Camping on Bear Island

This past Friday, 32 Scouts and Scout Leaders from Troop 42 boarded the Troop Bus and headed for the Coast.

We arrived in Cedar Point, NC at around midnight and started to set up camp. After about an hour we had everything set up and it was time to get some sleep because we needed to get up at 7:00 am in order to meet our planned schedule for Saturday.

Well 7:00 AM rolled around pretty early, but everyone got up to start the day. The first order of business was to make breakfast.

The Cobra patrol, with James acting as head cook for the trip, was making scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes. Everyone ate well with a busy day ahead of them.


















After the breakfast was cleaned up we boarded the bus for the short trip to Hammocks Beach State Park. Once we got there we broke up into two groups. The 20 individuals who would kayak the 2 ½ miles to the island and the 12 of us who would take the food and supplies on the ferry to the island.

Those of us who rode the ferry got to the island first. Then we had about a half mile hike across the island to the beach. Bear Island is very pretty and isolated. It is owned by the park service and no one lives there. It’s original name was “BARE” Island, but it was arbitrarily changed years ago by a map maker to Bear Island.

While the scouts played on the beach and in the surf, another leader and I created a mile long orienteering course for the scouts to practice their compass skills. It took the boys about one hour to complete the course, but they had a lot of fun doing it.

Everyone had a picnic lunch at the beach and enjoyed the mild overcast day, which was warm, but not too hot.

At about 3:00 pm it was time to head back, but several of the boys who originally kayaked wanted to trade for seats on the ferry. James stepped up and volunteered to kayak back and was able to stay up with the lead group for the whole trip back!


















We drove back to our campsite and cooked a big meal for dinner. James’ Patrol made Spaghetti with meat sauce and everyone had plenty to eat.

That night, everyone was tired and had no problem sleeping. The next morning we got up, at breakfast and then started to break down the campsite and pack up. After all of the gear was packed, we held a short outdoor church service.

Finally, we boarded the bus for our return trip home. The weather cooperated for the entire trip and we all had a great weekend.