Adventure

Jul

2024

Hurricane Island Outward Bound Ocean Kayaking

I’ve been a fan of outdoor adventures my whole life but I’ve never experienced one like this. My friends and I had the opportunity to go to a sea kayaking course organized by the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School in Maine at the beginning of summer 2024. Although it was physically and mentally challenging, the experience was a memorable one.

When we first arrived they collected all of our phones in electronics in a tiny plastic bag to make sure we enjoy the natural surroundings and environment. I really believe this helped a lot with mental cleansing and my sleep schedule after being away from blue light consistently.

There were a total of 11 people on this trip including 3 instructors and 8 students. We used three double kayaks and five single kayaks to fit our food and water supply for the entire week. This expedition was supposed to consist of paddling to a total of four islands and ending back at the base where we started.

The first few days were pretty easy since we only had to paddle 1 mile, but on the fourth day we had to paddle ten miles because we needed to drop off the instructors at the hospital, which meant we had to go back to a previous spot we were staying at, so we had to account for yesterday’s and today’s journey.

One morning we saw a feeding whale really close to shore. Another day we paddled through seal territory. There were also jellyfishes.

That day we made it to Burnt Island which was the island we would be conducting our SOLO on. The SOLO is a dedicated 8 hours of time for each student to reflect and meditate over the past few days and for the upcoming summer by having no social interaction. I thought it was fine. I slept the entire day.

After SOLO, the next day was our longest stretch of water yet with 12 miles ahead of us.

Honestly, I don’t think I would’ve made it out well if it weren’t for the people that experienced this with me. The countless hours of singing songs while paddling in the vast sea, the motivational speeches given when others couldn’t continue, and sharing stories at dinner time. These were the things that kept us going. I am so glad I was able to be part of this amazing team.

Hurricane Island Sea Kayaking — Traveling between islands on kayaks and carrying our whole week’s supplies

Hurricane Island Sunset — Beautiful sunset as a reward for hardwork at the end of the day, but the day is not over yet, we will have to build camp and cook to replenish our energy

Nov

2021

Be Prepared

by Vera Brosgol

Find Be Prepared at your local library

Recently, I just finished an amazing graphic novel named Be Prepared by Vera Brosgol. It’s a slightly modified memoir from the author’s childhood. She came from Russia to America when she was five, and longed to fit in. Every summer, her American friends would go to a camp while she was stuck at home with her brother and baby sister, but this year was going to be different. Vera was going to go to a camp as well. A Russian camp. A place where she thought she would be accepted.

She arrived there in July, ready to have fun, but she was unaware of how disappointed she would be in the next coming days. She met her cabin mates, both named Sasha, and both 4 years older than she. No one wanted to be her friend, and the outhouse smelled terrible. Everyone treated her like an outcast, until she started to gift her drawings to everyone. They instantly wanted to be friends with her.

But, buying friends wasn’t the right way to do it. That’s why, when Vera took some of Sasha’s skittles, thinking her new friend wouldn’t mind, she got the whole cabin in trouble, and now no one wanted to play with her. But later in the book, Vera found a better friend. Someone who loved drawing and nature as much as she.

This book reminded me heavily of an outdoor camp I went to this past summer. I went there with my friend from home, so I did not need to worry about losing any, and I definitely gained some more new friends. I had a lot of fun there, and all the counselors were very nice.

I thought that the author’s palette for this book was intriguing.The green really roughed out the nature in the camp, which I thought was unique. The ink also looked cool with the green and shades of grey. It just focused on the green parts in the scene a bit more.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and I think that it is fit for children ages 5 to 14.

Oct

2021

Chronicles of Narnia – The Magician’s Nephew

by C. S. Lewis

Reviewed by Eve

Chronicles of Narnia first book the Magician's Nephew book cover

Find The Magician’s Nephew at your local library

In the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, Digory, a 12 year old boy and Polly, a 12 year old girl, are sent out of our world into another called Charn. Charn didn’t have a single living creature, until they accidentally woke up the evil queen. It was she who spoke the magical word that killed every single living thing in this world. She orders the children to bring her to their world so she can rule it.

When they get back, the queen’s magical powers don’t work anymore, so she causes a commotion which gets the governor involved. Digory and Polly try to take the queen back into Charn but instead take her into Narnia. Narinia is a world run by a lion, named Aslan, and its citizens are all animals. The queen is now a witch, and she runs off to the westland. Digory and Polly return to their world to never bother in this mess ever again.

I liked how Lewis incorporated our normal world into this story, so that the odds of going into other worlds are not impossible. Lewis wrote this book in the 1950s but this book is set in London, in the late 1800s which I thought was a strange choice. After some thought, I realized it all tied together in the series because the second book is set when Digory is an old man, in the 1940s. All the characters in the books were much more proper, and they used words such as jolly. Lewis’s writing allows our minds to extend farther into the imaginary, making it more exciting and fun to read.

I thought Narnia was breath-taking because it seemed so magical. There are talking animals, never-ending turkey delight, and you can plant anything in the soil there and it will turn into a tree that breeds what you planted. I really like the trees because it’s kind of like a source of never ending food. If I got to go there, I would bring some sushi along with me, plant it and eat it.

Overall, I thought this was a very interesting and magical book. The reading level is just right for kids ages 9 to 13, but you can start reading it when you are as old as 50, because of magic that comes from inside the books.

Jul

2021

Life of Pi

by Yann Martel

Life of Pi is about a boy names Piscine Molitor Patel, who became stranded in a lifeboat with three dead animals and a tiger named Richard Parker. His family were planning on moving to Canada on a cargo ship put sadly, the ship sank, killing his parents and brother. The crew threw him off the ship to the lifeboat before being swept into the ocean themselves. On the boat Pi saw a zebra with a broken leg, an orangutan, and a hyena. The hyena killed the zebra and orangutan but then the tiger jumped out and killed the hyena. Pi learned to fish and tame Richard Parker while drifting for seven months.

I liked how quickly Pi adapted to life on a lifeboat with Richard Parker. He cared for Richard by hunting and feeding the tiger. Pi was a strict vegetarian before the ship wreck but now he eats raw fish and meerkats. This is very brave of him. Since he could’ve died, he knew he would have to eat meat to survive.

I also liked Pi’s comparison of animal world and humanity. Near the end of the book, people from the Japanese company who owned the ship came to ask Pi questions about his journey. They thought his story was unrealistic because it’s impossible for anyone to survive at sea for that long. So, Pi retold the story but replacing the animals with people. Pi outsmarted their skepticism and asked which story feels more interesting and natural. They replied the one with the animals and that’s how the story made it to the press.

One thing I didn’t like about the book is the excessive detail about gory or gruesome events. It’s violent and I felt that the author was magnifying the violence with sentences like “his blood oozed out all over me and Richard Parker”, and many vivid descriptions of killing. The cannibalism told in the people-version of the story is especially disturbing.

Adventure

Hurricane Island Outward Bound Ocean Kayaking