on the Boat

Well... since I've been gone for an entire week, I figured I would update you on what I have been up to (it's totally worth reading to the end, I might even through in a moral message at the end to surprise you... probibly not... it's a lot of work to think up a moral message... but I might, so youll have to keep reading to find out)...

I ended up going on my third mission trip of the year... This one was a little different though (not just because I had to spend $700 to go on it... the others were both free) but this one involved spending 7 days in a boat (sort of... I'll explain in a bit) with complete strangers...

Before I'll start my story, let me introduce you to the cast of characters:

Katty: Our faithful leader, recently seperated from her husband, but still seeingly perky as ever... tendancy to drop the f-bomb which is a refreshing change from the regular trip leader type...

Harry: Our captain, and a lover of seafood, very reserved (with a few exceptions)

Kirbster: Friend from university, and only member of the crew whom I was previously aquianted, currently a summer leader, but is participating as a crew member rather than leader (remember, Katty is the leader)

Keebler: DCO for the church that heads the mission to the west coast that I was a part of... he's a patriotic american... and he laughs like a keebler elf...

Gramma-D: The oldest member of our group, we called her Gramma-Death due to her innane ability to sneak up from behind during card games and slaughter every other player (usually she finished with at least double the score of second place)...

Woodchuck: Husband of Maid-Marion... most interesting fact... he grows trees in his spare time... yes folks, trees...

Maid-Marion: Wife of Woodchuck... Was the "praise God for this wonderful stuff" member of the group... You know the type... thats so lovey dovey christian that you just want to puke!!! Otherwise quite pleasant...

Chatty: Words cannot express how painful it was travelling with her stories... I'll explain more later, but I'll just say otherwise okay when she wasnt punishing us with a rendition of "on my last mission trip I"

There we have it... on with the sotries...

I went out to P'ville (on Van. Isl., and is the location of the mssion HQ) Three of my friends and one aquantance (regan, kirb, noelle and linden) were staying at the church... Linden kirb and rea were there, so we had a few nights of almost drunken debauchery... except linden...

We ended up putting mattresses on the roof of the church and sleeping outside... it was interesting...

Anyways...

Satuday morning we started our trek out to Port hardy (the place where our boat would meet us...) we picked our team up on the way (they all arrived through different airports or at different times and were at different hotels and such... you know how it is)...

The first thing I noticed was that we had a few chatty members... but it didnt matter to me too much, as some people talk when they are nervous... I cant say im not guilty every once in a while....

We arrived at the boat... a ~50 foot yaught converted to sleep 9 people... We unpacked made up sleeping arrangements (I got to snugle with Keebler for the duration of the trip... much to his dismay)...

Itw as when we set out that I realised that Chatty really like to tell stories... long stories... stories with no point... and she was a bad story teller... and she repeated the same stories over and over... and she repeated them almost exactly the same... did I mention that they had no point whatsoever?

an example, if I may...

Say me and kirby are talking about a restaurant that we like and Chatty overhears... she wil cut us off midsentance and add the following:

"I remember when I went to kazahkstan with.... umm... some people from my church in Boulder, which is 45 minutes away from denver, or at least i used to be back before they... um... both started growing at sucha... umm... large rate, now they take about an hour and a half because of all the traffic, well anyways we were um... in croatia for a layover, and I had checked into my hotel early so we spent most of the day walking around exploring the city and we had... umm... gotten hungry and we were looking for a place to eat... we felt really bad because we knew that we could probibly afford any restaurant there, but there were obviously a lot of nationals who were going to be going hungry that night... all the people were so skinny it was kinda sad but we knew we couldn't help them all, we ended up finding this really fancy restaurant on the main drag and I was thinking about getting the lobster, but the service was so good and they recomended the cheese steak... it was so good, it was just a large slice of cheese breaded and pan fried and served like a piece of steak... it reminded me of........"

And she would go on and on and on and on...

In fact one time, I was asked a specific question about my experience with Air France, and she cut me off mid sentance to tell us about Air Transat and about how the service used to be so much better... and after talking non stop for several minutes, she turned to me and asked "so what were you going to say about Air France"

I honestly didnt remember... neither did the person who asked the question... I made up some story about how much I loved the swordfish they served when we flew from yaounde to paris (well... I didnt make it up.... but I know its not what we were going to talk about)...

Anyways... We ended up getting into the village we were staying at for the majourity of the week... I had a lot of lovely experiences, but I'll just share a few as I am getting tired of typing already...

Because the village is not on the ocean (its up a river) we have to travel by water taxi up the river, leaving our yaught behind and billeting in the home of one of the members of the community...

There was a funeral in the village, and I ended up being on of the pallbearers... It was kind of interesting... The funeral was done (well music anyways) in Kwak'wala... which just so happens to be the language of my of my forefathers (yes... Im half native btw)...

This got me entirely interested in my heritage, and im thinking hardcore about getting a related tattoo... I'll tell you more as I make more decisions...

Anyways... We ran a small kids camp (small for two reasons 1: the community is only 90 people and 2: the family of the deceased asked us to do the kids programm at the last moment (to provide distraction for the kids and allow time for the parents to grieve) which didn't allow us to advertise it very much...)

regardless, ended up having huge amounts of fun running around with kids... Yes, I have come to terms with the fact I enjoy playing with kids now... its been a long slow process...

Not too keen on the baby thing though, yet...

Anyways... A few days went by and we did a bunch of stuff (includeing potlucks, dinners and worship services)... I ended up meeting a lady named Flora who worked with my great great grandma back in the 30's...

Anyways... now comes the fun part!

On our last day, we got to chillax out on the open ocean in our yaught...

We started off by shallow water fishing... I proved my heritage by pulling vast amounts of fish... much more vast than anyone else... This was followed by treks through the sea fog into channels that were barely wider than the boat (it was 4m deep and 15 wide at one point)...

We finally headed out into the straight of the Queen Charlottes... as soon as we hit open water, the fog cleared... It was a solid wall blocking the view of the mountains completely... We found a nice little area, and took turns with the fishing poles trying our hand at some dee water fishing...

To our surprise, sopme whales started surfacing in our fogless area (about 500m-1km away) with the sound of the spout contained within the fog bank... allowing it to ring out with crystal clarity...

After an hour or so of basking in the sun enjoyin gthe sound of the whales, we decided to head in... So we head to Sointula, but in transit we come upon a pod of dolphins... I kid you not we had 10 dolphins playing in the wake of our boat... jumping and splashing and turning and spouting...

Im so tired of typing now... so if I feel like it, Ill add more later... There are a lot more and a lot of details I can still add...