This morning was devoted to campsite improvement which we mostly achieved by getting to know all of the other scouts we would be staying with for the next week. The Canadians also decided to put little Canadian flags all around their tents, so that area is now referred to as Canada Corner. All of the groups of scouts started getting on really well with each other and we all started becoming one big group.
At about half eleven we headed towards the parade field again for our first activity. But first and more importantly we had lunch! The group split up and half did team games while the other half did initiative games. Scouter Dave (from Canada) and I went with the group doing team games, this involved Ultimate Frisbee and Giant Basketball. Everyone enjoyed the activities although it was really too hot to be doing anything at all. It was all ok though because our next activity was swimming down at the water front.
This was brilliant, the water was lovely, the sun was beaming down and they even opened the blob for a little while. All of the Irish Scouts did need to be introduced to the American buddy system, which was a bit of an adjustment for some. Basically everyone has a small tag which is on a board outside of the water front area. If you wish to go swimming or boating etc. you must have a buddy and you both then get your tag off the board and you bring it down to the waterfront area and then put your tags together in the appropriate section of the board that is situated there. The life guards then do a buddy check about every ten minutes to make sure that everyone still has their buddy and no one has disappeared.
While we were swimming we got a message to say that the main water pump for the campsite had broken and because of this we could no longer drink the water from the taps. This meant that we would all be having dinner together in the dining hall again. This time it was something called lasagna soup, which actually tasted really good. Especiallly when followed with Cake and chocolate pudding.
We then headed back to site, sorted out name tags for all of the tents, this makes it easier when you need to wake people up. We played some more cards and the guys collected wood for our campfire with the Iroquais sub camp. This was also an open programme time, so some of the Irish headed down to check out some of the activities that we hadn’t done yet.
The Iroquais scouts arrived a little late and were all starving, but luckily we had managed to get an entire extra tray of dinner (because no one got enough at dinner time), so we fed them all pasta along with cookies and snack mix. This meant that we never really got to the camp fire part of the evening, but everyone had a good chat and a good feed none the less.