To read part three of day six, click here.

I could see the girls talking to the guy as I started gathering all the water bottles. We needed to get them from the various tables and bring them to the table near the canoes. Bobby came over to help me.

“You doing ok?”

I bit my lip, trying not to cry. It was bad enough that some of the girls had seen me cry. I didn’t know what they had told the guys, but it was probably something like “Brett’s freaking out, so be nice to her”.

“Yeah, Bobby, I’m doing ok.”

He laughed. “Now that you’ve said you’re fine, how are you really doing?” He grinned at me, and I knew he wasn’t going to listen to me if I said I was fine. So, I told him the truth.

“Not good. I’m scared to death of the river, and I don’t want to do this. I’m scared that when I flip I’m not going to be able to get out from under the canoe, I’m scared that”

He cut me off. “You know you’re going to be fine, right? You were doing amazing on the lake yesterday, you will do great on the river today.”

I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t. I told him thanks, and I really meant it. Bobby always did his best to cheer people up, and while he couldn’t take away my fear of the water, he could make me forget it until we actually got on the water.

Bobby and I finished gathering all of the things we would need to take with us, and put the rest away. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back I saw Jen talking to Bobby and Bruce. I hurried over to where the stuff was and worked on packing it.

Jen came over to me and told me that I was going to be partnered with Bruce that day. I don’t know how to describe the emotions I felt then -I think it was a mixture of relief and fear.

I was still scared of the river. But at that point in time, I trusted Bruce more than any of my crewmates. He was the one who had helped me on the ladders, he had helped me carry some of my weight, and he was with the group who hopped Ben down the mountain.

So yeah, if I had to go on the river, I was glad that Bruce was going to be in the canoe with me. When we flipped he would be strong enough to take a lot of the canoes weight, (What? They were heavy!) so that we could actually get back to shore.

At least, that was what I was telling myself. I was hoping that it would stop me from freaking out.

Let’s just say that it didn’t work.

Click here to read the next part of Day Six.

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

To read part two of day six, click here.

I shook my head. I didn’t really know what was wrong. But then I opened my mouth and apparently my mouth knew what was wrong better than my brain did.

“I’m scared of the river. I’m scared of tipping, I’m scared that the water will carry me away. I’m so small and the river is so big and I’m not strong enough to stop myself from being carried down the river and I’m scared. I don’t want to do this.”

A couple of the girls were close enough to hear me and they came over.

“Are you ok, Brett?”

I shook my head – I was not ok. I was so scared and I wanted to be at home, doing orders, listening to music… really, I just wanted to be anywhere but there.

“You’re scared?”

I nodded my head, brushing the tears away. I was upset with myself – it was the first time I had cried. I had been doing such a good job of being strong. I hadn’t cried before – not even when my ankle was really hurting. And the river was making a baby of me.

“It’s ok to be scared, Brett. I’m pretty scared of the river too. But we’ll all be fine – don’t worry about it.”

I said thank you – it didn’t really make me feel any better, and I was still worrying, but the girls had tried to help. Jen told them to get back to work and she helped me put my pack with the other packs in the back of the trailer.

We sat on the edge of the trailer and she asked me a question.

“Do you know why you’re scared?”

“Not really.” I paused for a bit, thinking over my next words before I said them. “It could be because the river is so big, and I’m so small. And we’re going to be going on rapids today, and I don’t want to go on rapids! Flipping scares me to death, and I know I’m going to flip all of the time.”

Jen nodded her head and was quiet for a bit.

“Would it help if we paired you with one of the guys? Maybe Bruce or Bobby?”

I thought for a minute. I didn’t want to split the guys up – they wanted to be together. But on the other hand, it would be really nice to be with one of the guys. It would be good to have one of my stronger crewmates in the boat with me.

“It might help. Do you think they’ll be upset if they have to split up? They were pretty happy to be paired together.”

“I’m going to talk to the other instructors. Go ahead and help the girls load up the dry-bags – I’ll talk to you in a little bit.”

I watched her walk over to the other adults as I headed for the picnic table that had all the stuff on it. I could see a bunch of my crewmates watching me and I prayed, “Lord, please don’t let the rest of my crew make a big deal of this.“

Click here to read the next part of Day Six.

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

To read part one of day six, click here.

Kayce got into the car, food in his hands. I looked at what he had and grinned – it was granola!! Granola was like, the best breakfast food we had. It was amazing! Even with powdered milk (which was not a good experience after drinking goat milk for the last 6-7 years) it was still good.

