It was beautiful

Well it's official: the term "Malibu" is now synonymous with "beautiful, lovely, peaceful, close to paradise." This camp was incredible.
We started our journey there at 5:15 AM, when we picked up eight 11th and 12th graders in the YL van. There was a great ratio of 4 girls to 4 boys, and they were an awesome tight-knit group of friends who reminded me of myself and my friends at that age. We boarded the ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Langdale at 7:20--and let me tell you, these ferries are nothing like what I've been on in Michigan. They are delux. It's like being in an airport or something, they have a full cafeteria (which sells cartons of milk for $2, bagels for $4 and burgers for $8), a coffee shop and a gift shop in addition to their three car decks and three people decks. And I over heard other passengers saying, "Oh, looks like we're on a small one today," which really makes me wonder what the full sized guys look like. Nothing like the Beaver Island Boat Company ferries I was used to.

Us on the ferry.

The sun is finally up!

After an hour, we landed in Langdale and hopped on a school bus, which took us the hour and a half to Egmont.

We look awake, but more than half of this group was sound asleep most of the bus ride--including me :)

And from there, we took a water taxi over to Camp Malibu.

Our happy campers

And it was beautiful--just unreal. We sped along the inlet, surrounded by rocky cliffs, snow peaked mountains and trickling water falls. After an hour, we caught sight of Malibu, a beautiful, rustic looking camp perched on the rocks overlooking the water. It is completely indescribable, so I'll just include a lot of pictures.

The camp itself was built in the 1940's as a playground to the rich and famous. YL bought it in 1953, and has built tons of new boardwalks and buildings. The group we joined this weekend consisted of around 70 teens and leaders who were there to work around the camp--help clean up from the winter and prepare it for the summer camps. Our basic schedule looked like this:

• Wake up at 7.
• Walk outside to be stunned by the sun coming up over the mountains, the mist melting away in the hills, and the eagles stirring flocks of seagulls into a frenzy.
• Eat a hot breakfast. 
• Work work work until noon.
• Eat a hot lunch. 
• Work work work until 3.

Then, it was time to play. After dinner, we'd all go to Young Life club, where we'd sing and have crazy skits and games before listening to a speaker. Then we'd head to our cabins to discuss what we'd learned. In the cabin where I stayed with the girls, our cabin time was interrupted on two different nights by the visit of a small gray mouse who we named Gus-Gus. I'll admit, from my safe perch on the top bunk, he was a cute little guy. But I couldn't stand the thought of him scampering across my feet. After cabin time, we'd bundle up and head outside for some sort of activity--usually a game that involved running around in the pitch dark, hoping you won't run into a tree or off a rock into the ocean. It was exhausting, sometimes frustrating, and sometimes just crazy. But overall it was awesome.
We played  lots of games of four square and Dutch Blitz. We played lots of frisbee golf.

This picture may have been staged :)

The group ghost walking one of the guys

The frisbee golf course was awesome

live action shot

Showing off the guns I got from all that staining and shoveling

We had fun with the random hobbit door on the golf course.

We took one incredible afternoon excursion to a nearby provincial park called Chatterbox Falls. In the summer, it's a hot spot for yachters. Our kids donned their rain gear and jumped right in--mind you this water was definitely glacial, and it didn't get above 50 the entire trip. But they had a bast.

They all got soaked. It was awesome.

I  dipped my feet in--that's it though.

And we did a lot of work. My girls and I braved all sorts of ladders as we stained trim on one of the new buildings--a task which I was pretty accustomed to after a summer of doing just that in Michigan. Sometimes we lagged, sometimes we helped our boys shovel their gravel instead, but we worked hard and got the job done.

 

And fortunately, the group made the work fun too. There was a lot of laughing. A lot of giggling and flirting. And a lot of singing.
All in all, the trip was great. And it reminded me all over again of what it was like to be a teenager. Did we really talk about boys that much? (Yes. Yes we did. Probably more, now that I think back on it :)

And now we're back in Langley, sighing as we head back to a real life that doesn't involve six hours of work followed by eight hours of playing outside. But lucky for us, the sun is shining and it's still beautiful.