Day Six and Seven Wrap-up Troop 714 at Seabase

Here are a couple of underwater pictures just to wet your appetite! Some of the staff left today so there are as many people using the wi-fi.

We did our last dive this morning after having a fantastic night dive. On the night divesSome saw a turtle 4 foot in diameter, some saw nurse sharks, some saw eels swimming freely, saw many parrotfish.

Day Six Troop 714 at Seabase

We just finished our two dives for the lighted portion of the day. Tonight we do a night dive.

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Day Five Troop 714 at Seabase

S is for Sunday and for SCUBA! Sunday started out a beautiful day and stayed that way. The water was calm. We headed out shortly after 10 AM to two dive sites called Pleasure and Davis. Both of these sites had ledge reefs. Coral on top a rocky edge that curls under to a sandy bottom. These two reefs were very easy to dive. You go out looking at the ledge and what is undeneath it on the way back you cover the top side of the ledge. Some people saw an eagle ray and moray eels. Visibility was very good at 50 feet plus.

I did not mention that after each of our two-a-day dives we go to a shallow reef to eat lunch and snorkel or whatever the boys want to do.

Tomorrow three dives, two daytime dives and one night time dive.

As always they have plenty of food. No one is starving!!

Having difficulty loading pictures with slow wireless and slow internet.

Day Four Troop 714 at Seabase

Saturday was a no dive day because it was our divemasters' day off. On this day they load you up in a bus and drive you to Key West. On the way we stopped at the other National Boy Scot Camp called Britton Environmental Auquatic Center. Here I understand they do some fishing and environmental "stuff". I did not pay attention. The facilities here were very nice. They fed us lunch at this camp. The galley crew treated us very well!
On to Key West! At Key West, Debbie or bus driver, dropped us at Mallory Square. This was a bricked area on the waterfront. Debbie was very stern with us making sure that we understood that we need to be back where she dropped us off at 8:25 PM or you get left behind. Tom, Bill, Don and I went to the southern part of Key West to see two very important monuments. One was the southern most point in the continental U.S.. The second monument was the end of US highway 1 that displayed a mile zero (0) marker. After browsing all, well some of the shops, we all argued, I mean discussed rationally where we wanted to eat. Really this was avery easy process. One mention of the Hard Rock Cafe and everyone fell in line. That took awhile so it was about time to head back when we finished eating. At night entertainers come out to perform at Mallory Square. There were artist to draw you as a cartoon in six minutes, there were live statues that performed when you put money in their bucket, ther were fire jugglers and fire eaters and exscape artists. Debbie warned us not to get picked as a performers assistant or else you would get left behind (not really).

Day Three Troop 714 at Seabase

Friday we starting getting into the routine, 7:45 AM flag ceremony, breakfast at 8 AM free time until 9 AM. At 9 AM we meet in the pool area where all of the tanks and all of our gear is stowed. Friday was a two dive day so we had to check two tanks for pressure and prepare one of the two for diving. Both of the areas that we dove were patch reefs. The first one was Arnon and the second was Hamm.
Arnon I kind of missed because Kevin and I were off the reef. Captain did not like that but Kevin is an excellent navigator and got us back safely. Kevin and I did see a smaller barracuda. We also saw many brain coral.
Hamm reef is also a patch reef. This time Jenny and I dove as partners. We hit the reef with ease and swam all over this patch reef. Here we saw anurse shark anout 4 and a half feet long. Others saw eels and French Anglefish.
Sorry, no pictures due to technical difficulties and camera incompatability.

Day Two 714 at Seabase

Today we got up at 7:30 for a 7:45 flag assembly. After breakfast we meet in the pool area so that our divemaster could check us out. Megan and Sharon put us through our paces. Removing mask under water and replace, remove BCD and weight belt and replace and a whole bunch of other things that we did when we got our certification.

After that it was a quick lunch and then off for our first dive. We went to a spot called Alligator Reef. It was a great dive unfortunately there were no cameras allowed the first dive. We saw many fish and various sealife. Some saw a moray eel, very cool! This was ledge reef but was not very deep, 25 feet.

Our group has 19 people and there was another group of 6 aboard the BSA Tarpon with captain Steve.

Day one at Seabase

Well, we all got here in one piece. We left Seattle Tuesday evening. The first group left at 10:15 PM the second group left at 11:45 PM. Yes, the redeye. We arrived in Miami at approximately 10:30 AM local time. A short time later the bus picked us up and we were on our way to Seabase.

We arrived at Seabase sortly before 2 PM. Signed in and got our orientation of the camp and what was expected of us. It is partly cloudy but very warm. The water tempature for our BSA swim test was measured at 88 degrees.

After the swim test we received our gear that we keep for the rest of the week. We went to the pool area and got our BCDs ready for tomorrow. We will jump in the pool and then take a dive in the afternoon.

Divemaster Sharon and Scoutmaster Tom

This is a test.