Sabattis Log 14 July 2004

Morning started with a very loud bird on Goosneck island around 0530. We left for the island around 1730 the night before with a leisurely 1.75 mile paddle. The weather held for the duration of the trip. Tom, a HS senior, guided our trek to the island with all the boys. Joe joined us after returning from a business trip to FL. Since he was not certified at the waterfront yet, he rode out on the pontoon boat.

We all pitched our provided trail tents in designated sites adorned with dead pine needles thus softening som e of the blow of the hard ground. The island jets out to the west with a thick covering of coniferous vegetation leading to a cliff preceded by a fire square with logs and a fire pit. This would serve as an area for a brief amount of fellowship until the bugs carried us to our tents for the evening. If the weather and bugs were more favorable, sleeping in the fire square would've have been most attractive. Three of our boys were not afforded the luxury of nylon and mesh tents; they were working on their Wilderness Survival merit badge. This badge requires the boy to construct a shelter from what he can find in the woods and sleep in it overnight. The boys were successful with this task despite a mild amount of dehydration and plethora of bug bites. I was mighty proud of the boys myself as I remember doing this task on a wet November afternoon/night. Nick's shelter collapsed so I don't think it counts. Nonetheless, he and the other boys are very interested in returning to the woods to repeat the exercise for improvement's sake. Our less adventurous boys were not successful with fire building. Mental note taken for future outings! After a brief snack the fire was extinguished and we all went to our tents around 2100.

Because we didn't have water filtration with us, we were all limited with our fluids. The water was converted to bug juice in an old plastic container that you simply didn't look at when filling your Nalgene.

The canoe ride back was peaceful and surely better than the usual commute that I do nearly every day on the NYS Thruway from Baldwinsville to Rochester. The sky began to break as Drew and I paddled into the trek center that morning. He seems quite comfortable in a canoe and did very well with the paddling. I felt refreshed and ready for a new day despite the large amount of tossing and turning the night before from sleeping on a Thermarest-style pad the night before