"Live Like You Were Dying" - Tim McGraw

The girls (L to R): Sasa, Kate, Mollie, Katherine, Casey, Alex, Martha

The boys: Hunter, George, Jefferson, Jeff, Jack, Jack, Palmer, Walt

The top row: Ben and Brewton.

Another great week that has flown by. We had a Young Life group from Columbus, Georgia and they were nothing short of awesome. It was a change going from a group of 6 to 18 but we all got close, literally. The group was as follows, before I forget:

The girls group was Molly, Kate, Casey, Katherine, SaSa, Martha, Alex and their wonderful leader, Lindsey. The guys group was Palmer, Hunter, Jack, Jack, Walt, George, Jefferson, Breton, Ben, and their fantastic leader Jeff.

The boys getting ready to jump!

Highlights include first off I finally saw a Green flash! It does exist on clear nights over the ocean when the sun sets it flashes green. I have been trying all summer to see it and finally Thursday night I saw it and it was EPIC! Anyway other great things included cliff jumping, which is always a highlight trying to get everyone to jump. Martha's moms delicious homemade chocolate cookies, the delicious fish the boys speared for us, surviving the sail back thursday night with all the waves and hitting flamingo cut with the boat rocking gunnel to gunnel. Feeding the compass sharks off the stern of the boat while bruce cleaned the fish. Reading old man and the sea and watching everyone go through “Heaven is For Real”, still haven't gotten my hands on it yet! A long conversation centered on Harry Potter and thoughts on the new movie and why the book is so much better and explaining to the strictly movie viewers all that they are missing. Yes I am a dork. We fed the iguanas at Allens and I got bit... it didn't hurt to bad. We also had Mackerel one afternoon that we caught off the back of the boat. Matt was very sweet and had me two chicken biscuits for Christmas in July... I didn't get him anything, but I was very happy all day. We also got almost everybody in at Wardrick Wells and they did a snorkel and got to swim with a couple reef sharks! We also shared life stories every night and Jeff played the guitar and we rocked out some awesome music, including Live Like You Were Dying which we had to play an encore because everybody forgot the words the first time... Friday found us with cracked conch ( a new favorite) and fried fish, another trip to the Atlantis aquarium and a real fun time. It was another great week of warm days, beautiful water, and fun people.

PS Lobster season starts monday! I am very excited!

For proof that Lindsey was there!

Love Immeasurable - Ryan Long

The group: Cheeze, Joel, Gator, Laura, Shelby, and Chris

This past week was yet another great time! We had a Young Life group from Macon Georgia and they were fantastic. It was actually all leaders except for Gator, the one kid who just graduated. It was another small group, There was Joel who knew Bruce and Sheila and had been on the boat before who is on staff with YL. Chris, also on staff who was real fun and went to Furman as did Laura one of the volunteer leaders. The only other girl was Shelby and then of course Cheeze. They were a group thats for sure. We had so much fun and got to share life stories and get to know each other real well.

No words...

Highlights include snorkeling Allens, eating delicious birds eggs (with a small group Bruce spoils us some), forcing Laura to face her shark fears at Compass and Cheeze rocking a speedo on the sail into the Compass Cay Marina. There was of course tons of fun to be had at Big Majors with the pig and we always tried to be entertaining for Chris's handheld waterproof video camera! We spent time playing on Corona island and Normans and the whole time just pretty much acting like kids and spending the week feeling the love of christ in all the things we saw and explored and experienced. My favorite time was every night Chris would get out his guitar and we would sing tons of songs anything from Ryan Long (very excited to get to listen to that all week) to Brittney Spears (though Taylor Swift was a favorite for Chris) and anything in-between. I loved it and even tried to teach them Deep Way down Deep which was my favorite song we did at club. Of course being as tone deaf as I am it was an adventure. We got to see great stars and fantastic moon rises and had an epic game of beach volleyball at Rose Island (we won).. We watched storms roll in and lightning light up the sky. It was all so phenomenal. Another memorable time was getting everyone up the cliff at Thunderball cave and watching them jump. Everybody had a pretty easy time... a little hesitation from Cheeze, but Gator, poor Gator stood up there for over an hour! After giving him every type of talk I could think of I stuck with the “sweet release” idea of just jumping. It took a stranger to just say, jump and keep your hands by your side and point your toes for him to finally jump though, even though he followed none of that advice.... (see video) He finally agreed to jump if I did. I really thought it was a toss up if he would or not and as I was falling I thought he hadn't done it...

