Camp Radio Conversations

This is probably only funny if you were there, but for those of us who were - enjoy! :)

- Cabin 8: Red 5, this is cabin 8, please come in.
- Red 5: Cabin 8, this is Red 5.
- Cabin 8: Red 5, did you say there are Smarties available?
- Red 5: That's an affirmative.
- Momentary radio silence.
- Cabin 8: We have a go on the Smarties. ETA for pick-up is 5mins.
- Red 5: That's a negative cabin 8. Maintain your position. I'll make the drop in about 1min.
- Cabin 8: Acknowledged. Cabin 8 out.

Cabin 8 is played by Darrell Nevers.
Red 5 is played by Ben Whalen

Best excuse ever for being late for swimming session?

"I couldn't find the pool!"

(This was used on a Thursday.)

Private Rocket Launch

This afternoon, we had a private rocket launch to test out some new rockets before showing them to the campers. This is "The Harvenger" and it worked exactly as it was supposed to. We even got it back! Yay!

Storm - Part III

PS We had to call in reinforcements to fix our road. Luckily, Nova Scotia is "improving" the highway to Peggy's Cove and were working just up the road from the camp. They came in and poured some sort of special gravel that packs down hard (not quite as hard as chip seal but same kind of idea), which will hopefully prevent future washouts of this nature.

Storm - Part II

The next morning Tim and I woke to the sound of our cell phone ringing, which can only be bad news that early in the day. Sure enough, it was the boys at the top of the hill calling to say that our road was washed out, and it was going to have to be fixed before the cooks could get in to prepare breakfast.

Tim, Matt, Griff, Ben, and Brad spent an hour fixing the road with a shovel and a broken wheelbarrow enough so that an emergency vehicle could get in if necessary, but despite their hard work, the road was still most definitely impassable for anything other than a 4 wheel drive.

This is what the road looked like after an hour of hard work. Before they began, Matt could lay down in one of the washouts in the fetal position and be completely hidden from view. While it's a little hard to tell, the hole that I'm standing in is almost halfway up my shin.

We received so much rain that night that it added about 3 inches of water to the pool in a period of 2 hours. To put that into perspective, it takes 4 hours for the pump to add the same amount of water to the pool each week.

As they day continued, we searched for evidence of lightening strikes around the camp. It split a tree behind cabins 4 and 5 and may have struck the ground in front of the lodge, but the earth shattering strike that woke us up the night before remained a mystery. Finally, as I was walking back to the cottage looking for evidence of the strike in nearby trees, I stumbled over a bit of ground that as far as I remembered had always been smooth before. I looked down at my feet and realize that I was standing in a perfectly charred out circle of mud - evidence of THE lightening strike.
A path of flattened grass led from the hole to the edge of the pool deck. Closer inspection of the pool area revealed not only melted and charred plastic along that section of the fence, but also a fresh crack running through the cement from one side of the pool deck to the other.

If you look closely, you can see a grayish coloured building with windows in the background. That's our cottage, which is about 50 feet from the pool. No wonder I thought the roof was going to fall in!

Storm of the Summer!

One night I woke up to a thunderstorm raging over the camp. I would doze as it moved back out over the ocean and would wake up as the ocean pushed it back up against the camp. The flashes of lightening coming through the bedroom window were almost continuous and the rolling thunder sounded like a constantly grumbling stomach.

Suddenly, there was a crack of thunder unlike I have ever heard in my entire life. I curled into a ball and covered my head with my arms against the debris that I was sure was about to rain down on my head. After remaining frozen in that position for what seemed like hours (in reality it was probably only about 1 minute), I gradually realized that our cabin was still intact. I began to the process of convincing by body that it was indeed safe to uncurl and quickly counted all of my fingers and toes. After ensuring that I, as well as our cabin was indeed intact, I looked at Tim (who was also wide-eyed and awake) and said, "You should probably go see what's on fire.” After a brief argument, we agreed to BOTH go see what building had exploded.

