Week Four

The end of week four means that camp is half way over. It is always sad to say good-bye after spending a week with a group of kids. You just grow used to seeing the same people every morning. Ian and I have been fortunate enough that Andrew decided to join us for three weeks (a camp record!). But the end of this week marks the last time he will be at camp. He will be missed.

The big highlight for both Ian and I from this week was the trip to the harbor patrol. Usually a visit to the harbor patrol just means getting a tour of the police station but this year they took us all out in one of their patrol boats and we got to use their huge water cannon. There are lots of pictures from the tour included this week and looking at them all I think I may have gone a little overboard in taking photos.

This week we had some good weather earlier in the week however on Wednesday the mornings started getting a little muggy, but they always turned sunny by lunch time. We had some exciting sailboat races this week and everyone got into playing "laser ball" a sailing game where we play tag with a tennis ball.

This entire summer I have been impressed with everyone's sailing skills. I think a lot of it has to do with having returning students in the class and that we have been fortunate enough to have some good wind which has allowed us to do more sailing. Everyone has shown some good sailing and people seem to really be improving by the end of the week.

The boat building race at the end of the week also was exciting. With a three way tie going into the final round between Sydney, Hank, and Sophie. However Hank and his very cool milk carton boat pulled ahead at the end. Thanks everyone for coming. This week I made the photo slideshow a little smaller so hopefully it will be easier to load. Let me know if you have any problems.

Week Three!

Both Ian and I agreed that while every week of camp is fun this week was the most fun. The weather could not have been more perfect and both of us as counselors found our "groove" it was also great to have such an enthusiastic bunch of kids who were excited about going sailing. It was a pleasure waking up each morning to do camp. Everyone improved at sailing and I would trust all the campers to take me out sailing now. On Monday we started by sailing over to Lake Union. Usually Ian and I are both in a sailboat during the first day but since we had so many experienced sailors I used the motor boat while the Ian went out in an Fj and we were also able to bring along another Fj and a Laser. Lake Union is the most beautiful place to sail and it really makes you think about how lucky we are to live in Seattle, expect all the boat traffic. On Tuesday we Kayaked over to the Aurboretum for some great games of capture the flag, Ian ran into a bush and cut his face leaving a nasty piraty gash for the rest of the week. On Wednesday we had some great wind so we decided to sail over to Madison Beach, besides trouble towing all the boats with my 8 horsepower engine everything went great. Madison Beach days are the most stressful for me because it is a long way and we have to go through all the boat traffic in Garbage Bay. I only wish that we had left earlier so we could have spent some more time at Madison Beach. Wes got crazy for ice cream and we all had to help in providing an intervention. On the sail back he hit the ice cream blues big time. We were about 30 minutes late which I am still very sorry for. Towing back always takes longer then expected even though we left Madison Beach at 1:00. On Thursday we went over to gasworks park and played some base tag. Also I added a new rule that whenever we saw a ride the duck car we had to stick out our tongues at them everyone also went up to the lonely man selling snacks at gasworks and told him a joke to lighten up his day. On Friday we finished the Goonies, which is the perfect movie for camp I decided, and then went on our treasure hunt. After that we raced our model boat and then sailed over to Agua Verde which was pretty crowded but I ran into an old high school friend which was nice. Overall I could not have asked for a better week and I thank everyone for coming. Be sure to check out the video because some of the shots are pretty amazing.