Everyone passed their bowls forward eagerly. Granola was the one meal we all agreed was yummy, and we were all hungry! I took the bowls from Kayce and handed them back. In your bowl was granola and powdered milk – you would add water from your water bottle.

Once they had their bowls, everyone else poured their water in. I chose to wait until after we got off the gravel road. Which turned out to be a good decision – everyone else was wet by the time we got off the gravel.

When we were on a real road, I took my water bottle back from Bobby (who had borrowed it because his water bottle was rolling around on the floor) and poured it into my bowl. As I was pouring it, we went over a bump. So despite trying to not get wet, I still got wet. Stupid bumps. LOL

We got to the “put-in”, where we were getting into the water. We all grabbed our stuff from the van and put it onto the picnic tables scattered around. One of the adults told us where we could go pee and than told us to start unloading the canoe trailer.

I stayed out of the way while they got the canoes down. I was too short to reach all but the bottom ones, and by the time I was done cleaning out the car the bottom ones were off the trailer.

Once the canoes were off the trailer, the adults called us together to give us our canoe partners. The guys were all hoping to be paired up with each other, and they stuck next to each other. They started reading off names, and I was paired up with Jordan. There were only a few people who got the partner they wanted, but we weren’t allowed to switch around.

There were only a few people who were happy with the partner they got – Bobby and Bruce were together, and they were happy with that, and I think Luke and Sarah Margaret were relatively happy that they had been paired up.

I had forgotten something in my pack, so I asked Jen if I could get something out of the trailer with our gear in it before it left. She unlocked the trailer and helped me find my pack.

We pulled my pack to the front of the trailer and I sat down to open it. I looked out of the trailer, at the river, and couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. Jen looked at me, clearly confused.

“Brett? What’s wrong?”

Click here to read the next part of Day Six.

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

To read part of day , click here.

I woke up on the sixth morning a couple of minutes before Bruce’s watch alarm would beep. Bruce and I had an arrangement – he would wake me up if I overslept, and I would wake him up if he overslept.

There was only one morning he had to wake me up, and I never had to wake him up. Most mornings I would wake up five minutes before his watch would beep, and as soon as I heard it I would sit up and peek out from underneath my tarp at the boys tarp.

Bruce would sit up and wave or give me the thumbs up sign. I’d wave back and we would both do our thing. I usually waited a couple of minutes before waking up the girls – I needed some peace and quiet each morning.

When I’m at home, I wake up an hour before every one else. I sit on the couch with my computer, and that is when I work on stuff like my email, doing some schoolwork, stuff like that. That hour gives me a good, quiet, peaceful start to my day.

On Outward Bound, I didn’t have an hour. I couldn’t wait an hour before waking up everyone else, because they needed to get started on their wake up routine. They took a while to wake up. 🙂

So I would only wait five minutes before waking up the girls. Once the five minutes were up I’d pat/rub the girl next to me on the shoulder, and once she was awake she’d wake up the next girl. Sometimes shouting at them worked, but I didn’t do it too much, because it didn’t always work and it usually made them mad. LOL

We weren’t going to have time to eat that morning – we were going to have to eat in the car. I packed up all of my gear as quickly as I could, and then a bunch of the guys and I took down the tarp. Some of the girls were still doing whatever they did in the mornings, and the guys and I didn’t want to be late.

The guys and I headed for the car. We put our backpacks down by the trailer and grabbed our bowls, running to claim the spots we wanted in the car.

It took a while, and we were late, (we were supposed to be out of there at a certain time) but sooner or later everyone got to the car. Because I was one of the first in the car, I had gotten the spot I wanted. I grabbed my bowl from underneath my seat and held it in my lap. I was hoping for a good breakfast!

Click here to read the next part of Day Six.

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

To read part eighteen of day five, click here.

After what was probably close to an hour, Glenn stuck his head out and announced that we could get out. The storm was far enough away, and as a bonus, the rain had stopped!

We all got out and collected our black mats from under the car. We had shoved them there because there was not enough room for them in the car.

One of my crewmates saw his/her wet mat and lost it. I think he/she had been close to losing it in the car, but the wet mat was what set him/her off. He/she went running off into the darkness, down the road.

The rest of us looked at each other, not knowing what to do. Someone said “we need to get to bed…” so those of us who had mats grabbed them and we headed up the trail. Everyone was carrying their bowl and spoon, everyone who had a water bottle was carrying it, and everyone who had their mat was carrying it. It made it rather difficult to walk. 😀

We made it to the spot where we had made dinner and we all stopped. Sitting there on the ground was all the stuff that we had made dinner with.

