Today, the campers went to flag at 8am and then headed to breakfast of pancakes, bacoon, and tasty cantelope and honeydew melon. The young pirates then went to their classes that they chose on the first day.
The afternoon games consisted of uncoiling ropes and knots, throwing coins into bowls, and dressing a pirate. Weather was ominous, but only had a few sprinkles that really cooled down things into the 80s.
After dinner, the campers all joined around a real small campfire and sang popular camp songs and a few new ones. Finally, it was bedtime on the first full day of camp.
After a day off from Sidekicks, the bus rolled in full of excited kids ready for a week at camp. It was a bit cloudy with what looked to be a giant storm coming in that turned out to be nothing. After moving into their cabins and taking the group picture, we had a fire drill.
Then, it was time for a pirate treasure hunt. This hunt was a bit smaller that the one at Sidekicks and changed slightly so all the kids could enjoy the games. At the end of six games, the cabin groups then had to search the field for hidden envelopes that contained a key. Then, the groups had to search the trees below the campfire to find their treasure chests. Inside were lanyards, mechanical flashlights, mini wooden treasure chests, and some copies of Re-Mission, a video game about fighting cancer.
After dinner, each pirate team made their banner, now hanging with all the team banners from the previous week.
The campers enjoyed breakfast with a constant playing of Copacabana blaring from the rafters on repeat along with some strange piece of artwork consisting of 4 round tables stacked on top of each other, with treasure chests and other items scattered around on the different levels. Apparently, the night before, the same music was heard playing high in the trees above the Grasshoppers tent site.
After packing up their gear, the young pirates signed yearbooks and ate lunch. Then, it was time for all the pirates to cast off on their mega-ship back to lands yonder back home.
After flag, classes, lunch, and more classes, it was time for some pirate adventure games. The pirate teams each played games involving floating tennis balls out of a holey tube with water, noodle dueling on a plank, liar’s dice, hunker-down, among others. At each station, the young pirates earned keys and, at one point, a piece of a treasure map. At the end of the games, the teams put their map pieces together to find Davey Jones’ Locker. The pirates each tried their keys in the locker until they could unlock the chains that trapped its contents. Inside was Buckey, a skeleton peg-legged piratey friend of camp, who has made several random appearances in showers, toilets, bags, and beds around camp.
Concluding the night was the annual Talent Show. This year had outstanding performances of Hey There, Tommy (to the tune of Hey There, Delilah), CAMP (to the tune of MILK) and many others. This year introduced camp’s favorite new game show “Counselors Claim your Underwear” where everyone tried to guess who belonged to each pair of nicely-startched underwear.
After the 3rd of four days of classes, we had water day. Campers played water volleyball, ship bailing, treasure hunting in watery sand, hunting matching staff photos in the mud, and walked the plank to quiz questions about the camp.
We then had a wonderful pirate-themed dinner, where the staff dressed up in great costumes, as did some of the campers. After a true feast fit for a pirate, there was the dance, where everyone could just let loose and have a great time.
After breakfast, everyone packed up and headed to Willow Spring Lake for some water fun. Campers would float their boats, and then choose between canoeing, swimming, and fishing. Once at the lake, the camp groups put the boats they just built the night before. Most all of them floated! It was quite a great scene to watch the campers have so much fun with boats that floated a lot longer than anyone had expected. Each boat captain was given a cup to bail out out of their own boat and try and get water into other boats to sink them. (Of course, counselors and staff were close at hand to supervise the fun).
In the afternoon, cabin groups then decided to play in a marshmellow war, games in the lodge, play at the sportscourt, or other activities.
After dinner was movie night, where we watched The Pirates of Carribean - The Curse of the Black Pearl.
After classes, the pirates participated in a long-time Camp tradition — JELLO WAR! After dinner, the pirate groups then built real boats out of just cardboard and duct tape. The groups were given just one hour to build their boats that would actually be floated on Lake Day tomorrow in a real water battle with one camper captain in each boat.
After morning flag and breakfast, the young pirates now went to the clases they signed up for (archery, tennis, disc golf, how to be a pirate, rollercoasters, rockets, robots, fingerknitting, drama, cheerleading, photography and newspaper, among others).
In the afternoon, some pirate people came and we all played some genuine pirate games (lucky pig, coin toss, tug-of-war, dish stacking, rope coiling, hunker-down, pacing, knot tying and monkey-fist rope toss).
After dinner, we all sang songs around a small campfire, and headed back to our cabins and tents for the night.
The lil’ pirate’s arrived around 12:30pm and met into their cabin groups. Each matey then signed up for the 3 classes they would be taking throughout the week. After a fire drill, the kids all went on a treasure hunt all over camp, learning where everything is and getting their pictures taken for ID badges. At the end of the hunt, each cabin group received a key that unlocked only one treasure chest hidden just inside the trees. The maties then all got split into ten teams in which they would participate in activities throughout the week.
There was a nice rainfall in the afternoon which helped cool off a somewhat hot day.
