Reason Twenty-Eight

One big way to show you care about someone at Emerald Bay is to throw them into the ocean. We throw staff in for birthdays, a staff member's last day, and scouts throw their rangers in on Saturday mornings before they leave. However, if someone says they don't want to be thrown in, the staff does respect that and will not throw them in.

To any scouts reading this blog, if you want to throw someone into the ocean, first check with your adult leaders, as well as the waterfront director and your ranger. There are rules associated with throwing someone in and if they are not followed, there are major consequences.

Reason Twenty-Seven

This reason is for all of my readers who are movie buffs.

The 1935 version of "Treasure Island" was filmed at various places on Catalina Island, with many shots of Emerald Bay. Other movies made on the island include "Mutiny on the Bounty" (the bison were brought over for this movie), "The Sea Witch", "McHale's Navy". and "McArthur". Many television shows have also been recorded, such as the kids' show "Endurance". The creators filmed one season at Parson's Beach, which is where our scouts go on their war canoe trip.

Reasons Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six

Twenty-Five:
Last night we had a rave in the Trading Post- it was amazing!! There were color-changing glow sticks everywhere and all of the staff members had at least three things on that glowed in the dark. Most of the lights were off to add to the effect, plus some of the kids who bought glow sticks were raving with them at the doors. It was really neat and everyone had a lot of fun.

Twenty-Six:
Emerald Bay is constantly looking for new ways to make camp more eco-friendly. We compost leftovers, have installed new water-saving toilet flush valves, and reused old dock material to build the Caldwell. Just today, the Nature Director and I incorporated reusing milk cartons as bird feeders for the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Merit Badge. If any of my readers have any other great green ideas, please post them. Then I can pass the ideas on to those who can implement them at camp. Thanks for your help!

Reason Twenty-Four

Since I've written about the amazing camp dogs, I also have to write about the feral cats who live at Emerald Bay. Currently we have Tommy, Subzero, Mouse, Oops, Gato, and OJ. Tommy is the handsome orange cat who follows people around South Hill, looking for food. Sub, Mouse, and OJ tend to hang out either by the dinning hall (they love cream) or in the maintenance yard. Gato and Oops stay on Old South Hill.

I have to mention Troubles also. He was the Ranger's cat, who had been in some unfortunate arguments with other animals. He was a fun cat, but sadly is no longer with us.

Reason Twenty-Three

The camp dogs. There have been three dogs in my time at Emerald Bay: Wally, Muffin, and Ajax. Anyone going out to camp this summer will get to meet Ajax, the adorable Boxer who boxes.

Reason Twenty-Two

My favorite place at camp is the Chapel. The view is amazing, you can see the entire bay; on clear days you can see past two harbors and back to the mainland. Plus the secluded nature of its location makes it very quiet, very serene. I make it a point to visit the Chapel on every trip I take to Emerald Bay because it's such a fantastic place to clear my mind and let go of all stress. I highly recommend spending at least a few moments in this wonderful place when you visit camp.

Reasons Nineteen, Twenty, and Twenty-One

Nineteen:

At Emerald Bay we pride ourselves on "Fellowship and Comrades Lasting". F&CL is one of the things that truly defines the staff, whether they are past, present, or future.

Twenty:

At the end of every campfire we have a story, song, and Camp Director minute. The stories are an important part of camp history. Sometimes the story teller talks about Sam Prentice, the man whose grave is on North Hill; sometimes we hear about Paul C. Hansen, the man who is thought to still be alive in the hills of Catalina, eating wild boar. Or sometimes we just hear about the Wrigleys who used to live on the island. Whatever the story might be, the listener always learns something new about our home on Catalina.

Twenty-One:

We have a new tradition of having a pizza night one Saturday a summer. The dinning hall gets turned into a pizza house, where we create our own pizzas, get numbers for when to pick the pizzas up, and eventually get take out pizza in EB pizza boxes. It is amazing fun. The guys in the kitchen always have fun emceeing the event.

(Oh, and yes, I enjoyed writing "pizza" a gazillion times in the second sentence.)

Reason Eighteen

Staff activities. Fun to be in and fun to watch. Some favorites: lip sync, Halloween and Christmas in July, Pajamajamajam, broom ball, assassin, and much more.

Reason Sixteen and Seventeen

Sixteen:

We used to play beany baby baseball during Aquacade. It was Handicraft versus Trading Post, but players rotated out depending on the demands of their area and needs of the Waterfront. Instead of me describing the game, simply imagine a broken canoe paddle, a damaged beany bear, and a few eucalyptus trees in the middle of the diamond.

Seventeen:

Staff photos from most of the Emerald Bay staff are hung in the dining hall. It is always fun to look at them and see who you recognize. I have found my father, my first director's first year photo, and more. I know that pictures for the upcoming summer's Business Director, Program Director, and Ranger Director are in the dining hall. For two of the three of them, it is the picture when they were CITs, the other is as a ranger. Even my first staff photo is in there.