It still needed to be cleaned up.

I would have stayed and helped, but I still had to lay out my stuff for the night. Most of us headed up the trail, while Luke and his partner stayed behind to clean.

As we were leaving Luke called after us. “Um… Does anyone have a head lamp I can borrow??” I told everyone to wait for me as I ran back to give Luke mine. I caught back up to the rest of the crew and we headed up to camp. I needed them to wait for me because I wouldn’t have been able to see without their headlamps.

The tarp was still standing – the girls had done a good job with it. It was pouring so hard I had worried that it was going to come down. I ran over to check on my backpack. It was completely dry! There were a couple of straps that had been hanging out in the rain, but other than that there was no wetness.

I said a quick prayer to thank God and started pulling my stuff out. I borrowed Maggie’s headlamp and spread out my stuff, trying to keep the wet mat from getting my sleeping stuff too wet.

We heard voices coming up the trail and got out from under the tarp. It was Luke and his partner, (still can’t remember who it was) and our crewmate who had ran down the trail. We all went and stood together and he/she apologized. We all said it was fine, and I thought that was the end of it.

I went up to Luke and asked for my headlamp back, handing Maggie hers. As I was heading back to the tarp, I heard Bobby asking our crewmate what we could do to help him/her from losing it again.

I don’t remember what he/she said, I just remember thinking that it was going to be hard. It was something like “keep the bugs away, keep all my stuff dry, don’t make me hike mile after mile after mile…”

Okay, not really. 😀 But it was something like that, something that we had no control over.

Bobby said “Ok everyone, ____ needs a hug from all of us. Let’s go, everyone get over here and give ____ a hug. C’mon, don’t be shy.”

I gave my crewmate a hug and got out of the way so I wouldn’t get squished. I headed back to the tarp and took off my boots, putting my headlamp , compass, and stuff from my pockets inside them. I crawled into my sleeping bag, getting as far from the opening as I could. I really didn’t want to get wet!

I thought about what had happened that day. Being able to use a toilet had been amazing! And even though we had the phone problem, we had managed to recover from that and come out stronger as a crew. The cheesy grits for breakfast weren’t that great, but I was able to have fun in the car! The whole “I’m the smallest, I don’t fit in half the gear” thing wasn’t the best, but at least I was pretty good at paddling a canoe. And sorry, but I can’t think of a good thing to combat the hour in the car. Oh – yeah I can. The fact that none of my stuff was wet!

I was starting to have fun. Of course, I hadn’t seen the river yet, and that was going to be one of the harder things I did on my trip. 🙂

Click here to read the first part of Day Six.

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

To read part seventeen of day , click here.

I got to the campsite and looked under the closest tarp. It was the girls tarp, and it was obvious where I was going to be. On the edge. And it was looked like it was going to rain.

I shoved my pack as far away from the edge as I could without putting it on Sarah Margaret’s stuff. I didn’t want it getting wet! I pulled my headlamp and windbreaker out of my bag and put them on, not knowing what was going to happen. Everyone else was heading back down towards the kitchen, so I went with them.

We got to the kitchen, only to see that it was no longer a kitchen. The food was being carried down to the car, and everything else was all piled together.

While I had been trekking up the hill and putting my stuff away, the storm had grown closer. So even though it was not raining, we still had to get into lightning drill.

Not only did we have to fit us in the car, we had to fit all the food, eating materials, and Glenn and Patrick in there. Let’s just say it was a tight fit. I was in the back with Tullia and two of the other girls, and Tullia and I were miserable.

It was hot, stinky, and loud in there. I was in the back, (which I can’t do) and I was feeling nauseous. Tullia had a really bad headache, and one of the other girls did too. Basically, we were a mess.

And we were stuck in the car. It had started to pour, and it was pouring hard.

We probably spent an hour in the car. After eating one of two bites of dinner, (which would have been really good if I hadn’t been so nauseous!) I passed my bowl to Bobby. He looked at me in concern when he saw my completely full bowl and told me I should eat some more.

I told him that I was nauseous, and he nodded and started eating. He asked if I had my water bottle with me and I handed it to him.

Sitting in the hot, stinky, loud car was not fun, but it was necessary. And it was definitely better than the alternative – sitting under our tarp, trying not to get wet… Better than that.

I sat there praying – it was raining so hard, and I was convinced that my stuff was going to be soaked. I just sat there and prayed that none of my stuff would be too wet.

