Camp Emerald Bay

What ruins a joke?

REPETITION!

Emerald Bay was a world of its own with its beauty, excitement, and oceans. From the emerald seas to the activity-packed days to the skits, it was a very enjoyable experience!

"Camp Emerald Bay is NOT your average BSA summer camp; it might have the same campfires, the same food, the same merit badges, and the same cots. But it has so many more opportunities for a Scout to challenge themselves and try something they never thought they could do!" -Sabya

A noisy bus full of loud, excited, and happy scouts arrived at USS IOWA, a retired naval warship, on Saturday. We brought our luggage and were welcomed in by our tour guide. The warship fought in WWI, WWII, and the Vietnam War before it retired! The day was very exciting, but when night came around, the beds were packed in columns of three, and the narrow hallways were almost always crammed with luggage. The food wasn't particularly thrilling either; We were served pasta for dinner (which was okay), but the breakfast burrito had way too much potato for some of us to digest. The next day, we got up at 4:00 am in the morning (only the start of our messy sleep schedule) and took a small boat to Emerald Bay.

It was a beautiful sight; the rangers, scouts, and staff altogether were cheering at the docks and helped unload our luggage. But there was a slightly more important event coming up that would decide THE FUTURE OF OUR WEEK; The swim check. We quickly changed into our swimsuits and got into the line for our troop. Luckily, most of us passed, but all of us were advanced swimmers by the end of the week. After that, we had waiter duty for the first time before dinner was served. It was very different from Royaneh; We spent most of the time just trying to find our troop's table before realizing they forgot to make one. There were three bins; compost, recycle, and one for the actual plates and bowls. Food went into the compost, and utensils went into recycling. Once, I accidentally tossed a bowl into the compost bin and brought a staff member to remove it after being yelled at by an older scout to do so.

Our troop had met up on Sunday to discuss the different patches and one of them was the mile swim. I have an odd and unexplained obsession with miles, whether that may be hiking, running, or swimming. So the moment my classes ended, I grabbed my swimsuit and ran up to the waterfront. I jumped in the water, which surprisingly, was more salty than cold. The first few laps were easy and then after that, I kind of just wandered into my own alternative universe...... I heard a loud splash and turned to see that Mahika had jumped in with me. It felt nice to have company because I was getting bored and the shadows of the dock gave an illusion of sharks. We raced for a few laps, which was entertaining despite the fact that I was tired. A few laps after Mahika had left, Kaustubh Uncle and Praveen Uncle came to cheer me on. They were even recording! On my last lap, Mahika jumped back in with Saanvi and Josthitha who were all cheering me on! Haasini, who was cheering from the dock, pulled me onto the dock and we left the waterfront in high spirit!

The next day, we had WAR CANOE. We canoed three miles, all the way to the other side of Catalina on Parson's beach. We paddled through currents and kelp and eventually learned to synchronize after asking multiple scouts to serve as verbal metronomes. When we got there, we had to carry the canoe (a serious group effort) to the sand. We also had to bring the coolers and our lunch to our campsite, before assembling and eating our sandwiches. There were several activities a scout could do; Snorkeling, hiking, or sitting by the shore/collecting rocks. I went on the hike, which...didn't go as well as I was hoping. It was two miles and had beautiful views, but I couldn't take photos because my phone was dead. The weather was also very humid and I forgot to bring my water. Lastly, the hike was very steep and I had to do it in crocs. The snorkeling, though I didn't do it, seemed fun too, based on the descriptions. We got back to our campsites afterward to make dinner, a vegetable stew with a dessert of peach cobbler. Later, we all set up our sleeping bags, except the scouts who were doing Wilderness Survival MB, who had to surround their sleeping areas with large stones and sticks to protect themselves from the cold as well as an emergency foil blanket.

The next day, we woke up at 5:00 am to our ranger Rachel's voice. We quickly packed up our sleeping bags and canoed back to Emerald Bay. This was the first day we were actually motorboating since it was my first merit badge. I could barely turn the boat, let alone dock! Unfortunately, the other three in my class were very experienced (two of them were sea scouts), so I was the only one flunking. Small boat sailing, however, went slightly better. We were placed with two random dudes and an instructor who had to continually assure us that we wouldn't capsize (We might have expressed my fear of capsizing a bit too much). For dinner, Saanvi did Grace for our troop and we kept teasing her about doing it in Hindi. I later decided to go motorboating with Siyona during my free time, but it didn't go as well as I had hoped...... "EIGHT BOATS!!" I could hear Suhani laughing in the background since she'd been watching the show. I started the engine correctly but kept bumping into boats, so the instructor had to give me a quick refresher on how motorboats worked. I started again but crashed into another dock four times. After a few more crashes, Rocky decided to put me on a motorboating timeout until the next day because I had crashed into eight boats (Well, technically it was only five boats since I crashed into one of them four times) and he thought it would be the safest option for both me and the motorboats.