Reason Fifteen

We have many amazing hikes around camp, going to Arrow Point, Parsons, and Silver Peak, just to name a few. They each are unforgettable in their own way. I love hiking to Arrow Point to watch the sunset. Silver Peak is always a lot of fun. One of my favorite memories is hiking their in the late afternoon on the Fourth of July. When we got to the peak we were able to watch the firework shows from places all along the mainland.

Which ever hikes you chose to take when visiting EB, bring a camera! This is one of the pictures I took from Silver Peak.

Reason Fourteen

This friendly fellow!!

If you ever have any questions, comments, or concerns about a past, present, or future experience at camp, Hoover is your man. Just talking to him about Emerald Bay will brighten your day!

Reason Thirteen

Our amazing staff socks!!! The exceptionally warm, white knee socks with three red stripes. Where else can you find about 100 people rocking these socks with pride?

Reason Twelve

All the random facts and history any staff member can tell you about their time at camp. For example, I found a blog about EB history, which appears to be abandoned, but has some neat info in it. Here's the link:

http://campemeraldbaymysteries.blogspot.com

Reason Eleven

When you join the Emerald Bay staff, you become part of an amazing family. We look out for each other, bring fellow staffers food when they are too sick to come to the dining hall, and have adventures together. One example of this remarkable comradeship is when someone gets sick. Every summer I have caught the Catalina Crud and each time I ended up with at least two plates of food each meal and a zillion cough drops. Plus somehow my Nalgene bottle is always full- someone must sneak in while I sleep and fill it up. Every staff member, past and present, make up this truly wonderful family and I am proud to be a part of it.

Reason Ten

We have such a huge variety of classes for kids of all ages and interests. I love watching all of the fun things always happening on the waterfront, but I hate going in the water (go figure since I work on and island). However, kids just like me can still have just as much fun in Handicraft, Nature, Scoutcraft, Field Sports, and more places. What other camp allows you to practice your knots on a pirate ship? Now, I may be biased, but everything in the Handicraft area is so much fun- even making baskets! And learning about the lemonade berry plant is so cool!

Yes, I am a teacher and yes, I do get excited thinking about classes and designing lessons, but our classes really are amazing. I still love going to the classes to see what crazy things we'll do.

Actually, for any of my readers out there, post a comment about one of your favorite lessons from camp. I want to hear about even more fabulous experiences, which I may have sadly missed.

Reason Nine

This lovely lady!!

She is essentially the heart of camp- if Lindsay stops working things will get done, but not nearly as efficiently or with as much charm. All those who have earned merit badges, called the camp, sent mail, or pretty much anything else, bow down to the amazing Lindsay, as well as those who have held the post before her.

Reason Eight

The waterfront demonstration is excellent. I have seen it I don't know how many times (once a week multiplied by I don't know how many weeks multiplied by nine years, give or take a few) and it still makes me laugh. I've seen demos with Pokemon, Star Wars, and Dragonball Z references, to name a few. One time the tide was so low that when the guys jumped in the water they were standing on the bottom (the boats wouldn't even completely sink). It's a great way to show the do's and don't's of the waterfront and everyone enjoys it (even though I still wince when Joe Lifeguard falls on the pier).

Reason Seven

I know not everyone will agree with this reason, but I'm sick, haven't eaten more than crackers and gatorade for five days, and I'm craving this. Roxy's lasagna! Oh, so good.

Reason Six

Cobbler!!!

Traditional apple cobbler, peanut butter and jelly cobbler, pineapple and mango upside-down cobbler, dark chocolate cobbler... every kind of cobbler imaginable!

It's fun to make, fun to taste, and very difficult to judge. Believe me on the judging thing- one time this summer we had to judge 19 cobblers at once!

Reasons Three, Four, and Five

Three:

If you ever get the opportunity to play PFD Water Polo, trust me, it's a reason. Imagine wearing old, no-longer useable lifejackets (see, I said no-longer useable for those of you who are involved in the purchasing and care of PFDs) as diapers. For the record, you will look silly wearing this out of water. Set up two goals on opposite sides of the "swimmer" swim area (the big yellowish donuts are great goals) and find a ball (no snapping please). Then jump in the water and do your best to score some points. It's a whole lot harder than it looks, but it's so much fun.

Four:

Capture the Flag- another great game. Let's see, so far it's been played all across back country (Nature and Santa Barbara as sides), across the parade ground (separated North and South Hills), and front and back of camp. All of which are amazing ways to play.

Five:

I must say, I've never actually done this, but I hear it's amazing fun for some of the people involved. I'm talking about part of the War Canoe trip to Parson's. A lot of rangers pride themselves on pointing out the whale bones to the scouts prior to landing on the beach. As I said, I've never seen them, but there are always good stories about searching for the bones.

Reason Two

This guy!

Reason One

Who wouldn't want to be stuck on an island for at least a few days at a time?