A picture that is worth one thousand words to me is the day we went to Camp Kieve at the beginning of September of this year, 2021. The day started off as a warm morning, blue sky, and a good breakfast. As soon as we got on the bus with the junior class, it was a long ride. It was about a two hour ride and it felt very long to get there. Me and Ryan Teehan were sitting together, and my legs were starting to feel cramped up from the long ride. When we got there, they separated every class which I wasn’t too happy about because a lot of my friends were in the senior class. So, we ended up splitting into groups and Ryan Teehan, Anthony Lonbardo, Spyro Hamzeh, and I ended up getting in the same group, which to me, I was very happy and excited about.
The current went against us the whole ride to that island and Ryan and I kept tipping the boat over as a joke and almost sank it in the middle of the lake.
The first activity we did was canoeing, which none of us had experience with. We started by changing into our bathing suits and then putting life jackets on. We then picked out the canoe that we wanted and all four of us carried it to the water, which was pretty heavy. We then got the oars ready and started to go out on the lake. We weren’t supposed to, but we decided all together that we would go out to the far island, which was around a mile from the campsite, which we weren’t supposed to do. We started going out and it went pretty slow because none of us really knew how to paddle with the oars in sync. We started to pick up the pace on the canoe and were going pretty fast, considering the conditions.
The conditions were windy, especially as we got further out. When we got to the island, we realized there was a house and that we couldn’t go there. So instead, we saw another island we could go to which was about another mile and half away. We wanted to go on an adventure , which we knew we weren’t allowed to, but we realized we were already out pretty far and wanted to explore. When we got to the next island, we were absolutely gassed and out of breath. The current went against us the whole irde to that island and Ryan and I kept tipping the boat over as a joke and almost sank it in the middle of the lake.
When we got to the island, Ryan and I had actually sunk the boat and we had to drag it to the island and tip it back on top, which was very hard. One of the staff workers had gone out to search for us because we were so far away from the camp. The staff worker, Will, was a really cool dude. When we had finally started to get going after tipping the canoe back on top, we ended up sinking it again, which was solely due to Ryan and I. Syro and Anothony weren’t the happiest because it took around twenty five minutes to get all the water out the boat the first time. We ended up doing the same thing and got the canoe back into place. The staff worker Will had found it pretty comical and was laughing for a while. On our way back, we were doing well with paddling, which was unusual for us.
When we had gotten around halfway back to the camp, I was tipping the boat over as a joke and it ended up sinking, for the third time! We found it so funny at first, but we soon realized that it was a very far way back still and figured out we would have to drag the canoe back. I’m not going to lie, I did very little in efforts to drag the canoe back. After I stopped helping and went ahead and started swimming, Ryan did the same thing and we left Spyro and Anthony to do the towing. They weren’t very happy about it, but Ryan and I thought it was funny and to this day, we both don’t regret a thing. When we had finally got back, they had held back lunch for us, since we were out on that lake for two and half hours and the other staff workers were happy at all. They kept looking at us and whispering, giving us dirty looks. We found it funny and didn’t regret a thing we did that day. That was the first experience of Spyro and Anthony meeting Ryan and I, so I bet they had started to love us! We then went on to do a bunch of fun activities and grew closer as friends. I don’t regret a thing we did that day and I honestly don’t think Ryan, Spyro, Anthony, and I regret a single thing we did that day because we made so many amazing memories out of that day.
I did some certain things well, even though that though that this was at the beginning of the year, the language I used makes me satisfied. When I talk about what happened, at least when I read it, it makes me feel like I’m back at the water. Something I could’ve done better is not being repetitive when talking about sinking the canoe.