S.A.L.T.S!!!

Ahoy, me Hearties!!

Well we departed to Victoria early last Monday morning and boarded our new beautiful house on the sea-the "Pacific Grace". Having done no prior sailing before SALTS (Sailing and Life Training Society), I was extremely excited to have a week where I could try out the sailors life and experience everything that goes along with it. We were all divided into three separate watches: Forward, Port, and Starboard watch. I was in Forward watch-aka-team: "Flippin' Rad," and we had the pleasure of having Antony Dickinson as our watch leader.

His stories and the discussions our group had were some of the highlights of my week. It was neat to hear about the amazing places he's been and the way God has been using him and working in his life. 

The weather throughout the week started off great. The wind was excellent on Monday, but then seemed to die out as the week went on. It got a little cloudy and rainy mid-week, and some harsh fog on Friday that later turned into sunshine and blue skies before we docked back in Victoria. During the day, we would have short sailing lessons and the three watches would rotate shifts. I got to do everything from manning the helm to climbing the fore mast. Using the head was a whole other experience...haha I even got to climb out into the whiskers at the bow of the boat. It was a thrilling experience to be raised out over the water and just being able to relax and take in the beauty of God's creation, knowing that He is in complete control of the winds and the waters.

Throughout the week we were chosen to do an hour of night watch duty and were randomly partnered up with members from our watch. Both of mine were during mid-morning from 2-3am. I had sweet partners for both of my night watches and it was nice getting some time to get to know them both better. Funny enough, due to the legal way of spelling my name "Jamie," I was partnered up in the only co-ed night watch the first night:)

Every night after sunset the crew would teach us a game before songs and mug up. I don't think I've ever laughed so much in five consecutive days as i did on that boat. The gam

es just kept getting better every night we were there. After the songs each night, Jim Bad (our Kaleo leader), would challenge us with different questions. One night we had to think up different names for each other, ones that we saw would challenge that person and that they would later mature into. It was super neat to see how some people had the same idea for certain names. Or how they were related and connected in their meanings. We had some sweet worship and song times in the evenings on the boat as well. We had a variety of instruments including guitars, a violin, a kazoo, and even the Skipper whipped out his penny whistle every now and then. Before we left for the trip I was starting to get a pretty bad cold. So i packed tons of meds to keep my nose-runnings to a min. Once aboard the Grace though, my cold never got any worse, and actually went completely away, so no meds were needed. It was such an answer to prayer!

All in all, my week of sailing was wicked awesome. So many memories were made and our Kaleo group just keeps getting tighter and tighter. This trip will always remain a highlight when I think back on this year. Some things that I would love prayer for right now are for healing for my right ankle-it's still recovering from when I rolled it in volleyball a couple weeks ago,-climbing the ratlines to the top of the fore mast didn't help in the healing process whatsoever (even though the view from up there was SO worth it!!). Also, that i would be well rested as I have had numerous late nights and busy days (and one all nighter:S) and I'm starting to feel the effects. I will be updating again in the next day or two about the start of classes this week and what's coming up next week as well.

Thanks for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers!