It was a beautiful day, waves breaking against the pier, seagulls gliding across the clear blue sky, and the sun glistening on the water. I was eleven years old going to a month long camp in North Carolina called Camp Seagull. You could do anything, sail, motorboat, fish, golf, play tennis, shoot guns, and play every sport you could imagine. It was an eleven year olds dream, except there were no girls at the camp. The girls went to Camp Seafarer about five miles south of Camp Seagull. The only interaction we had with Seafarer was a dance once every Saturday night. Kids would talk, dance, and drink soda while watching a band perform on the outdoor stage. It was ok, but we didn't get to do any fun camp activities with the girls. 
Ever since my older sister attended Camp Seafarer, I had heard stories of catching snapping turtles in the lake, going down the biggest water slide, and riding the zip-line over and into the pond. The people and activities sounded like so much fun, after all we didn't have a huge water slide or zip-line at Seagull. I told all of my friends and they agreed, “we need to visit camp Seafarer.”

We were about a week into the camp when my friends, Alec, Aidan, Blake, and I, had an idea. We felt that seeing girls only once a week wasn’t nearly enough, so we decided to take out a sunfish, the smallest and easiest boat to sail, and take the long trek all the way to Seafarer.  The only problem was that none of us knew how to sail. It was our first year at the camp and with no prior knowledge we signed up for the beginner class. The councilor that taught the class was awful, he said all of these complicated words that none of us had even heard, “now were going to tack and jibe around these cones.” At the end of the class none of us learned a thing except for how to unfurl the sheet and get the boat into the water with out scratching the hull. It was perfect, the only two things we needed to know were how to get the boat in the water and get the wind to fill the sheet, and we would be off.

It was the day we were planning to make the journey to Camp Seafarer. Every one was tired after waking up at the usual seven o'clock bugle over the camp loud speaker. We had pancakes and sausage for breakfast and the weather was looking promising. “You guys ready to go sign the sunfish out?” I asked my friends.  “Of course”, Blake and Aidan replied. “I’m gonna stay behind” Alec mumbled. Alec hadn’t been feeling well so he stayed in the cabin. We headed down to the boat shack where we signed out Sunfish number 21. We got down to the water and saw tons of jelly fish bouncing around in the waves. The waves were rough and for even an experienced sailor it would be a tough day to make the journey to Seafarer. “You sure you guys want to do this?”, Blake said. “Yea it will be super fun!” I reassured him.

The sails were unfurled and the boat was in the water. Everybody hopped in and we were off. It was a bumpy start, nobody remembered how to steer and we nearly collided with another boat. “Watch out!” we all screamed. We got a handle of the boat for a second and then the wind rapidly changed direction. “Watch out! Watch out!” we all yelled again. We were headed straight for another boat and this time we weren’t so lucky. The beams collided and nearly shook us off into the jelly fish infested waters! We were picking up speed and we had no way of slowing down. “We should have payed more attention in the class!”, Aidan screamed over the loud waves crashing alongside us. We were now far away from shore and heard distant shouts of councilors yelling at us. We didn’t know what they were saying, but we soon found out. Blake noticed they were changing the conditions flag on the end of the pier. “Bad weather is coming!” Aidan shouted. The sky slowly turned a deep grey and distant cracks of thunder arose. Lighting storms were frequent in this area of North Carolina, just a few days before lighting struck a tree outside of our cabin. The councilors saw that we were the last boat in the water and quickly came to rescue us. “Do we turn around, or keep going?” I said. Blake and Aidan replied, “keep going you p****.” The waves got bigger and bigger and the rain started to pour down. “The councilors were screaming from the boat, “turn around!” “My glasses! they went in!” It was too late we couldn’t get them. The sail was twisting and flapping, the beam nearly collided with Blake’s head. A huge wave plowed into our boat throwing Aidan half way into the water. “Help! Help!”, he yelled. I was trying to steer while Blake grabbed Aidan and desperately pulled him back into the boat. Another huge wave followed, even bigger than the last and crashed again into our starboard side. Blake, Aidan and I were jostled off the capsizing sunfish. The councilors followed close behind, but it was to rough to get us on the boat. A huge bolt of lightning danced across the sky. The councilors panicked and tried to get close to pick us up but it was too dangerous, the rescue boat kept bobbing and swing side to side. The boat wasn't stable enough and could hit us at anytime if we tried to get picked up.  “Swim to shore!” a councilor yelled through the sound of pouring rain and crashing waves. We were drifting away fast, but we swam as hard as we could. “Swim! Swim faster!”, Blake yelled. “I’m swimming as fast as I can!”, I screamed. We stumbled on to the shore, but we weren’t at Seafarer.

As we got back to camp everyone was inside their cabins with the storm shutters closed tightly.  “What were you thinking!”, the councillors kept saying. “We just wanted to go to Seafarer and hang out with the girls.” Blake said. After a long time of explaining they sent us back to our cabins. Alec wasn't their to greet us as we walked in, because he was in the infirmary with the flu. The storm was even worse now, bright streaks of lighting and cracking thunder. The rain pelted the tin roof of the cabin and everyone inside was hunkered down playing cards. We didn’t end up getting to see the Seafarer girls, or go down the giant water slide, and we didn’t get to catch snapping turtles in the pond or zip-line over the lake. Though we didn't accomplish what we set out to do, it was still a fun adventure that Blake, Aidan, and I will never forget.