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 too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part of day , click here.

I looked over by Tullia and saw what she was looking at. I stepped back a step, stepping into the water.

The snake on the log.

Luke came over to us and asked Tullia if she knew that it was dead.

Tullia and I looked at him.

“The snake is dead and no one told us?!?!?”

“Apparently not. Isn’t it a cool snake?

I cut in on the conversation. “You think that’s cool? It’s creepy! Boys are so weird.”

“How can you think that’s creepy?”

I tuned him out and grabbed the paddles on the ground. If I listened, we’d be arguing all day. I didn’t really want to spend the rest of the day arguing about how creepy dead snakes are. LOL

After getting all the gear put away, we put our boots back on and changed if we were changing. I decided to keep my wet clothes on – Jen and Katie said they would dry faster if they were on us. I did put my long pants and a sweatshirt on over my wet clothes, because I was cold!

We all piled into the car for the drive to our campsite. Everyone was damp, but at least we all smelled a little bit better! I know a couple of us took advantage of our swim assessment to try to get some of the stink off. 😀

While we were in the car, I thought back to when Bobby made me help him move the canoe and realized that it had been good for me. Pretty much my entire course I was afraid to help with things, because I was the smallest/weakest and I just got in the way. But by making me move that canoe with him, Bobby made me see that with help, I could do things.

That doesn’t mean that all of a sudden I was super helpful and helped with everything, even if I was getting in the way. I still didn’t help too much with the bear hang, unless it was my night, and I didn’t do much with the canoes without lots of help. But there were things that I did that I wouldn’t have done before he made me do that. 🙂

We got to our campsite and opened up the trailer. Everyone took their packs out and we stood in a (sort of) circle to get our instructions.

Maggie, Katie and I were going to work on dinner a little bit up the hill, and everyone else was going to go set up the camp further up.

People started pulling kitchen items out of their packs. I don’t remember how we got it all up the hill – I think Katie made them carry it up for us.

I grabbed my pack and headed to where we were going to have to cook. Maggie, Tullia, Katie and I were talking, laughing, and working on dinner. Tullia was with us because she had gotten dehydrated, and Katie was making her drink two of our water bottles.

Guess who got to cut the salami? Me!

Colter and I agree – the knives we had on our courses were the worst knives we have ever used. It took me almost an hour to cut the salami.

We were in the process of frying the salami to add to our alfredo noodles when we heard the first thunder. Maggie, Tullia and I looked at each other in alarm. I muttered a prayer – I really, really, really didn’t want it to rain.

Katie told me to bring my backpack up to camp and put it under the tarp, in case it started raining. I put my pack on and started up the hill, groaning. After one day of not using my hiking muscles, my legs did not want to go up that hill. LOL

But I had to, if I didn’t want my stuff to get wet. ‘Cause it was about to start raining. I could tell.

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 too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part fifteen of day five, click here.

Bruce and Bobby were coming up behind us really fast. I was paddling as hard as I could, but my strength against Bruce’s? I knew we weren’t going to be the first canoe past Patrick.

Our one chance to win was if we could stay straight, and the started curving. But I knew Bobby was determined to win this, and I knew he was going to do his best to steer. I stopped looking at them, I stopped thinking about everything except paddling. I started going faster, I think. I don’t really know if I started going faster, or if Bruce and Bobby got slower. Maybe they started steering funny. I don’t know.

Jen and I shot past Patrick and stopped paddling. I turned around to look, sure that Bruce and Bobby had beaten us.

I was surprised to see them so far behind us! They still hadn’t passed Patrick. Kayce and Maggie were passing Patrick, and right behind them were Bruce and Bobby. I never asked what happened – I didn’t want it to seem like I was rubbing it in.

Jen told Patrick that she didn’t need the treat, to give it to Kayce and Maggie instead. She said that she was an instructor and Maggie, Kayce and I were the ones who deserved it.

Patrick told the three of us to remind him about our treat later. Then he said it was time to get our canoes out of the water and get to our campsite.

We all paddled our canoes to the boat ramp, and people hopped out of their canoes and started carrying them up the ramp. I stood out of the way for this – I knew I wasn’t strong enough to move the canoes. I just got in the way and slowed everyone down.

Everyone was helping each other move the canoes – Team A would help Team B move their canoe, and then Team B would help move Team A’s canoe.

There was one canoe left, and everyone was in the process of carrying a canoe. Everyone except Bobby. He was coming back towards me and the last canoe.

