This Coastal Connection is sponsored by Baths by Spicer Bros.
FRANKFORD, Del. -Â From cooking breakfast over a campfire to paddleboarding, identifying plants and learning the basics of surf fishing, women gathered at Camp Barnes in Frankford for a weekend focused on building outdoor skills and connections.
The Becoming an Outdoors-Woman program, which dates back to 1991, gives women hands-on opportunities to learn a variety of outdoor activities.
This year, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control brought the multi-day program to Camp Barnes, a longtime youth camp that has operated since the 1940s.
Participants took part in activities ranging from paddleboarding on Miller Creek to learning about plant species they may encounter while camping. They also received an introduction to waterfowl hunting and tried their hand at surf fishing.
For Stacey Allmond, the program has become a family tradition. This was her third year participating alongside her mother-in-law and sister-in-law.
"It's a very nice family event," Allmond says. "I come with my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law. So it's kind of a tradition we've started."
Allmond said the experience is about more than simply spending time outdoors. She said the program gives participants an opportunity to develop skills they might not otherwise make time to learn.
"It's not just like going on a vacation," Allmond says. "It's like learning and developing and also getting to be outside and do things that maybe we would do on our own, but we wouldn't prioritize necessarily without being here in this environment."
However, the weather did not always cooperate.
"We left Camp Barnes, got in a van and went out to the Fenwick Island Life Saving Station where it was raining and blowing about 15 or 20," participant Suzy Moore says. "We tried surf fishing. Nobody caught anything, but I better understand how to surf fish now."
Moore said she has been camping throughout her life but continues to find new things to learn. She said one of the biggest benefits of the program is learning alongside other participants.
"Part of the fun of it is being side by side with somebody who you just became friends with, and seeing them learn something," Moore says. "If you, maybe you don't know exactly how to tie the clinch knot, somebody will step up and show. Which is just, it makes it very communal."
For participants, the weekend was less about mastering every outdoor activity and more about gaining the confidence and knowledge to try something new.