The boys working hard at the camp

We came back into Nassau on thursday instead of friday and spent all day friday at the Aids camp, All Saints, and served lunch and helped them with some other work around the place. The girls and I were put in charge of repainting the porch of one of the cabins. It was fun but I covered myself in paint once again, but I guess there are worst things. Spent the evening exploring Atlantis and admiring the Manta Rays. I loved the group and Saturday came way to quickly and it was very hard to say goodbye.

Gator dressed up like me…

My captain...

"Esther Bunny" - Camp song

Starting every morning with some elephant juice!

The crew and steven being the hero with chocolate

This week was nothing short of a blast. Bruce's sister, Di came with family and friends all from Lancaster PA and we had so much fun. The group consisted of Di and her husband, Joe, there daughter Nicky, who worked on the boat with Bruce a couple summers ago and her husband Jessie (they are my age which kinda freaked me out). They were all really friendly and great and introduced me to Catan (new favorite board game)! Then there were the friends, the couples being Doug and Lynette and Eric and Wendy and then Dee and her husband Ivan, Bruce's old wrestling coach, and their two sons, Braden and Cameron. Steven, our friend down here who went on a trip with us on our week off and runs us for groceries every week and took Matt and I to dolphin encounters came to because he had the week off work. Since the weather was pretty rough out of the south and we would be fighting the wind the whole sail down to the exumas we decided instead to head towards north-east to eluthera and it was great. We stopped by Spanish Wells, Dolphin beach, Harbor Island, and Preachers Cave.

Enjoying Eric's freshly shaven head!

There are many highlights to report this week. The Bahamians were celebrating their 38^th year of Independence on Monday so we joined in the celebrations! Sunday was spent in Spanish Wells eating delicious conch salad on Jared (Bruce's friend who lives in Spanish Wells) floating bar he built himself while it pored rain all around us in the ocean. It was so much fun. Monday night was my favorite as we spent it sitting on deck and singing all the camp songs anyone could think of! It started with Live of the sunny side of life which I had never heard and came up from the Galley to Eric in the spotlight singing this song with everyone joining it. It went on to all the classics including hand motions such as “Button Factory”, “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toe” and “Tony Chestnut” and the always hit “The Banana Song”. We ended with Steven singing the Bahamas national anthem and us ours and watching fireworks it was a blast. We also swam around dolphin cove and watched a pod of dolphins swim right by us and did a rope swing out of a cave! It was a lot scarier just climbing up into the cave than the actual swing part. More memorable times included watching Di teach Eric and Braden how to dive of the dive platform with many spectators including myself offering our advice. Exploring Harbor island and getting to drive a golf cart on the left side of the road. Enjoying the pink sand beaches with Wendy, Eric, Matt, Lynette and Doug and them very generously treating me to an amazingly delicious 10 oz cheeseburger. Did I mention it was delicious? Eric was renamed red fish because he wore all red and had a pretty solid sunburn from day one but it was a term of endearment. He also became a penguin, not sure how, but he was also called emperor eric and would jump of the bow acting like a penguin and it was awesome. We had cannonball competitions and awesome jumps of all sorts of the bow. It was really fun. Lynette and Doug made us all laugh all week talking about how they met and life in general, Lynette really should be a stand up comedian. I had late night theology talks with Steven and whoever else would decide to stay up and of course in preparation we watched Harry Potter 7 part 1. We explored Preachers Cave where the original settlers of Lutheran crashed and lived for years in this huge and very cool cave. Steven told all the history of everything Bahamas and was the groups personal tour guide so for details you should ask him I can never remember, I thought it was called Creatures cave till I went in and saw the sign!