“Hey Brett, can you help me move this canoe?”

“Um, I guess. I’m not very good at it though, and I probably won’t be able to do it without someone helping me.”

“Nah, you can do it just fine. I’ll carry as much of the weight as I can, and you can do the rest. Got that? You can do it.”

I picked up the end and tried to move forward, almost dropping the canoe as I lurched forward. Bobby was walking slowly, telling me “Let’s go, Brett, you’ve got this.”

Luke came over and asked if I needed help. I was about to say yes, please come help me, when Bobby spoke up.

“Nope, Brett’s got it.”

I glared at him as we kept walking. Luke shrugged his shoulders and went back to help get the canoes on the trailer.

Bobby and I (finally!) made it over to the trailer, where we flipped the canoe so we could put it on. Bobby said I could get some help to lift the canoe up, since it was over my head. 😀

Tullia and I went back down by the boat ramp to grab a couple of paddles that were still down there. I leaned down to pick up the paddle, and heard Tullia next to me start yelling and shrieking.

“There’s a snake on that log!!!”

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 too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part fourteen of day five, click here.

Once everyone was over by the dock we pulled all the canoes together and held them by the gunwales again. I looked over at the canoe next to me and saw this:

This is just so Rebecca. :D

I started laughing, unable to stop myself. Patrick must have thought I was laughing at him. “Ok everyone, stop talking, laughing, whatever you’re doing and listen to me.” I made the mistake of looking at Rebecca again and we both started giggling. I managed to stop giggling before he could look at me though.

Patrick explained the game we were going to play. It was called Dragon Hunter or Dragon Chaser or something like that. You would throw out your stern (the back) “painter”, the string that was connected to the back. The person who was “it” would try to make you be a Dragon Hunter too by grabbing your painter and pulling it.

Jen and I did pretty well in this game! We managed to keep Patrick at bay for quite a while. We would turn our canoe to keep him in front of us at all times, and we managed to do it for about 4 minutes, which seemed like it was forever. 😀

I think my favorite part of the game was when Kayce was one of the Dragon Hunters. He was in the stern of his canoe, and he was trying to get the painter of one of the other canoes.

He was trying, trying, and trying even harder to get his canoe close enough to the other one that he could reach the painter. I guess he gave up, because all of a sudden he leaped out of his canoe.

I had turned just in time to see him launch himself out of his canoe. He grabbed at the painter on his way down and caught it. He went under the water, and the canoe that he was holding jerked as the line was pulled.

Maggie was in the bow of his canoe, and she started yelling as she almost fell out. He came up to the surface grinning, the painter held up over his head in victory. That was one of my favorite moments on the water. 🙂

After a while we did some more racing. We lined up at the docks, and Patrick went about half of the way out.

“All right y’all. The first canoe past me will get a treat. Are you ready?”

We all yelled to Patrick that we were ready.

“Ready, set, GO!!”

Everyone was doing their best. The people in the bow were paddling as hard as they could, the people in the stern were steering as straight as they could.

Jen and I were out in front, but it looked like we had company. Bruce and Bobby were coming up behind us, and they were moving fast. Jen started yelling at me. (Ok, not really yelling. More like… Um, it wasn’t yelling, but it wasn’t really anything else. :D)

“Brett, we can NOT let them pass us. C’mon Brett, you can paddle harder!”

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 too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part thirteen of day five, click here.

Paddling is hard work. Just sayin’. 🙂

Jen and I started out in the back, behind everyone else. Not for long! With Jen in the back steering us, we went almost completely straight. I felt bad for everyone else. They were turning back and forth, sometimes even turning in a complete circle. But Jen and I shot straight across the lake, and as a result we were the first ones over there.

It felt pretty awesome to be the first there. I wished we hadn’t won by so much, but it was nice to be “the best” in my crew for a moment. And I put that in quotation marks because I wasn’t the best – it was only the fact that I had an instructor in my boat.

I hoped that none of my crewmates would resent me for getting so far ahead of them. We were still getting to know each other, and I didn’t know how they would react to me being at the far side of the lake before some of them had even made the half way point.

The first canoes started to get within talking distance and we started congratulating each other. Everyone in those canoes was all “Great job, Brett!” which made me feel a lot better. Everyone that is, except Luke. He said “Great job, Dora!” which made me laugh.

While I was on my trip, I pretended to be offended when anyone called me Dora. I actually liked it – I felt like I belonged better with a nickname.

