This was the trip of a lifetime!
David initiated this trip with the young men several years ago and I was a nervous wreck about the whole thing. He had never even been in a kayak and here he was about to take teenage boys out in the ocean to kayak between island?!?! NO WAY. But, I've listened to the stories for the past several years about the trip and my curiosity peaked. When the Young Women announced that they were taking the same trip, David and I jumped on the opportunity to be chaperones. Even though we don't have any young women, and I was also acting as the Stake YW camp director and camp was the following week. I know... it was a bit crazy, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity. The day school let, we left on this trip. It was a whirlwind way to start summer.
On our trip down to the Outer Banks, we stopped at a cemetery and used the 1,000 Graves App to do a service project. We took pictures of graves and loaded them up onto this app. Then those looking to do genealogy work, could view the graves headstones to help find family members.
That night we camped in this beautiful location
The next morning, we got outfitted with boats and paddles and were given a few instructions, then we launched out into the ocean! The rest of the pictures are wildly out of order, but it was such an amazing trip. We paddled and paddled, sometimes along the shores and sometimes out in open water. We camped on gorgeous remote beaches, collected armfuls of conch shells, had amazing devotionals, ate super tasty freeze dried meals, saw some of the most beautiful sunsets, paddled right along side wild horses, learned the Haka dance, witnesses some hilarious skits, got terrible sunburns and surprisingly no mosquito bites. And best of all, I didn't get eaten by a shark, which was my biggest fear. Or fall out of my kayak, which was my second biggest fear.
This was where we camped the last night, right in the shadows of this light house. The light house was our ultimate goal and I talked in my devotional about how we couldn't always see the light house when we were paddling. But we knew it was there. Every now and then, we'd come around an island and catch a glimpse of it and could get our bearings again. It wasn't moving, but the pathway to it wasn't easy. At some points I was paddling and not moving because the current was so strong. I really had to dig in with my whole body and give it all I had to move forward. And life is the same. Sometimes, we've got to give more than we think we can to make it to our final goal.
And see that tiny little tent up there? David and I shared that thing! We had never even opened this tent before and when we opened it up on the first night, we got a good laugh out of it. It was so small, you could hardly even change your clothes in there.
Meanwhile:
While we were braving the open seas, the kids got to go to their Great Aunt Liesl's house for the week. They were uber excited about this! Liesl lives in the wood in a log cabin. She's got horses and chickens and dogs and took them swimming at the lake...
