When my daughter was 11, she begged to go to "sleep away" camp. We're city dwellers, so we looked for a camp where she could "experience the great outdoors" AND learn something besides how to make a macramé bracelet.

My niece was once stuck on a boat with a date who was too inebriated to get them back to shore. She wasn't a sailor and they were drifting out to sea under the Golden Gate Bridge. Thanks to the Coast Guard, they got towed back to shore.

It would be good for our daughter to learn to sail.

We found a camp two states away, on Orcas Island, Washington. When the day came we kissed her goodbye at the ferry and returned home, anxiously awaiting her letters.

Wow, did we get letters! She was miserable. She missed us. Her tent-mate was mean. There were bugs the size of houses. They had to jump into the freezing Puget Sound for a swim test. One letter had pock marks, carefully circled and labeled "tears."

Then the letters stopped.

I was so worried I called and asked for her. A cheery little voice came to the phone.  "Sorry about not writing, mom. Kind of busy. We've been practicing our skit for after dinner, then we'll go watch the sunset while Brandon, a REALLY cute counselor, plays guitar, and yesterday three Orcas came up right near our boat. Oops, dinner bell. Gotta run. Love you. Promise I'll write tomorrow."

She couldn't wait to return every summer - as a camper and eventually a counselor. After college, she quit a consulting job most people would "give their eye teeth for" to work at camp one last time, then go to grad school in Paris.

My daughter is 27 now. Camp had a lot to do with making her what she is today. Independent. Hard working. Self confident. She has a great sense of adventure, loves the outdoors and makes friends and works with people better than anyone I know.

Oh, and she knows her way around a sailboat, too!