The entire trip, I was struggling with insecurity. I was the smallest, the weakest, the most sheltered. I was the only one who didn’t curse, I was the only one who didn’t go to public school. They didn’t listen to the same music as I did, they didn’t read the same books. We had nothing in common, and it scared me. I didn’t know how to act around kids who were so different from me.

So yeah, having a nick name made me feel better. I don’t know why it made me feel better, but it did.

Once everyone was on this side of the lake, we went back again. And once again, Jen and I were first. I was still worrying about how my crewmates would react, but it’s not like I could slow down while I was paddling. If I tried to slow down, Jen would say “C’mon Brett, go faster!””

It was around this time that Jen started taking pictures.

Waiting for the rest of the canoes to get to us.

Bruce and Bobby in their canoe on the lake.

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 too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part twelve of day five, click here.

We lined up close to the shore, holding the canoes next to us by the gunwales. Once or twice the person next to me would let go, and I would have to yell at them to grab my canoe again because I was not strong enough to keep our canoes close together. 🙂

As we were all lined up there, I was talking with Rebecca, who was next to me in her canoe. We were laughing over something when we heard all of the others exclaiming “Look everyone, look!!”.

Rebecca and I stopped talking and looked over at the other canoes. The rest of my crew was staring up at the sky, watching something.

I looked up and saw something I am never going to forget.

Right above us, not much higher than the trees, was a Bald Eagle. It was circling the lake, so we got to watch it for a while. It was such a majestic sight, and I remember how when it was gone we all just looked at each other in disbelief. It was so beautiful, and so amazing.

Out there, on my trip, I was constantly amazed at the beauty around me. I couldn’t believe all of the gorgeous things I saw that God has created. Everywhere I looked there were amazing things, amazing views, amazing plant life. Sorry, but I just don’t find insects amazing. All they do is annoy me. 🙂

Ok, so the stinging nettle wasn’t exactly an amazing plant, when you touched it. But it was great to eat! I’m not kidding – if you rolled up the edges so they wouldn’t sting your mouth, it tasted like kale or lettuce. Which was really nice, because we were all craving vegetables. At least, I was.

But you had to make sure you rolled up the leaves. If you didn’t, you would have your entire mouth start stinging. I didn’t find this out, Bruce did. On Day Four when Ben was hurt and we were getting him down the mountain, on one of our breaks Bruce and I were starting to get hungry. I don’t remember how it started, but Katie told us that you could eat stinging nettle.

I said I wasn’t going to eat it first, but if Bruce would and said it was good I’d eat it too. He took one and popped it in his mouth, chewed for a minute and pronounced it good. I picked a leaf and rolled it up – I didn’t want any sharp points poking me. I rolled it so I couldn’t see any of the points before sticking it in my mouth. I was just about to swallow when Bruce opened his mouth, waving his hand in front of it.

“My mouth is stinging!!”

I swallowed, praying that my mouth wouldn’t start too.

Katie came over. “Did you roll up the edges so the points couldn’t sting you?”

“No, why would you do that?” He thought about it for a minute. “Oh, you mean the points did this?”

I felt better about it – I had rolled up the points, so I should be good. I picked another leaf and ate it. It was good, I was hungry, and it was green. It was the first green thing I had eaten since I had left home the day before the airport. LOL

Anyway, back to the lake. We watched the bald eagle fly for over five minutes before it landed in the trees on the other side of the lake. That was when Patrick announced what we were doing next.

We were going to cross the lake.

It was a big lake.

I didn’t really want to cross the lake.

But I had to, and I knew I wasn’t getting out of it. I let go of the canoes next to me and picked up my paddle. We all headed out a bit so we could get enough room to paddle, and then Patrick sent us off.

“C’mon, Brett! Let’s do this. We’re going to beat everyone.”

Did I mention that Jen was pretty competitive? 😀

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 too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part eleven of day five, click here.

Bruce picked up one of the blobs. I blinked, wondering if it was what it looked like. He picked up the other one and held it up to show everyone on the shore. I laughed – they were his booties. They had fallen off while he was swimming.

I caught up to him for a second, but then he was way ahead of me again. He got back to shore and started telling everyone that they had fallen off on his way out to Patrick, but he had forgotten to get them on his way back to shore. I think he was racing someone to get back to land.

Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure the swim evaluation came before we learned to pack the canoes. Because we weren’t that wet when we got into the canoes a little bit after packing, so we would have had to do our swim evaluation before then.

So this happened after we finished the packing.

