The weather was awesome and the conditions on scout island were excellent. Water was calm in the morning and when the wind picked up little waves were common.
We setup our kitchens/patrol areas in the parking area for scout island and stored all food in the trailers. In past trips we had issues with raccoons trying to get into food boxes, etc. This plan worked well.
Ask your scouts about the marbles used on the campout.
Each patrol was issued 20 marbles in order to buy supplies from an Australian Trader if for some reason they showed up Un-prepared. In turn the Australian Trader observed the scouts doing their assigned tasks. They would award up to 5 marbles for completing the task, showing teamwork, thinking outside the box, etc.
We broke the scouts into 4 groups of 8/9 scouts.
They needed to show up with their 10 essentials.
Task #1 – Via canoe travel to a nearby island that was designated as Fire Island. Once there they had to build a fire and it had to done well enough to boil a cup of water. Best time was 15 minutes.
Task #2 – Was on the northern tip of Scout Island where the scouts had to lash a chair together that could hold their largest patrol member for 15 seconds.
Task #3 – First Aid at the southern tip of scout island, they had to do a ankle wrap, splint a wrist, sling the arm and then stretcher the patient 100 ft.
Task #4 – On the southern end of scout island was a near by small island, here the scouts using 1 canoe had to have at least 6 members of their group participate in a 3 laps around the island. Example, 2 scouts do lap 1, another 2 do lap 2 and the final 2 do lap 3. Or some variation of this.
Task #5 – Tarantula Race was at the mid-point on the island. A maze was created for the tarantula to traverse through. One scout was the un-blindfolded guide that would give directions to the tarantula to work through the maze. The tarantula was made up of the 7-8 remaining scouts blindfolded, in a circle facing outward with arms interlocked. This way they had to move everywhere together as a team. With 8 scouts facing out in 8 different directions how does the guide scout tell them to go left.
We had a few canoes flip and the scouts recovered by emptying the canoe and climbing back in. In most places the depth of the water was no more then chest deep on an adult.
We did see multiple manatees, dolphins, turtles, pelicans, couple raccoons and an opossum.
We had Kona shaved ice onsite late afternoon and it was yum-yum.
Saturday evening included a camp fire on the beach and several skits, etc.
Our resident camera guy (Tom Reynolds) did not make this trip, but several adults were taking photos, we will look to get copies and place them on the goggle drive.
After talking with several scouts, the consensus is they want to come back to this location in the near future.
YIS
Duane Fogg