Don't miss the boat, and Don' t forget to get off- the Parable of the 13

So about a month ago I experienced a very unique opportunity that I promised I would blog about. My ward every year goes up to Shaw Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington state. There is a group of nuns up there in their retirement years and later that run like 400 achers of farm land. its big work, but lots of fun to go help out. This year was my first trip. I woke up at 3 am on a Saturday, and met my friend Karen to drive to the church. we had to leave  the church no later than 4 am,  or we would miss the ferry, and miss our day on this island.  
 Amazingly 32ish YSA, leaders, and recently married former YSA were up and this ridiculous hour to go do some hard work on a pretty island, and to spend a lot of time in cars and on ferries.  First we drove in our caravan of cars to the Edmonds-Kingson ferry, its a half hour ride, everyone made the boat, and most people went to sleep. Not my car, I was in the party car. We listened to music and danced, and drove off other passengers sitting in our area. ha ha, sorry to the lone man who made a five second attempt to sleep on our end. 
 We drove off the ferry, and miracle of miracles we all made it to our next ferry run- an hour and a half a way ( think- little foggy on time details here) despite loosing time as we had to stop to get gas for someone who didn't plan on driving (we still love you  don't worry ha ha). so we made the Anacortes- San Juan ferry no problem, broken into three groups of ten on a ten passenger ticket, and a few single ticket holders.  At this point as the ferry left the dock, half of our group was sitting up stairs, and half downstairs.  no longer in our car loads, as they parked and left most the cars on the other side.  There was food down stairs, and we had like an hour and a half on the boat, so we all just relaxed, ate breakfast, slept and failed to worry about anything.  
 As a regular ferry commuter, I failed to worry the most. There was a nagging thought in the back of my head saying, really, the group should probably sit together, but I ignored it and figured I would know how to get off when the time was right and could make sure everyone else did too. So we had a long stop at  Orcas Island - about a half hour of just sitting there. Suddenly the boat started to move. we started to get ready to "Disembark the Vessel" and we waited for an announcement and instructions on what to do. I never heard anything. Some people upstairs and down also didn't hear any announcement. Other people heard we were arriving, but no further instruction, and being unfamiliar with ferry travel didn't know what to do. Most of the group that was down stairs barley made it off at all. And when they did get off, they noticed that about half the  group was missing. 
I was with that half. I tryed to get everyone headed down stairs to get off, and as I did, the boat started to pull away from Shaw Island. my instincts told me to find a ferry worker as quickly as possible. I did so. I explained that there were 13 of us, that were to get off, and had got separated from our group. She talked to the Captain who determined we had to keep schedule and couldn't go back.  We could however stay on the ferry and get off at Shaw Island in three hours, giving us only three hours of service time. We knew the group was going to tease us mercilessly for this when we got there. Numerous calls went out to the Bishop and those on land, letting them know the status. The ferry workers asked us to stay together, sit down stairs where they said. so we did so. 

some of the 13 on the second round of ferry

It was long. Really long. we had already spent two hours on the ferry, then added three more. We tried to sleep. We ate a lot, but really we just wanted off the boat and to go work. We talked about some interesting subjects - Robotics and brains, things like that. i learned a lot. Mainly some people who were struggling with unity found a moment to get to know each other, and love each other more. it was three hours of bonding time. 

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Hard work, loads of fun

 I'm a llama!! ha ha

 When we did get off the boat, we were teased mercilessly as expected. especially by the Mother Superior- not as expected. but in the end those that had been there working all day still loved and accepted us, and let us eat lunch with them even though we hadn't worked as long as them. and guess what, because we were tired of sitting and wanted to work so bad, when we got there we did six hours of work in three, and really gave our all. 

  In the end, we all had a lot of fun, and enjoyed serving others. I didn't want to ride ferries again for a while though. we had two hours more of them to get home, and Monday I started my regular two hours of ferry each work day. (that has changed thankfully). but there were lots of fun things too- Ice cream, and llamas. If you ever get the chance, go to Shaw Island, and help the Nuns, its a blast. 

                                            friends in the end- roomies forever!!!