We all got into a circle and Patrick explained what was going to happen. We were going to get into our canoes, lighter person in the bow (front), and learn our paddle strokes.

Everyone pulled their canoe off the shore and into the water, except for me. Everyone got into their canoe, except for me. Everyone paddled over to the dock so they could hold on and not float away, except for me.

I couldn’t – I didn’t have my partner! Jen, Katie and Glenn were all talking and when I went and stood by Jen, she told me to go back to the canoe, she would be over there soon.

The rest of my crewmates were already learning their paddle strokes, paddling around in the shallows. And I was still waiting for Jen.

Ten minutes later, she hopped into the canoe. “Sorry about that!” she said as we paddled out to meet the rest of the crew.

Thirty minutes after that, we were still practicing paddle strokes. I was glad – I still had no idea what I was doing. Patrick would call out what we were supposed to be doing, and I would usually do the opposite.

Jen would correct me, telling me to do the other one, and I would correct it. I knew which stroke did what, I just couldn’t figure out their names for some reason. I still don’t know their names, actually. But when Jen would say that we needed to turn right, I was able to do the correction strokes that were needed.

Because I was in the front, I didn’t have to do as much steering. I was mostly the power. The engine, in a way. The person in the stern did most of the steering, but I needed to know the strokes that I would use to correct our direction the next two days. If the person in the stern couldn’t turn us in time to miss a rock in the river, I would have to help.

Patrick said we were done learning the strokes and told us to go line up by the docks. We headed back across the lake to the dock. Jen and I stopped for a second and she took a picture of me.

This is one of my favorite pictures of me from my course. :)

I was a little worried about what was coming next, but I shouldn’t have. Jen and I kicked butt. 😀

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 too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part ten of day five, click here.

Each person got a mesh bag to store their water bottles in. You tied the bag to your canoe with the drawstring, and then you had the fun of trying to actually fit your water bottles in. It always took a while, but I could usually get it in. I only had to ask for help a couple of times… 🙂

We learned how to fasten our windbreakers to the canoe – you tied it in a knot around one of the pieces of wood. I can’t remember what those pieces were called… Wish I could.

The next job was learning how to close the dry bag. We had several – the one with the first aid kit in it, the one that would carry all of our dry clothes, and the one that would carry our food for the day.

Learning how to close the dry bag – this is the one that had our clothes

After that we learned how to fasten the baby seals, and then we were done! With that part, at least.

It was time for our swim assessment. We didn’t have to wear our helmets, but we had to wear our life jackets and booties.

Patrick took his canoe out on the lake. We would have to swim to him, touch his canoe, and swim back. We all waded into the water – it was cold! I had been hoping that it would be somewhat warm, since it was the end of July. I did start to get warmer after I started swimming, but I was still freezing when we got out.

Once Patrick decided he was far enough out, he told us to start swimming. I hung out behind everyone – I had a feeling that I was going to be one of the weakest swimmers (if not the weakest). When I knew I was going to be able to start swimming without getting kicked in the face, I waded out until the water was over my waist. It was SO cold, and I knew I had to start swimming before my toes froze.

I started swimming, grateful for the life jacket. I am not a very good swimmer, and the fact that I could feel things touching my legs was freaking me out. I think it was some sort of plant, but whatever it was it was freaking me out. I let the life jacket lift me up so I wouldn’t have to feel anything, and kept my feet as close to the top of the water as I could. 😀

I was falling way behind. I tried to speed up, but I’m not that fast. 🙂 I was half of the way to Patrick, and people had started passing me on their way back.

Luke said “C’mon Dora, you can do it!” as he passed me. I stopped swimming for a second and turned around to tell him he was doing a great job, and thanks. He yelled at me to keep swimming, so I started swimming again. I reached Patrick and turned around, wishing I could push off of the canoe. My legs were getting tired, but I had to keep going. I couldn’t just stop in the middle of the lake!

There was still a long way back to the shore. I kept swimming, wishing that Patrick hadn’t gone so far out. I was three quarters of the way there when I saw Bruce coming back out towards me. He stopped swimming after a minute or two, stopping next to these two black blobs floating in the middle of the lake.

What in the heck were they? As far as I knew, big black blobs floating around in the middle of a lake were not common…

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.*

To read part nine of day five, click here.

Some of us started glaring at him. (Not me. I would never, ever, ever do something like glare at someone for not telling me something. Never ever. 😀 )

Bobby nodded his head.

“Well, it actually didn’t taste too bad! I kinda liked it! Anyone want me to drink theirs?”