The rope swing out of a cave! yep it was awesome

Then of course the end of the week had us back in Nassau Thursday night so that we could make it into Atlantis Marina early in the morning on Friday to enjoy a whole day in the park. It was awesome. Steven was very excited to actually have an official wristband and none of us took anytime to get on the slides and enjoy the Lazy Crazy river as it is so rightly named. Steven, Lynette, Doug, Wendy and Eric found ourselves floating along at 9:30 am in the river thinking how great life is and Eric already swearing he wasn't leaving the river all night! We had a blast doing the drop slides, The abyss and Leap of Faith and Eric had the best screams of all and Lynette had to be convinced to do the slides... I didn't tell her the abyss was a drop slide of course. Doug decided he could do the Leap of Faith all day and poor wendy got talked onto one tube slide and hurt her ankle. We still managed to all have a blast. Including almost all of us floating down rapids in a giant group all holding on to one another and screaming and singing our way around the park. We got to one pool with waterfalls that massaged your backs (my favorite of course) and there was a live band so of course Bruce, Matt, Eric, Wendy on one leg and I danced our hardest and the band loved us! It was so much fun! In the end the day was just a blast and only got better. We had dinner back at the boat of ribs delivered from Berthas (soooo good) with peas and rice and Mac and cheese.

Good times to be had by all

Then the best part of the night, Sheila and Bruce let me sneak of with Steven and see HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2. All I can say is if you haven't seen it your life is not complete. It was so good. Lynette and Doug couldn't resist either so they joined to. I loved seeing it in the Bahamas because people are much more vocal down here. The opening credits come on just announcing the movie and the whole place was in an uproar of cheers and applause. I knew it would be good. They laughed at all the one liners, there were a ton, and cheered when a bad guy got what he deserved and sighed at all the sad parts. I loved it. It was awesome. Then poor Steven, Doug and Lynette had to listen to me go on forever comparing it to the book and all my favorite parts and what they should or shouldn't have left out. I did love it though. I will stop going on about it but go see it.

As you can see it was a busy and really fun week. I loved the group and was very very sad to say goodbye to all of them. I enjoyed all of them so much and apparently have to go up and visit them as soon as I start pronouncing Lancaster correctly…

Eric and his penguin jumps...

Us with Di and Nickie

The "2nd fam" Doug, Lanette, Wendy and Eric

Dee and Ivan dancing the night away!

"Carry On My Wayward Son" - Kansas

The group, Josh, Ray, Shea, Sydney, Catherine, and Sarah

Our beautiful spot for July 4th

Another week has flown by. It is really getting hot down here but I am enjoying the water too much to care! The group this week was another really fun one. It was a Young Life group from Memphis Tennessee. Their were only seven though! It made it fun and a little more relaxing for us. It was three girls, Sarah, Catherine, and Sydney and three boys, Josh, Ray, and Shea who all just graduated high school and then one leader, Kelly. We had a blast all week going to all the hot spots.

