Summer Camp 2016
Happy Canalling! Page 1
Of course the main adventure were the canal boats themselves. There was harsh reality all round from the moment we arrived at Hillingdon, from the Scouts it was simply to do with space, or lack of it. Every detail from where and how to stuff your bag under your bed (and ‘it’s not very clean down there…’) to the toilet space – reverse in backwards, get ready, do your business and exit forwards was easiest. Then later on it was all down to the beds themsleves, ‘I’m next to the poo outlet!’ ‘I can’t turn over’, ‘ I can’t stretch out!’ Till we pointed out fully grown adults all coped on our training weekends and sleep finally kicked in did it all calm down.
For adults it was the harsh reality that this really was going to be rather stressful, 10 kids on a narrowboat really is everything we expected! Two leaders managed to have a little faff turning the boats within in the first 10 minutes, all safely sorted we were under way. Safety talks and demonstrations done we headed off towards Hemel causing near chaos at locks with queues building up nicely behind us. However, everyone we met all week (bar two) were exceptionally kind and understanding towards a large Scout Troop and their committed leaders looking after them pootling casually up and down the Grand Union.
As the week went on, everyone settled into their roles confidently the Scout lock crews locked for pretty much everyone on the canal including helping out the Canal and River Trust themselves at a broken lock. The boat crews also cooked cleaned and roped superbly with the horrific exception of one morning eating one helmsman’s bacon quota, devastation. An apology sandwich just about made up for it.
One job for Scouts was to steer the boats. At nearly 80 foot long they were difficult beasts to handle, each with their own little quirks. All the leaders for example found every excuse under the sun to avoid Pisces boat, whilst Theo had an aversion to turning left, instead ploughing straight on for the bank. So it worked out after the week was over that this was unknown to the powers that be and thus nothing to do with us. Congratulations therefore to all that boat steerers for coping with a left hand reluctance! As for Star, it just kept giving up and decided not to start several times.
The Scouts however, turned out to be very good at steering, whilst a couple could hardly see over the roof others were far better than the leaders. Elijah taking over the control of the power as well and performing tricky manoeuvres. Best crash* had to be to Matt who actually managed to break the boat (well that’s our claim anyway) in reality nothing was broken and all was fixed as quickly as you can fix anything on the canal. This episode also included one leader getting trapped in a gated community, sadly, they let him back out.
*actually it turned out to be the same said previous boat not turning left and thus headed straight for the bank. Bank avoided, we ended up stranded for a short time! However, us leaders will gladly blame the Scouts…
We sailed under the M25, moored in Hemel Hempstead, next to Tesco, sunny countryside and next to Rickmansworth’s spectacularly titled Aquadrome.
…and whilst the first few days were ‘never ever again’, as the week draw on the sanity and interest of the Scouts was clearly holding and it slowly turned into ‘whenever we do this again…’
Well done to all the Scouts – the week was a challenge and to quote George (one of the Scouts), we found solutions, not problems!
The star-studded cast of Theo
We ate the continent of Africa…
Someone put a rather large tree in the way…
The Baywatch lock crew!
Sewing caused many, many problems…
That there above him is the M25 (and we were travelling faster than those on top!)