My immediate supervisor, the Waterfront & Boating Director, ‘Dock’, was responsible for teaching swimming, diving and lifesaving lessons to 120 camper girls per week for 7 weeks.
I was responsible for teaching rowing, canoeing and sailing (in Dogie 3-4 man sailboats similar to image above) to the same number of campers.
Dock was an excellent swimmer and lifeguard while I was a strong rower and excellent sailor. We tried to respect each other’s areas of expertise, but being the Waterfront Director, Dock always had the last word on major decisions regarding concerns over weather, health or safety.
Week after week our schedules at the Waterfront were rugged, long and physically demanding. Each group of 5 girls had 1 Camp Counselor responsible for their immediate care – so we had assistance during the waterfront lessons, but there were times when ‘overload’ was definitely a part of our job description.
One letter I wrote to my parents during the summer of ’68 has outlasted the test of time and remains in my possession to this day, some 45 years after it was written. In this letter to Mom and Dad, I relate to them a frightening sailing experience with the girls that affirms my personal belief in God’s tender care and abundant mercy in protecting his little ones.
The letter reads as follows:
"Dear Folks, When I tell you everything that has happened this week you just won’t believe it. Let me start with Wednesday afternoon. We were supposed to take the girls out in the sailboats for the first time. Dock, the boating director, and I were the only ones who could run the boats so we were each taking two passengers out at a time in two separate ‘Dogie’ sailboats.
"I was surprised we went out at all because the wind was just over 10 knots (about 12 miles/hr) from behind the boat dock. There were small white caps but I was told to take the girls out anyway.
"On my 5th trip out, the wind was up and I had a camper and one counselor who had never been in a sailboat before. The wind was way too high and we had been given a Beetle sail as replacement for a Dogie sailboat…seemed like too many red flags going up, don’t you think?
"In addition to all this, the latch on our boom was broken so it wasn’t connected at all to the mast. Everything was wrong but our boating director gave me orders to go - and even though she was finished sailing for the day, she was determined for me to take this last group out. More red flags!
"Well, Dad, the inevitable happened and we were blown into the sand bogs...I knew we would need to take down the sails and paddle out. Enlisting the help of the counselor in the boat, I tried this several times, but each time - before we could get the sails up properly, we would drift back into the bog.
"Before long, my passengers (especially the counselor) were so frightened that they were frozen with fear on the bottom of the boat… so I asked them to sing with me - sing and sing and sing – every song that I had ever heard or learned from Girl Scouts, Young Women’s Camp or even Cub Scout Day Camp.
"When I finally got out of the bog and managed to get the sails up, I was heading straight for the middle of the lake going at a close reach (Mom, this is the point of sailing when the wind blows forward of the beam) and I thought when I got far enough from shore I would come about (change course) and try to head for the boat dock.
"Guess what happened then! Our sail that didn’t fit jerked the boom off from the mast so I had no control over the boom at all. Girls were singing at full voice as the boom swung back and forth - scaring me to death and threatening me with tipping over. I became sick to my stomach and much too tired from singing and pulling ropes to struggle much longer.
"At that precise moment, we just happened to be singing a phrase from an old cowboy song ‘…drifting along with the tumbling tumble weeds…’ and the inspired thought came into my head to follow the lyrics of the song and just let the boat drift for a while.
"Rounding a small island, a residential property appeared from out of nowhere and I let the boat drift to the private dock where we tied on and waited for help.
"As we’re singing about ’… open roads and skies of blue…’, the counselor in my boat motioned for me to look at a set of motor boat keys she was dangling from her fingers. She had just remembered that this whole time, she was holding on to the motor boat keys from back at Camp Timberlake, so no one back at the lodge was going to be able to bring the motor boat out to look for us.
"We just kept singing and after a few more songs help finally came and towed us back to camp. Later that evening, Sandi, the Camp Director, talked to me and assured me it wasn’t my fault. Dock was being let go and Sandi offered me the position of Waterfront & Boating Director.
"Sandi, and all the parents were very pleased that I had kept the girls singing the whole time. In fact, they said once they started the search party, we could be heard singing all the way across the lake up to the camp offices. The sound of our singing was how they knew where to locate us for the rescue!"
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