Our fantastic sunset

Highlights included going to Corona island and the boys disappearing onto the island right by it and coming back carrying a giant wooden pole and raising it on the corona island! All that was missing was a jolly roger at the top! The fourth was spent snorkeling and playing waboba ball in wardrick wells and eating taco salad and drinking goombay punch ( a bohemian soft drink that is basically carbonated pineapple – deliciousness). We also played BananaGrams every night and I actually was pretty good the first couple nights, then everybody started getting good at it! More fun was had while watching Ray run like a lizard across the sandbars and watching Catherine conquer her fears and swim with the sharks at compass. Jumping of the cliffs at thunderball and snorkeling for matts glasses that he forgot to take off... we never found them. Watching the boys ride the pigs (poor things) and feed them with a spoon which one ripped right out of Shea's hand. Seeing all the baby pigs and Shea getting bit because he picked one up. We also swam with the sharks at danger reef. I did real well this week and wasn't really scared at all and swam around the boat and even talked Sarah and Catherine into getting in. The sharks were all like 40-50 feet deep by then but sarah turned around and one was probably 20 feet from her and she freaked and splashed around attracting them to me! It was fine though, they weren't very big! We listened to rock all week because the boys had the 500 best rock song playlist from rolling stones. I really enjoyed that! Got in some swimming at Hawksbill and even a little kayaking! Every night we had great talks and Kelly's passion for Christ was contagious. We had great food and conversation all week. One night we just beat a storm to our mooring for the night but I loved watching the storm blow in and even saw a couple water spouts (water tornados) but don't worry mom they were far off! It was beautiful. All in all another great week and another hard time saying goodbye! I am really starting to love mondays and hate saturdays, who knew that would be possible?

Sarah with her one true love... Duplex cookies

I already miss these guys!

Best crew ever.

The waterspout (see really far away)

"Fins to the left, fins to the right" - Jimmy Buffett

Well this past week was of course another adventure. I loved it! Kelly and his wife Tracy have been coming down with Bruce and Sheila for the past 6 years and have by the stories I have heard... had always had a ton of fun. This year was no different. They decided to do a family trip so there two sons Ryan(14) and Sam(10) were on the trip. As well as Tracy's sister, Nancy and her husband Brad. There was also their friends Jody and Phil and their two kids, Kylie (7) and Gunner(14). Kelly's good friend Steve was also on board. He actually got in a day early so Matt and I got to know him on friday before the trip. He was a real character and had great stories about his time in the navy. Everyone was so much fun! I really enjoyed everybody and we had a blast all week long. (Yes I know I say this every week but thats because it is true)

I love these two!

Highlights included swimming with the pigs, snorkeling tons, including wax cut and a sunken airplane by Johnny Depp's island. I saw two sea turtles! It was so cool and man can they zoom through the water. We also saw some barracuda including a 5 ft one that swam by me (like literally two feet beside me) and some eagle rays and nurse sharks. I have fallen in love with snorkeling and love eagle rays, still haven't seen any manta rays though... We also spent an evening out at Pirates Lair, one of my favorite spots and played Wadoba (I think...) ball. They are these really cool balls that bounce on the water, so you throw them like you would skip a rock. I am horrible at it but its still very fun. Jody and Nancy and a couple others built some fantastic sand creatures including an octopus, turtle and starfish. They were very impressive (see pictures). We enjoyed great food as always with Capt. Bruce. I don't know if I have told about thanksgiving dinner. Every week (usually when we are in compass cay) we have thanksgiving dinner. I am talking all out. Bruce deep fries a turkey we have stuffing, cranberries, gravy, the whole nine yards. It is so very tasty. This past week was no different with our delicious deep fried turkey and a couple friends of Bruce's (yes they are everywhere) came over and we had a dessert of ice cream! Ice cream is a serious rarity down here and it was a very great treat. The night was great and everybody stayed up late talking and hanging out. I even got to bust out my skills at spoon nose balancing. There also was a huge yacht that was from one of the James Bond movies in at Compass. I never learned which 007 it was from everyone said something different. I will find out next week.

The awesome octopus that I turned into a sextapus later….

Other adventures included swimming with the pigs and even got to see the piglets come out! Tons of jumping off the bow was enjoyed by everyone, even Kylie! We also took everybody to thunder-ball and just about everybody jumped off the cliff. A few had to have some coaxing. Kelly was also very involved in video taping so he was always with a camera, which made matt and I nervous. Who knows what he end result will be... He even had one for underwater! I am excited to see the video he makes (he promised to send me one). We also made it to danger reef and Phil, Brad, Gunner, Steve, and Kelly all got in. I decided to pass on the swimming with the sharks this week because I didn't feel like changing and getting wet again. But now there are photos of the sharks I swam with two weeks ago! The boys were very brave and swam all around! Friday was spent and Da Bridge for dinner and exploring the Atlantis aquariums. We were going to go to Crazy Johnny's afterwards but we got back and the power was all out! Apparently a common occurrence in the Bahamas in the summer. Saturday morning was an early goodbye to everybody. I was very sad to say goodbye to everyone in the group and they are already planning to see me next year on the boat.... we'll see.

the sharks… Fins the the left really did come on right about now!