At the very end, we had troop skits, which meant we had to think of a storyline (credits to Ruhi) and delegate roles to different scouts. Annika, who played the judge, describes our skit. "The skit night was amazing to watch and act out and we did pretty well. Our skit was about a list of criminals on the death penalty for really weird reasons, like putting the milk before the cereal. But right before they were executed, they made up some excuse, like “Aliens!” and then everyone would turn to look, while the criminal ran away. However, the last person said “Fire!” and so the executors literally fired their guns. Siyona and Rachel (our troop supervisor/ranger) were the people firing the guns, and Suhani, Mahika, and Aadya were all criminals. The final criminal who screamed “Fire!” was played by Jisha. The skit was around 2-3 minutes long and the script was simple. The actors were all told to make up their own excuses and add their own touches to it, which they definitely did." Some Troops ran around in circles expecting the audience to join and one troop sang "Drivers' License". Troop 633 had a guitar player give a long speech about the emotional song he was about to play, before screaming at the top of his lungs! There was also this one troop that had individual scouts run on stage and ask the audience the same question "what ruins a joke?", before revealing the same answer; REPETITION! It eventually became a "camp joke" and scouts and staff altogether used it often.

By Thursday, we'd all gotten better at motorboating and in small boat sailing, all of us were placed in one boat. We were shockingly exceptional! There were a few unplanned twists and turns but we didn't capsize once and docked perfectly. But some scouts from other merit badges weren't enjoying as much. Jisha, for instance, wrote a poem about rowing to express her boredom in class:

Rowing is fun

But I am so done

In the ocean

Far in motion

I am sinking

You are laughing

Down I go

Sink with me, bro!

Again, I went motorboating during my free time. This time, I took Supriya with me and we went to Inspiration Point. We were almost flawless! We didn't bump into a single buoy, rock, boat, or dock. But on our way back, our motorboat ran out of gas and another boat had to come to rescue us! It was just like a movie, but we were the victims instead of the hero. I was about to go free swim for a bit, but just then, Kaustubh Uncle told me that for the mile patch, I also had to swim a half-mile and a quarter mile. This meant I hadn't technically completed the mile patch yet. I raced down the lanes as quick as I could, aiming to finish half a mile before the ranger cook-off. In all honesties, I got more than enough encouragement from all the scouts, staff, and adult leaders while completing the mile patch. Chrys Auntie and Kaustubh Uncle were recording. Praveen Uncle, Clara, and my motorboating instructor were cheering me on. After this, we had the ranger cook-off, where we cooked patties, assembled our burgers, and ate them by the shore. "I-I-I-I-I-I keep on hopin' we'll eat cake by the ocean"

Friday was the last day before the bus ride home and we knew we would miss camp. Chrys Auntie woke me up at 6:00 to complete my remaining quarter-mile. Even our classes went really well! We were motorboating professionals at this point and went to Inspiration Point and back with ease. In Small Boat Sailing, we were once again placed in the same boat, but this time, we decided to capsize. We were doing the man overboard drill, where we tossed a lifejacket (the man overboard) into the ocean and had to get it back on the ship. We did it successfully and turned back around toward the sea. As we proceeded, there was this one wave that tilted the boat so much, that it was nearly perpendicular to the sea. I could have sworn we were going to capsize, so I jumped out. Now we had a real man overboard! I failed to catch up to the boat, but luckily, our group pulled me back on board. After this, we capsized for real, and within a second, all of us were swimming in the ocean. Sahana and I got back up, but we had to tack so that the rest of our group could join. Our boat kept tilting violently and I had to keep jumping from side to side while trying to turn in the right direction. Sahana let go of the sail (after a lot of yelling from other boats to do so) and finally, we were able to turn. After all our classes were over, we had the aquacade, a contest for water activities between troops. We didn't exactly win, but we all had fun!

On Saturday, we had a hike at 3:00 am. I forgot to bring my hiking shoes, so I had to hike in running shoes. It was a difficult hike, but it was worth the beautiful pictures we got. After that, we packed up, at breakfast and took a small boat to our bus. The whole time we were on the bus, we blasted countless English and Hindi songs and even greeted our parents with a chorus of "Balam Pichkari".

Credits: Jisha, Sabya, Annika, Advika

1, 2, 3

Count with me!

Who are we?

Troop 123!

I want to include a special thanks to Sabya and Advika for checking this article and putting so much effort into refining it.