To read part six of day five, click here.

We started getting outfitted. We had to get our life jacket, booties, helmet, windbreaker, and paddle. Everything was in a pile, and the first pile we visited was the windbreaker pile.

I don’t remember what size or color I had – I only wore it once, in the beginning. After that I didn’t use it again. I think I was in the extra small here – everyone else was in the smalls and mediums. Once we were done fitting our windbreakers, we moved on to the life jackets.

Glenn told us that everyone should fit in the orange or grey life jackets, the medium and large. I waited for a second before asking him which one I would fit in. He told me that I might try the small, but the extra small would probably be the one I needed.

I grabbed the extra small and tried it on. With a little bit of adjusting, it fit well. I laughed – the rest of my crewmates were all in the mediums and larges, and I had the extra small. Typical. 😀

We walked over to the helmets. We were told to try the red first, then the white, and if we couldn’t fit in either of those, try the yellow. I fit in the red. At least most of the other girls did too, so I wasn’t the only one wearing the smallest size in the helmets.

After that it was time to sort the booties. We walked over to the pile and a couple of us almost gagged. They stank! And we were going to have to put them on our feet!

Each bootie had a color on the side of it – we had to match up sizes by matching up the colors. We all sat down around the pile of boots and started tossing colors at each other. Once we had all the piles together, we started trying them on.

I asked Patrick which size was the smallest. He told me to try the green or yellow. I tried both, and they were both way too big. I told him that, and asked if I was going to have to wear them anyway.

“Yep, one of those is the smallest we have. Check on the inside – the size should be written there.”

“But they come over three inches past my toes!”

“You’re going to have to wear them anyway. Do your best.”

Click here to read the next part of Day Five.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*