Into The Wild

This week was Teen Week, and if there was ever a time when I’d consider myself slightly grown-up (impossible, I know), it’d be this week. I’m usually a mildly disoriented character as it is, forgetting things, becoming lost for words, losing my train of thought….but being in the charge of these kids took me from my usual disoriented character and blew me into a plummeting airplane of whacked out. I don’t know how it happened, but I’ll venture that it could have been a combination of or a strategic single placement of the following teen behaviors: constant chatter, loud screaming, blasting the worst rap songs ever created while meetings are taking place, dancing to said worst rap songs, disintegration of any food particles lying around in the kitchen, disregard and lack of respect for anyone of authority, complete lack of manners, or complete lack of common sense. I remember being a teen once (hell I still have the appetite of one) but I want to believe that I wasn’t quite as insane as this.

All of that venting aside, it was a pretty good week by the books. My team saw otters four days straight, which I find extremely abnormal, and I constantly reminded them how lucky and spoiled the were for getting to see so many. One lucky teen and I (if I could be so bold, the most normal teen in the group) saw a black bear (probably one of the best moments of this trip). To top it ALL off, while checking some video footage from one of my IR cameras in the field, we discovered that a cougar had been prowling by my camera not a day after I was there changing the battery (another awesome moment). Safe to say I am now a strong believer in all the dangers and excitement that this little island paradise, and the next time I feel stupid for talking to myself in a very loud and high-pitched Elmo voice while rifling through otter scat in the bush, I will think about that cougar and that bear.

And this segues into the not so great but definitely exciting aspects of this week. Out of the two big ones that I’ll mention, we’ll start with the least exciting. Today, Krystal and I were setting up a video camera at a new latrine site. It was a pretty tough camera to place because the location we chose for it is on a rock that’s partially submerged half the day by rising tides, not to mention we had to lie on our stomachs in order to fasten it to a branch. But, superstars that we are, placed it just fine, but as soon as we stood up to go, we heard a crack in the brush. Then we heard loud crashing in the bush that seemed to get louder and closer. Krystal promptly HISSED as loud as she could and made for the kayak, while I yelled “LOUD NOISES!” and had my bear mace out faster than a gunslinger in a quick draw. The crashing stopped, and both of us got into the kayaks quickly and headed out to the middle of the bay. Nothing came out to the rocks where we had been standing, but it was a scare all the same.

The more suspenseful moment of my week and likely the most suspenseful day for every staff member here was three days ago, when a girl in my group fell off of a downed tree about three feet, landing laterally on her hip and head on the tidal rocks below. I don’t want to make it more dramatic than it was, but it was pretty dramatic for me while it was happening, particularly because 1) this girl was my responsibility and 2) the girl can’t weigh more than 100 pounds, she’s a twig. And I was expecting that twig to be unconscious when I got to her. She wasn’t, but it’s definitely an experience I’ll never forget, having a tiny girl smashed on the rocks screaming and crying for me to help her. I made the cardinal mistake that would put my lifeguard training to shame, pulling her out of the rocks before checking for a head injury, but it went as smoothly as a situation like that could have gone. We managed to get her back in the kayak, paddled her to the house, she had a first responder there within the hour and in three she was on a ferry to the hospital. Amazingly, she was back at the house by dinner time, albeit with a cracked hip. I know not to feel responsible, and I don’t. It was an accident and everything turned out okay. Still, (following what seems to be the fabulous theme of this trip) it was another brand new experience for me that I’ll likely carry with me to my grave.

And if I never hear the words “Teen Week” back-to-back in the same sentence ever again, I’ll be okay with that.

Smooth sailing, good hunting, watch where you step, and always remember protection ;-)