The Camping Trip, November 29

We just got back from a two night camping trip to an island in the chain of Majuro Islands. Half of it belongs to Dennis Yates, the head of the Wellness Center. We left Friday morning and drove 45 minutes to this industrial place. I'm not sure why we had to meet the boat there rather than the regular pier. Even though we were about 30 minutes late the boat was nowhere to be found. They made a phonecall and said it was at Laura Point heading this direction. While we were waiting we climbed all over some huge dump trucks and climbed up and down large piles of gravel. We found a piece of plywood and slid down on it. Since that was more or less Thanksgiving, we were excited to be playing in "snow" and it made us feel more at home.

Finally the boat arrived about 45 minutes later. Two of us held the boat so it wouldn't hit the rocks and we started loading it up. There was no real dock or pier. Everything I brought and most of Ben's stuff fit in my big backpack. The rest of the SMs don't know how to pack for a camping trip and we ended up with a ton of stuff. The boat was not very big and by the time we loaded it up with our stuff, it was riding low. Then we looked around for the boat driver and couldn't find him. This Marshallese guy, who was suppose to be our guide, showed up and told us there wasn't enough gas. We had brought 10 gallons. The boat driver said that it was only enough to get to the island and he would run out on the return trip. Ben's family owns a boat and he said that was BS. Furthermore, Dennis had already given the man 100 dollars for gas and it was nowhere to be found. We ended up waiting another 30 minutes for someone to arrive with more gas. When we arrived we had only used a little out of one tank and we had tons more.

The trip over was long because the waves in the middle of the lagoon were very large and the boat was so loaded down with people and stuff that we couldn't go fast. We bobbed around in the ocean for a really long time before we finally got to the other side. The island was so beautiful. Nice sandy beaches, coconut trees, blue, green water, etc. It was everything a paradise island would be. We spent the weekend snorkeling, walking on the beach, building all manner of rafts and huts, and laying in our hammocks. It was a great getaway. Saturday night we played Capture the Flag. It got boring really fast because each side had a very good defense. I was offense and I spent lots of time crawling on my belly. I got within 30 feet of the flag a bunch of times but they had so many defense people that none of us could get to it without getting tagged. Finally the other team got a point, but we were all very bored by that point. Furthermore, Zac was running down the beach being chased by Nikol when he failed to see a palm tree that was growing horizon at waist height. He hit it at full speed and did a flip. Today he can barely walk due to a bruised leg. In a couple days he'll be fine.

We had some nice worships and reflection times. It was a spiritual as well as fun weekend. It was very nice to have extra time to hang out with people. Rob went off by himself for a couple hours. Ben, Rudy and I went looking for him. We found him on the beach with his own fire. We sat and had a great spiritual conversation with him. A group of us guys sat around a fire on the beach one night and talked about right and wrong of stuff. We had some great conversations that we wouldn't have had here at Majuro due to distractions like movies, video games, books, vespers, etc that keep us busy in the evenings. It would get boring very fast if we were on that island all the time, but it was a nice getaway.