Day Two picked up with the familiar theme from Day One…

Waiting for a bus and it’s driver, I refer to as, “Tony”!

There was a bright side…

It gave me and a few other caffine lovers plenty of time to consume large quantities of our favorite morning beverage…coffee! I located a “supplier” a few blocks down from our hotel and I got the chance to enjoy a beautiful sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean on the walk there!

Not a bad way to begin one’s day!

(Except for the bus part!)

As was the case the day before, the excuses were already flowing! We had all of our gear stacked outside the front of the hotel waiting for the double honk of the horn that would signal the arrival of our transportation to Sea Base, which was about a two hour drive away.

We were ready to go, but we waited!

We waited in the cramped lobby of our hotel along with another troop that was waiting for it’s ride to the airport.

The wait provided one last chance to purchase something in the gift shop.

We had time for a very nice conversation with the manager of the hotel regarding the adventures of spring breakers over the years and how things have changed for the better in Fort Lauderdale.

Fort Lauderdale has gotten tough on under age drinkers and also she was telling us that kids now go where MTV sets up shop.

We were still waiting when suddenly a young man came running through the lobby and out the front door.

Something was up!

Soon the Fort Lauderdale Police had the young man spread out, up against a cadillac, who’s owner, I might add, paid extra for that prime spot the previous night!

The handcuffs went on and the young man was led to a police car.

Seems the lad had just attempted to rob the hotel restaurant and wasn’t able to make it very far!

So that excitement helped pass the time and of course it was a great lesson to our boys about the virtures of a life of crime!

Soon thereafter, we received word that “Tony” was mere moments away!

Are you sure?

Yup!

The bus finally did arrive and following a very quick and orderly loading of the bus we were on our way to Sea Base!

Sea Base is located in Islamorada, in the Florida Keys.

There is one way in and one way out, U.S. Highway 1.

I can noiw understand why the always evacuate the Keys early when there is even a possibilty of a hurricane since it would take a very long time to get eveyone out! The road is two lanes, but a good stretch of it is under construction to make it four lanes. The bridges that connect the Keys are still two lanes, but have been widen.

And they are long! When we arrived in Islamorada, we were still one hundred miles from Key West.

There’s nothing like arriving at a Boy Scout Camp!

The bus pulled in, we were met by our “First Mates”, which were counselors assigned to each of our three crews. While the necessary paperwork was being completed by our assigned adult leader, the rest of us were being herded with our gear to a shaded location (Did I mention it was very hot and humid?) to begin the process of packing for the boat, which we would be leaving on later that evening. The nice thing about this trip was the ease of packing for it! A couple of pair of swim trunks, a few t-shirts, a hat and some sunscreen and that’s all we needed!

Oh, almost forgot, the most essential item for any scout outing…a cribbage board!

Check!

How could we have been expected to survive at sea for five days without our cribbage board?

So we hurriedly packed for the boat! Everything we needed or wanted for three days (we were coming back to Sea Base at mid-week) had to fit in a small duffle sack for the boat. Everything else we brought would be locked up for us in a crew locker.

With the completion of packing, it was time for us to take our gear to the dock and meet our new floating home and the skipper of that home!

Out crew was assigned to the boat, “Island Rose” and the Captain of that boat was a man by the name of Gerard.

You could tell right away that this wasn’t Captain Gerard’s “first rodeo”! He had the arrival of a fresh crew drill down!

He knew exactly what needed to be done and in what order!

Stow the gear here…ice goes here…followed by a week’s worth of food!

He broke us into two groups and began to give a tour of the boat to those of us left behind. Top deck, below deck and everything in between! He showed us where things were located, the galley, storage, bunks and the head!

Oh, the head!

Now there’s some comedic gold in itself!

There was a definite procedure that needed to be followed when “duty” called!

Pump this, turn this, pump some more!

You were hoping you remembered all of this since the last thing you wanted was to sink the ship because you forgot how to run the toilet!

Following our tour, it was time to take the dreaded BSA swim test!

Okay, it’s not so bad, but us older guys often joke about the struggles we face when we are tested!

In order to pass, us “older” scouts needed to swim 75 yards three times using a front stroke of our choosing, followed back another 75 yards using the backstroke and finally a few seconds of floating on our backs.

It was suggested that this be completed in STRONG manner!

Okay, sure, just as long as that “strong manner” lets me use the side stroke from time to time! Which, I have found out through my years of attending BSA camps is permissible! You see, there’s the reason I’ll never do a triathlon, the swimming! Oh, I can swim, but nobody will ever mistake me for Michael Phelps!

Myself and another adult were the last two to go!

Everyone else had safely completed and passed the test.

Oh, the pressure!

I started out strong, but quickly switched to my beloved friend, the side stroke! I knew I was home free when I got to the backstroke. You see, I could probably backstroke for a good mile, I just might not know where I’ll end up!

I passed!

Time for the snorkel test!

Huh?

Yes, we would be doing a lot of snorkel drives on this trip so the counselors needed to make sure we knew what to do and when to do it!

After a few awkward moments with my flippers, it was back into the water and breathing thru a plastic tube!

Following a “deflation” of my lifevest and a dive to the bottom to grab a handful of mud to signal I knew how to go under water, the snorkel test was complete!

We were ready to go!

Almost…

It was time to finish loading the boat and get final instructions from our captain. We completed those tasks and following an evening meal at camp, it was time to head out!

It was also the first time we noticed our captain likes to be different than the other Sea Base captains!

Gerard has been in the charter business for twenty four years and this was his third year at Sea Base, he knew how to operate a sailboat and he liked to “show off” just a little!

“We don’t motor off the dock, we sail off!” he proclaimed!

Okay!

So with the sun setting and a very “green” crew, up went our jib and we were sailing off the dock!

The captain blew some kind of shell to signal our departure!

Off we went and we actually looked like we knew what we were doing, when in reality, we didn’t have a clue!

We weren’t going very far the first night. Just a little way from Sea Base on the gulf side to a point where we would anchor for the night. But soon after we left the channel out of Sea Base, our first “trouble”…

MAN OVERBOARD!

Well, not exactly, more like a seat cushion overboard, but Captain Gerard used it as a practice drill for a “man overboard”!

You should have seen us!

Turn this, pull this, drop this, come about, get the hook ready!

Following a few tense moments, we “rescued” the seat cushion and we were back on our way to our anchor point.

Lights out came about an hour later as we were all looking forward to the next day’s adventure!

Check back on Monday to see what happened when we were the only Sea Base boat to head out on the ocean the next day!

Happy Weekend!