Leaders sailed 5 boats over to Newtown Creek. We had to start at 5am to catch the tides, which meant leaving Fordingbridge at 4am (collecting Sally from a party on the way)! Sally sailed a Pico, and due to the light winds was able to sail it asleep for much of the time. Stephen sailed the Feva, on a journey that proved too much for a poor bumble-bee that hitched a lift - but that is a separate story (The plight of the Bumble-bee). David and Sharon Miller sailed the 420, uneventfully as far as I am aware, and the two Picos were towed by David Chadwick in the County Safety Boat. Jimbo's rib crewed by Richard and Ros provided the safety cover.
Andy was already on-site, where he had been doing food shopping, keeping an eye on the boats and selecting the best site for his tent.
The vehicles going to camp were booked on the 8:15 ferry, from where we were able to wave to Richard as he got Jimbo's rib ready for the journey over. Richard rendezvoused with David Chadwick in the County Safety boat at the slipway in Lymington from where, with Geoffrey and Josh to help, they towed the coypus (filled with the canoes that didn't fit on the vehicles) over to the Island. David Miller canoed his sea kayak over.
Once on site the vehicles unloaded canoes, trailers and other kit and then returned to Yarmouth in time to collect the Scouts - who arrived on a later ferry. Transport was provided by Ros' Land-rover (driven by Stephen), as well as Jimbo's Land-rover and Nigel's car. The Scouts arrived in Yarmouth on the ferry at 10:45, amazingly they'd all arrived in Lymington on time for the 10:15 ferry and Sally, Paul, Laura and James Hall had managed not to lose any Scouts (or any of their kit) en-route. Obviously not everyone could fit in the vehicles so a shuttle was required to get everyone to camp.
It was high-tide, required to be able to use the boats who's moorings dried at low-tide, at around lunchtime, so once on camp the Scouts took advantage of the water to row and canoe. Tents were put up later in the afternoon, which was then followed by a blindfold-trail (complete with quite a lot of cheating) and then dinner. Dinner was followed by a careful inspection of the Scouts' washing up (which was generally acceptable), their drying up (which generally left more to be desired) and their mess tent (which looked like it had been the stage for a chimpanzee tea party, evidently closer supervision was required). David insisted on calling Ben 'Oliver', of "please, Sir, can I have some more" fame. He continued to do this with sufficient regularity that several of the leaders believed that Oliver was his real name.
In the evening there was a wide-game (German spotlight was as popular as ever).
The main activity of the day was Dragon Boating at the UKSA in Cowes. The Scouts were driven part way, from where they walked the remaining few kilometres pausing for lunch by the River Medina. The Explorers had a slightly longer walk along the coast, but evidently this alone wasn't enough of a challenge and so many of them decided to undertake it in flip-flops or similar.
While the Scouts and most of the Leaders were out of the way Jimbo decided to convert the steering on his rib from the traditional cable style to a more advanced (and messy) hydraulic system. Ably assisted by Richard, Dave and Kerry this went well, although:
For everyone else dragon boating filled the afternoon, and I'm pleased to say that when given the opportunity the leaders team beat the best the Scouts could muster. Everyone was then shuttled back to Camp, while a few drops of rain with a thunderstorm in the background threatened to disrupt the plans for the evening. They also disrupted the car shuttle slightly, as towards the end of the shuttle we discovered Nigel AWOL. It turned out that a windscreen wiper failure had forced him to wait out the rain.
Nick and Mandie arrived to take responsibility for shopping and catering, with their first challenge being to scour the island for a dustbin for use in the Scouts' mess tent. The, possibly misguided, hope being that this would reduce the amount of mess in the mess tent.
The rain abated, and so it was decided to go ahead with the evening as planned - a beach barbecue at Colwell Bay. Everyone stayed on the beach until the light began to fade and so we started the return journey, which as ever was a shuttle. As the first to depart walked up the path from the beach the southern part of the sky became visible, and with it a spectacular thunderstorm. This made completion of the shuttle more urgent, to avoid everyone getting very wet, but of course took Nigel's car out of the running again. Nearly everyone was back on camp before the storm hit properly, so only the last few were forced into the shelter of the public toilets at Colwell Bay. A resident of Colwell Bay took pity on Kerry and the remaining leaders, providing them with beer and offers of shelter.
After returning to site soup was provided before everyone retired to bed.
The morning activities were split, with the Explorers shooting and the Scouts climbing and going on a nature walk with Paul (Kerry now knows how to tell the difference between a Cricket and Grasshopper, hopefully the Scouts learnt something too!).
