We had quite the rude awakening in the middle of the night. Apparently all of the staff members left the base to go have a party and a few drinks. After they returned, one of the gentlemen in charge was quite livid and came hollering into our campsite looking for our leader. Since he was the most senior, Llewy went with him and the other leaders to sort things out. What happened was that when they came back they discovered someone had taken a few of their tent pegs. They threatened that if whoever took them did not produce them by morning there would be no programs for any of us. We all knew it was none of us so we just went back to sleep.
We woke up early to go parasailing. I was really excited because they actually let you steer the plane for a bit and I had never gotten the chance to do so before. However, when we arrived we found out that the peg was not returned. One of the staff members took us down to the beach and lined us all up saying there was going to be no activities, no parasailing, no flying, nothing until the peg was returned. No one fessed up to it. The staff member that had been with us, guilting us into confession left. Incidentally, my patrol knew him from PLTU (Patrol Leader's Training Unit I believe) and knew he was just puffing a lot of smoke. He came back shortly and said that we could go but only one boat could go out parasailing (I'm pretty sure they caved b/c they knew that if we didn't get to do programs at all we wouldn't help them tear down camp). We were crushed, we had to choose between flying and parasailing. Most of the other patrols opted to go parasailing and were even nice enough to give up their spots on the boats for those from my patrol to go. I chickened out at the last minute and decided to go flying with Brett and Jan.
So, we crossed the runway and climbed into the little four-seater prop plane. Jan and Brett were in back and I was up front with the pilot. We took off and the ground was soon far beneath us. We had talked to the pilot yesterday and he said that he might take us up and do some tricks. Rolls and dives... that sort of thing. Nothing of the sort happened though. He flew us around a bit and showed us the surrounding area. He then explained to me how to fly the plane. What all the peddles do and that sort of thing. His accent was a bit thick and it was difficult to hear over the roar of the engine but I got the gist of it. I started making turns and going up and down. Nothing fancy. I'd almost bet that he had his hands on his stick the entire time and was just letting me think I was doing something. It was fun while it lasted though it seemed too short to me. We were quickly back on Terra Firma.
De plane! De plane!
Me looking over my shoulder, laughing at the two fools in the backseat who just put their lives in my hands.
When we got back to the rest of the group we found that there had been no parasailing. The staff said the wind was too rough. We went back and got some breakfast. Bacon and eggs and some cantaloupe (or spanspek as they like to call it). Afterwards we had the sailing and canoing base. They were just across the lake but came to us to do the program. We canoed around for a bit and had a good time watching Aiden and Llew try and windsurf. They just kept falling off their boards as they tried pulling up their sails. It was quite amusing. We would have ended up sailing across the lake to stay at their campsite afterwards if it hadn't been the last day and we weren't getting bused back to base camp. I was quite relieved. During our run tubing yesterday we kept passing the sail boats on our way around and I watched them all abandon ship as it started taking on too much water and begin to sink. I don't think I could've done it.
Luckily, I didn't have to do it. Instead, we hiked back out to the main road and caught the bus back to base camp. When we got there we met up with our other patrol and picked a good place to spend the night. We got our other bags out of storage and quickly changed into uniforms. I let Jason wear my merit badge sash and I put on my OA sash. There was to be a huge campfire at night. As we waited for dark to come we milled about and talked with other patrols. There was little badge swapping but not much. Llewy tried talking to the Master of Ceremonies to see if he couldn't get me on the evening's bill to sing my Tarzan song. He said he'd see if there would be enough time or not. So everyone gathered around the big bonfire as the sun was setting. The staff had put together a slide show of pictures that hikers had all turned in. There were a few of my patrol. The one that sticks out in my head is of Christine on the donkey.
There were plenty of songs, Zulu Warrior, Boom chica boom, Joe and the Button Factory are the ones I can remember off the top of my head. There was also a fire dancer that was really awesome. I will admit though, I was kinda let down by the campfire. For as long as I've known him Brett has boasted about SA campfires and how great they are and (even he agrees with me) this one left a little to be desired. It was fun, but could've been more fun. To really top things off there was a group of older guys (I'd say 20s or so, I only heard them) that were drunk and kept hollering and making a general disturbance throughout. Then there was the patrol next to us that kept blowing their vuvuzelas. Stephen finally had enough after a few blows and got up, ripped the vuvzela from the child's hands and twisted it in a knot and threw it back at him. I know it was bad to laugh but I did anyway. It's been a good day. Tomorrow is the closing ceremonies and then we go home. It's been a lot of fun but I guess it always has to end.
Dancing with Fire