We crept out to the living room and peered through the mini blinds looking for that telltale orange glow. Much to our immediate surprise the shower building directly beside our cabin appeared to be completely intact, as did the lodge and all of the cabins at the top of the hill. While we couldn't see the boys' cabins behind our cottage, we decided that if one had been struck, the cabin leader from the other would have come to get us by then. Relieved that we were not going to have to call 911, we faced the inevitable fact that we were not going to bed any time in the near future! We pulled up the blinds and each wrapped in a blanket on our big comfy chairs to enjoy the show. Only once have I seen the lightening light up the sky as many times as it did that night, but then we watched from across the lake, not the middle of the storm.

As the lightening snaked down toward the camp, we speculated on which ones struck trees (or the ground) and which ones missed and tried to figure out where the lightening struck that so abruptly woke us up; if not the shower building, perhaps the pool again? We also watched a few brave souls make mad dashes to the bathroom through the torrential rain (ask Darrell about his adventure) and thanked God for the foresight of the board to include a bathroom inside our cottage.

Leak

For the record, this is NOT supposed to happen when you backwash the pool!

SALT Water Pool

A young lad came up out of the water this afternoon sputtering and spitting. I (Aneke) asked him if he was ok. His reply, "Yeah, I think so. This water is a little sugary... Actually, it's a lot sugary!"

I nearly wet myself.

Camper Quote

"This camp is the best! We have breakfast and supper...

Ooohhh! Do we get to take lunch too?!?!"

- Beginner Camper

Yay Sun!

Today was hot. Very, very hot. Today's heat easily matched whatever our hottest day last summer was. Actually today was muggy (which made it feel incredibly hot), and in a strange twist of fate, there also happened to be no breeze coming off the ocean today to speak of. While we all lost about 2 liters of sweat, there really wasn't much complaining from the staff. A hot summer (or warm summer) would be really nice since it tends to be on the cool (even cold) side here so close to the ocean. Warm days would mean more time spent in the pool and more wet games during canoe sessions.
The staff are all here now (arrived today) and we had a great time in the pool this afternoon since it was, I as I already mentioned, way to hot to continue doing maintenance. This evening we had a session in the basement of our cottage (which doubles as missions and crafts) to beat the heat. It's funny, somewhere else I would probably be complaining about how warm it is, but here it's such a nice change that we celebrated while we fanned ourselves!
Please pray that the weather continues to cooperate throughout the summer as the campers arrive. Last summer it rained only at night - that would be a really nice repeat if it could be arranged!

Buttercups and Lilacs

Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day at Bayside (something we have not seen a whole lot of here at Bayside until this week) so Tim and I decided to take a little walk out to the mailbox to enjoy the nice weather. Along the way, we discussed such important issues as yappy dogs and... really that's about it. Life is quite relaxing right now.
Unfortunately, upon arrival at the mailbox, we realized that we forgot the mailbox key... no wait that was a different day... On this day, we learned that the big brown mailboxes have evolved into a gathering place for the community.
Urgh... This blog post has been suddenly cut short by yet another thunderstorm. Today we have had steady rumbling from 12 o'clock to about 6 o'clock with absolutely no lightening in sight to sit back and enjoy. The fact that the lamp on my desk just rattled with the rolling thunder indicates that I should probably wrap this up post-haste (no pun intended).
PS. I was going to tell you that on the way home, gigantic buttercups line all of Faders Road. It was quite stunning! I picked a large handful and even found some lilacs to create a bouquet of my two favourite colours: purple and yellow.

Oasis

I wish I had a photo to visually portray what I am trying to describe but that will have to wait for another time. We have safely arrived at the camp and are already feeling the peace that accompanies being cut off from the world. We've been enveloped by a light cloud of fog for a couple days now which has helped us forget about life's worries; we're cut off from the world literally and figuratively (no television, internet, telephone, etc...). Our pace has slowed down exponentially. We're already beginning to get up and go to bed with the sun after only 2 days! We've also found the time to play board games, read books for fun, and finish fun project that we started long ago. It's hard to believe that in less than a month, the camp will be filled once again with laughing children, splashing water, and boisterous singing!