His eyes grew wide as five cans of tuna fish were shoved at him.

“Um… No one else is going to try it?”

No one said anything.

“Ok then…”

He started drinking the juice and I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t going to have to drink it! The girls were all grinning at each other, the relief plain on their faces.

I think some of the others might have actually drank it, but I don’t remember. I do remember that there was not enough tuna fish – that was gone in an instant.

Thankfully, there was a lot of cheese left over. We ran out of crackers too, but I think everyone mostly got their fill. I tossed my extra crackers at Luke, since he seemed the hungriest, and told him to share with anyone who wanted them.

Have you ever had tuna fish with out mayonnaise? It’s not the best. (Really. I wouldn’t recommend it.) My siblings don’t really believe me when I say stuff about the food on my trip.

I think I’m going to make them split a can of tuna fish with another sibling, with only one sleeve of crackers between the two of them. And I’ll make them drink the juice and see what they say about it then.

Ok, I probably won’t make them drink the juice. But I really want to see what they say when they realize that we are having tuna fish with no mayo for lunch. 🙂

When we were done eating, we were told to clean up and get our gear back on. Some of us got in trouble because we didn’t have our life jackets clipped – we had them on, but didn’t have them clipped. “All on, or all off” was the rule..

I’m pretty sure the reason for that rule is because they have had students go onto the water with their life jackets and/or helmets on, but not clipped. That was the rule for everything – if you had it on, actually have it on. Don’t stop halfway.

During all three days, I only got yelled at for that twice. The first time when they hadn’t told us the rule, (or if they did, I wasn’t there for it) and once when I was taking off my life jacket and got called by someone. Apparently I forgot that I was in the process of taking off my life jacket.

Once we were done cleaning up, we gathered by the boats to learn how to store our gear properly. Water bottles, our food, and the “dry bag” containing our warm clothes for when we were off the water.

Believe me, proper storage of all those items was essential. If you didn’t store it correctly, when you flipped you would lose all of it. And everyone flipped, so you couldn’t think that you were going to be the only one who wouldn’t flip. No matter how much you wanted too.

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.*

To read part eight of day five, click here.

Lunch that day was interesting. We were having tuna fish, but we had no mayo. And we couldn’t just dump out the tuna juice – we had to drink it.

When Jen told us that we had to drink the tuna juice, everyone looked at her in disbelief. “I don’t care what she says. I am not drinking tuna juice” someone near me muttered. I agreed – there was no way I was going to drink it.

Jen was still talking.

“…might like it! I like it. It’s actually my favorite part of this meal.”

She turned and walked away and we all stared at each other grimly.

“We seriously have to drink this? Can’t we just dump it when they aren’t looking?

“There are four of them now. I think they are taking turns watching us – haven’t you noticed that at least one of them is always watching us?”

“They can’t be watching us, can they?”

“Well, it sure looks like they are watching us…”

I tried to tune the rest of the crew out as Maggie and I started getting lunch out. I cut the cheese into chunks while Mags opened the cans. At first I tried to open the cans, but I couldn’t get it, so we switched jobs.

We told the rest of the crew to partner up – two people had to split a can of tuna fish and a sleeve of crackers. I had three of the guys ask me if I wanted to be their partner. I guess they figured there would be more food for them if they got me as a partner. 😀

The looks on their faces when I told them that I already had a partner? Were hysterical. After the initial disappointment, they all looked really thoughtful for a minute. I had a feeling that they were trying to decide who else wasn’t going to eat their whole share, so they could ask them to be their partner. LOL

Once I got the cheese cut, (Hey NCOBS, you really need to sharpen your knives!) it was time to eat. Maggie grabbed us a can of tuna and I grabbed us a sleeve of crackers.

We looked at the can of tuna in disgust -we had forgotten that we had to drink the juice. All around us partners were arguing… I mean, having friendly discussions about which partner was going to drink the juice.

I guess Bobby lost the fight with his partner, because he was the first person to drink it.

“Ok guys, I’ll let you know how it tastes!”

We all watched in disgust as he tipped the can, leaving the lid in so the tuna wouldn’t come out and land on his face. I said a quick prayer that no one would cut their lips on the can – the edges were really sharp because we didn’t have a real can opener.

He put the can back down, licking his lips. We all looked at him, all of us wanting to know.

“So?!? How did it taste?!?”

He thought about it for a moment, obviously wanting to torture us with his knowledge.

“Bobby! Would you please tell us?!?

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.*