Kylie and I being reeled in

Kevin Costner meet Jason Miraz???

"Sitting on the dock of the bay" - Otis Redding

What a week! We got to spend the entire week on the dock in Nassau and though it was a little nerve racking being in charge of the boat it was so much fun! I made a list of all the things Bruce and Sheila needed us to do so I wouldn't forget. They don't get back until after the next group gets here so we have to get everything clean and groceries bought and put away. There is a lot I haven't been responsible for before now! We still managed to have some fun though! We spent most of our nights hanging out on the boat. Steven, Chris, Teri and Tina came over most nights as well. We also had Bob over one night before we left for some left over ribs and to watch American President. We went to the movies a couple times and saw Hangover 2 and Green Lantern. We wondered around the mall, its crazy how all malls are the same. Ordered pizza one night, Tina brought over bamboo shack (my favorite) one night and all in all just enjoyed our time off with some neat people. We of course had cleaning to do and had to scrub the hull of the boat one day. That was an adventure. I really can not hold my breath very long....

Wednesday was the event! Steven who has been the wonderful driver all week and has blessed us with his presence daily hooked us up. He is that guy who knows people. He picked us up from the boat at 9:30 and we went to Dolphin Cay where he used to work. Its the dolphin place in atlantis that houses 38 dolphin and 16 sea lions and people go there and pet the dolphins and swim with them etc. Well Steven took us on the back of house tour and we got to watch the sea lions slide around on there bellies and see the “kitchen” thats just huge freezers with different fish and who eats what and when. Then we got to go out to the pools and help out with a “session”. They do sessions with groups but the dolphins also do a little practice for some meals just with a trainer or two because they have 8 different feedings. So we got to sit at the edge of the pool and pet Noah and Brewer and feed them fish and they gave us high fives, did a couple dances, did some jumps for us and we even got dolphin kisses. Of course the whole time I am doing this I am freaking out with excitement and don't even touch my camera (which I did bring). So I do not have a single photo to show for it, but it happened and it was AWESOME! Steven really hooked us up. We met so many people who worked there and they were so friendly and happy and I wished I could just go train dolphins in the bahamas! Erin your major is way cooler than mine.

After the amazingly awesome dolphin experience we snuck into the Atlantis pools and spent the whole day there. IT was fantastic and I finally got to ride the Leap of Faith! When I came to Nassau 11 years ago with my family we explored Atlantis and saw the Aztec tower with this drop slide and I said I have to do that. So Wednesday I finally got to. We also did the 5 other slides around the pools and did the “crazy river”! It was a blast. We had so much fun. We also went to Johnny Rockets for lunch and I had an amazingly delicious cheeseburger and Chocolate milkshake! It was a great day! I got to enjoy the water-park and swim (it felt very weird being in a pool) and eat good food and to top it all off I found a free jawbreaker machine right before we left. It was all in all a fantastic day that kept being awesome with a round of Karaoke at Crazy Johnny's. Who doesn't love a little Frank Sinatra and Whitney Houston...

The rest of the week flew by as all vacations do. We got the boat cleaned and ready for the boss on thursday and friday. Went to crazy Johnnys one last time on friday and had a blast dancing and enjoying the rock videos! Getting groceries and everything ready on the boat was nerve racking. We were leaving for the Exumas as soon as Bruce and sheila got in so there was no time for them to fix my mistakes! We got everything done in time and I hopefully got all the supplies we needed...