well, technically this wasn’t ever actually my Sunfish – but it is the 1st one I’ve ever sailed on. the photo is of Ryan, the younger brother of my roommate Sean, from when I worked as a staff member at Camp Arcadia. Sean was the 1st person to introduce me to the Sunfish (15 years ago!).
I’ve posted several pictures of the Minnehaha shipwreck along the shores of Lake Michigan, but this one is amazing! I’ve never seen this much of the shipwreck exposed. Camp Arcadia posted the picture on their Facebook page. water levels in the Great Lakes are down quite a bit this year – we could really use some snowfall this year, as last year was very light.
photo by Camp Arcadia
I’ve been a bit of a slacker in posting about the remaining days from our vacation trip to Camp Arcadia. but here is a picture slideshow video that was created by the Camp. it will give a bit of a glimpse around camp of things I don’t think to photograph.
during our family vacation to Camp Arcadia this summer, my brother-in-law and I took our boys down to the south pier for the traditional jumping off the pier into the waters of Lake Michigan. a few of the boys had jumped before, but this was the first time for some of the younger ones.
it was later in the evening, and the water temperature this year in Lake Michigan was just a tad on the cold side. I wore my shorty wetsuit, and was the 1st to jump in. I had them throw me a life jacket, and then I just floated the rest of the time down there with my GoPro Hero video camera to capture the action as each boy took turns jumping off the pier.
I thought it’d be a quick process, but it turned out that I had to help each boy get up and onto the ladder, as the water level in the lake is low enough that the 1st ladder run is probably 12 to 18 inches above the water level, and none of the boys had the upper body strength to pull themselves out of the water and start climbing the ladder. I would swim away from the pier, one of the boys would jump into the water, and then I’d swim back in with them and help them climb out of the water, and then repeat as required! I’m glad I put the wetsuit on, though, as I ended up floating down there in the cold water for maybe 15 minutes.
if you recall, this is the same pier that Dave and I jumped off a few weeks later, but with disastrous results – as the waves were way too big for us to have jumped, and the current was way too strong to swim against. Dave wrote his thoughts about that near-death experience he and I both faced in this blog post: underestimating the power of the waves.
here is a summary of the second main day from our week vacation up at Camp Arcadia. on the weekdays during the Family Weeks at Camp Arcadia, each morning has a short Bible study for the adults, and classes for the children – split up into manageable age groups for the Camp staff – basically like a vacation Bible school, with some sports and games mixed in as well for the kids classes. after Monday morning’s classes, my boys immediately wanted to head over to the archery range.
the Camp has a neat little archery range set up out in the woods: there is about 5 or 6 straw mats with paper bulls-eye targets attached to them, and then old garden hose spiked down to the ground to set different shooting distances. the Camp has a varied selection of recurve wooden bows with different pull weights, so the kids (or adults) can choose a bow that they can shoot. an instructor helps the kids get ready, and uses a whistle to give out commands – all in all, pretty well planned out. my boys loved it, and went back to the archery range several more times the rest of the week.
after lunch, my brother-in-law and I went sailing again. this time, the wind had picked up a bit – my Wind Meter app on my iPhone said it was about 13 knots. the waters of Lake Michigan were still fairly calm, though, so not too big of waves with the decent wind. sailing was great, as we could move pretty quickly across the water. it was a bit cooler and cloudy that day, so the rest of the kids were busy with other stuff around Camp, so it was just my brother-in-law and I messing about on the water.
I sailed for a while in my Sunfish, and he was in his Snark sailboat, and then we switched boats for a while as well. here’s a screenshot from the video from my GoPro camera – my brother-in-law is sailing my Sunfish, and I’m horsing around in his Snark sailboat in the background… trying to keep my body completely flat stretched out across the 2 sides of the boats without my butt sitting down in the boat.
after sailing I took my 2 older boys and 2 of their cousins out into the woods for the Capture the Flag game. the game is held out in the back woods of the Camp’s property, where you can see rows and rows of pine trees, planted by Michigan’s Civilian Conservation Corps that was created by Roosevelt during the Great Depression.
the Camp staff used blue or red paint to decorate the faces of the 2 teams, Braveheart style – all 4 of my crew were on the red team.
later on that evening, we had some time just milling around on the beach and the playgrounds.
Monday evening’s main event is the Square Dance, held out on the tennis courts. the Camp staff instructs everyone on the steps for whatever dance we are doing, and calls out most of the steps during each song as well. it helps that many campers have done these same dances for years – and it’s usually a good mix of experienced “pro’s” and the 1st-timers as well, plus always a bunch of children having fun learning the square dances, too.
there are some silly ones – the Chicken Dance and the Hokey Pokey, but also the Virginia Reel and the Two-Step as well. they save the best 2 songs for last – the Amos Moses and the Prima Donna (but I’m not sure of the dance names). I got this pretty cute video of my youngest son and one of his cousins dancing together while the rest of the campers were dancing to the Virginia Reel.
if you missed the post from Sunday at Camp, you can read it here. more days to follow.
here is a screenshot from my GoPro video (to be edited down later) from Sunday’s sailing and playing out on the calm waters of Lake Michigan. I’m sailing in the Sunfish with my 2 younger boys (7.5 yrs and 4 yrs old). my 11 yr old son is the one standing up on the stand-up paddleboard (SUP) next to us, with one of his cousins riding along. just ahead of us is my brother-in-law in a rowboat with 2 of his sons.
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