In the afternoon the Scouts were split between sailing and rowing, and the Explorers canoed. Some of the Explorers canoed to Yarmouth, from where they were collected and driven back to camp. After their activities the Scouts went swimming in Newport, at a pool they were pleased to discover had a water-slide. Jimbo discovered that if you drive a Land-rover Discovery into a Land-rover Defender when trying to manoeuvre in and out of small parking spaces it is the Defender that wins. He is still working out why the resulting damage to his indicator was Richard's fault, but feels sure that he is to blame somehow.
In the evening the Explorers got their chance on the climbing tower, while the Scout played Buzz. The objective of the game is to kill all the opposing team members, this is done by them being out of their court while not saying buzz. You mount raids on the opposition (while buzzing) with the intention of taking a member of the opposing team out of their court, either out of both courts or back to your court (where you can stop buzzing). Once dead the team member is out of the game.
The Explorers had a tour of the aircraft factory and Bembridge, while the Scouts had another chance to climb and to undertake some leadership and teamwork challenges arranged by Jimbo. Peter and Dom tried the hard face on the climbing tower, only previously completed by Ellie Coatham (with some assistance). Dom provided the best performance, being the only person to climb it without help.
In the afternoon there were more water activities, everyone doing something different to the previous day. It was the Explorers turn to row, though I saw more swimming than rowing. The Scouts who were sailing got to experience different conditions to those normally found on the lake at Spinnaker, and have hopefully gained some confidence. Richard decided that he'd help with the lack of water at low tide by dredging the channel - via the unorthodox method of driving off without taking the anchor in.
Ros arrived, by bike, to tidy the equipment in the leaders' mess tent and find all the items that we thought we hadn't remembered to bring.
The evening provided the Explorers turn to clean off in the swimming pool, while the Scouts had a scavenger hunt to earn points with which they could buy kit to make a flag pole. Sorry, attempt to make a flag pole, only one was standing when the judging took place. A second one had been standing until some last minute adjustments meant that it fell, hitting Poppy on the way down.
The traditional low ropes course was set up by David and Stephen while everyone else got up and had breakfast. This allowed time for everyone to get a chance at it during the morning. While not on the course the Scouts had a chance to shoot, and to attempt more of Jimbo's leadership challenges or play ball games.
In the afternoon there were more water activities, everyone getting the chance to do whatever activity they hadn't done so far. This meant that it was the Explorers turn to sail, where the winds caused several capsizes. Sally tried to spear a yacht as she righted her boat while the wind and tide were carrying her rapidly towards it, prompting some surprised looks from its owner (and from Sally when she realised the yacht was there).
After the activities a there was a talk on calling for help at sea, followed by a demonstration of flares by Jimbo.
The evening brought with it rain, and predictions of a westerly wind on Sunday - which unfortunately made it impractical for the Scouts to sail back to Lymington.
After breakfast and packing, everyone was driven to Freshwater Bay for lunch and then a walk to Yarmouth. In Yarmouth they had an hour to buy presents/postcards/etc, before meeting for the 4pm ferry. During the crossing we were able to wave to David and Sharon Miller who were canoeing back, and were entering the Lymington River at about the same time as the ferry. All the Scouts and vehicles were safely back in Lymington at 4:30, where we caused a bit of chaos trying to unload everyone's personal kit in the very small drop-off zone at the ferry terminal.
While the Scouts had an uneventful crossing, the leaders attempting to get the boats back fared less well. The Feva had capsized while being towed up the creek, and had de-masted itself in the process. Even without the Feva and 420 the wind and waves made the tow across the solent difficult, and it was eventually decided to leave the boats on the island. They were collected the next weekend by a small contingent of Leaders, and without the County Safety or Jimbo's rib they just the Barton Dory to help. This meant that the task took all day, starting at 6am to catch the tide for the first crossing, and finishing at gone 10pm having made a second crossing on the later tide.
Overall I think camp was a success, certainly if judged by the Scouts talking about it non-stop on arriving home, the thank-yous from parents and the Leaders asking where we're going next year are anything to go by.
A big thank you must go to all the Leaders and helpers on camp, that enabled us to provide such a wide range of activities. Dragon-boating was the only activity that required us to use an external centre and their instructors, and being able to run so many activities ourselves allows for both greater flexibility in the programme and also allows us to keep the cost of camp as low as possible.
If you have any comments please email them to Ros, so that we can make things even better next year.
Stephen White
Asst Scout Leader
(with contributions from Ros White and David Chadwick)