Camp Hahobas 2013

Camp Hahobas 2013

unloading awesome trailer

Tommy working on his metal working merit badge

Joe and Dan taking swimming lessons

Scoutmaster Belly Flop Contest

Beautiful Hood Canal View

Camp Hahobas Camp Fire Bowl

Even after a week, they are all still happy!

Camp Hahobas

    Every year, our Boy Scout troop travels to a BSA summer camp and stays there for a week.  This year, due to popular vote, we decided to go to Camp Hahobas.  Camp Hahobas (established 1933) , which is our council's camp (Pacific Harbors), is located near the Hood Canal in between a bunch of little lakes.  Robbins Lake and Aldrich lake are the only ones that come to mind.  The dining hall overlooks Robbins Lake.  Also, the waterfront is on Robbins Lake.  The camp as a whole is supposed to be huge, however, unless you went exploring, you only got to see less than half the camp.

    We arrived on a Sunday in the hot afternoon and were guided to our campsite by our troop guides assigned to us.  Our campsite was called Kallakala ( Kuhlak-ala ).  We set up the dining fly first thing then tried to set up our tents before our tour through the camp started.  We almost succeeded in our quest, but were doomed to fail as our troop guides were just itching to show us the camp (haha).  After the tour of most of the important stuff, we were shipped to the waterfront on Robbins Lake to take our swimchecks and earn our buddy-tags!  I, in what has to be the peak of my psychic sense, decided to take the BSA swim test at the YMCA before camp and then hand them a sheet of paper acknowledging my awesomeness as signed by an old lifeguard.  So all I had to do was float in the water for 10 seconds (MUAHAHAHA!).

    After not everyone did the swimchecks (TOMMY!), we proceeded back to finished our long-awaited quest of setting up our tents.
    The day before we arrived at camp, an old man related to a diabetic gave us some epic canvas tents!  Two regular canvas framed tents and a three-sided tent he called a baker's tent.  I immediately called dibs on the odd-one-out ( ... ).  To some people's dismay, some parts had to be made before they could be setup correctly.  So we had to make those poles.
    Once we set up our tents, everyone then continued with the learning of how to pronounce our campsite name (Kuhlak-ala).  Then, dinner time!  Actually, it was time for the flags to be lowered at the flag-field... but after that, dinner!

    The next morning is usually best described as madness.  Nobody knows how to get to his merit badge classes, and the habit of staying up to late had just begun.

    During the week, I took three merit badge classes: Archery, Orienteering, and Pioneering. (In that order).  You could have up to four classes during the week plus one during free time (why would you do that?), but Robotics and Chess were full (frown face).

    At the end of the week, I had three more merit badges than I had before... YAY!

Thou hast reacheth the endeth ofeth myeth retellingeth of Camp Hahobath
B E N J A M I N -