Junior Lifeguard

My baby did it again! For a 3rd year he has completed the Junior Lifeguard program. This year he switched programs from one state guard to another state guard. He felt the other program offered more in the way of instruction and how to actually be a lifeguard however he felt this program was more fun and he was able to just enjoy himself this year. Which I guess is okay in the grand scheme as he has already been through the program twice and I trust this kid to save my life or that of anyone I know, he is very level headed in an emergency. He's the kind of person you want around when there is trouble. Anyway before I digress too much, in this year's program they offered up extra challenges to those kids that wanted to earn the rank of "Superguard" and the final challenge to earning superguard was completing their version of a beach "Ironman" competition. I am very proud to say that he completed both with flying colors. There were 140 kids in the program, 103 competed in Ironman and Xander finished 33rd overall out of the 103 kids!!! I think that is fantastic and he overcame a few fears to accomplish this goal. One part of the ironman was to swim out about 500 yards in to the ocean around this buoy and back which normally isn't that scary however with all the shark sightings that we've had this year and our proximity to all of them, they actually cancelled one of the challenges to swim out to Seal Rock (hence where seals hang out as well as sharks trying to catch a meal) and replaced it with this buoy swim. Xander almost backed out but decided to persevere and charge forth. He said that was one of the scariest things he has ever done because the water was VERY cold, dark, murky and he felt like shark food out there, especially since with the 2 groups that were swimming, he ended up between them somehow because he was swimming too fast, :-)!
Then after the buoy swim he had to grab a paddle board and paddle out. During this paddle out a couple of frisky dolphins decided to play with the kids and would skim right underneath their paddle boards and then flick their tails at them as they passed over the surface. He was kind of spooked at first to see a dark shadow passing beneath him until he realized it was dolphins. What a cool encounter with some amazing animals, I am sure he will never forget it!

So if you are ever in need of a lifeguard for an event, fly him out and he'll be sure to save you if necessary!