.”
Altair, 9, of Anaheim was among 200 fourth- and fifth-grade students who got a chance on Thursday, Sept. 6, to sail aboard