Madi's CIMI Report - Finally!

As promised - Madi has created her own blog post to tell you about her adventures at CIMI (Catalina Island Marine Institute) . . .

you are probably wondering what's on my face. every time we go kayaking we get war paint on our faces.

Cimi is a great experience that i have loved over the last 3 years. It is a wonderful way to gain self confidence, strength, and new friends. cimi has helped me a lot with friendship. another class came with us this year. i got to be good friends with the teacher ms. erica and a girl named jasmine. This was my last year to go to Cimi. Although I will miss it, I will never forget what wonderful times Cimi brings. Here are some of my best memories i have had: one night at Cimi i did a night snorkel, this is a great accomplishment for me because i am afraid of the dark, and the ocean. I was really afraid, but i did it! We saw lots of cool things like a giant crab, a lobster, fish, stingrays, and batrays. Every time we go to Catalina we go through a secret maze. It is very hard to explain what it is made of but it is very fun. the whole maze you have to crawl you run into walls, you go down slides, and you crawl up stairs. I really should not be telling anybody about this because i took a a special oath to keep this a secret.

this year my counselors names were Andrew and Kendall. the counselors at cimi are the coolest. they are funny, cool, brave, and fun.

here is me and andrew (my counselor). i am touching a lobster.
here i am sleeping on the boat ride home with my friend savannah
this is me and ms. erica at the beach we kayaked to.

this is right before we went snorkeling. if you look closely i am the one on the front row by the lady holding the girl.

Another thing we do every year is an all day kayak. we kayak out to another beach about 30 minutes away. when we are doing this we do games like standing in your kayaks, doing races (by the way me and my partner won the race), singing songs, and eating kelp. once we have gotten to the beach we eat lunch, play games, tan, relax, snorkel, and play on boogie boards. but one thing thats my favorite to do on this beach is chumming for eels. Our counselors actually pick up the wild eels. other times we catch them on strings. they are so fascinating because they tie their self up in knots and almost choke their selfs.

i got to touch this eel. it was very slimy. my counselor kept trying to pick it up and it almost bit him.



well goodbye cimi i sure will miss you. i know that next year katie will have a great time like i did. there is lots more i could tell you but i could probably not fit it into one blog post. thanks for reading about my trip. if you have any questions ask on the comments and i will answer them.

- madi