James Laird - Camping at the Emerald Bay Scout Camp - Page 2

By the evening campfire the week's achievement awards would be given out. The tent with the most merits for achievement was given a special award (goodies) with a great shouts from the winners and boos from the losers. Of course, the best ghost story was saved for the last camp fire as the fire burned to a darken bed of coals and the stars jumped out of the sky.

The good ship "Betty O" arrived about mid morning to take us back to the mainland. I went to the top deck in case the trip back was as rough as the one out to Catalina. Have you ever seen a mill pond on a hot summer's day without a bit of air moving and the water reflecting the sky like a giant mirror? That's what the ride home was like. Not the slightest bit of a ripple was to be seen on the water except. that made by sharks fins as they lay still next to the surface of the water basking in the sunshine, and they seemed to be everywhere. We passed hundreds across the ocean on our way back to Sam Pedro. What were we doing? Just like the sharks we were laying around the boat with our eyes closed enjoying the tranquility after hustling for two weeks. We all slept at least part of the way home.

I remember two big scouting events for me that happened after that trip to Catalina Island. The first was a weekend camping event for all the area troops held on the UCLA campus. Each patrol set up their campsite with pup tents in a neat row with an area set aside for cooking. They checked on your camp site for neatness and what I remember most was testing your cooking. It had to meet a taste test and be good for you. My patrol did great in everything but cooking. All the meals were a flop. We could hardly even eat any of it ourselves and subsisted on leftovers from the other patrols.