June 20 to June 28, 2018
By Ian Kiyokawa
The Summer of 2018 was the first time that Troop 1978 has ever gone to Florida National High Adventure Sea Base. Everyone had an experience of a lifetime and I wish to continue the fun. In this report, I will name some of the things that went very well for the Troop while at Sea Base and other things that didn’t go so smoothly as we would have liked.
The first topic I will cover is the journey getting to Sea Base and everything that went in to it. I feel like we could have had a couple of more planning meetings leading up to the trip. Also, a more set schedule of the trip before leaving on the boat would have been nice. We kind of hopped around places a lot. If we had a more hour by hour timeline to follow, things may have gone much smoother.
Everyone who went knows we over packed. One thing that all the scouts HATED was bringing and wearing their Class A Uniform. It seemed unnecessary since we all were wearing our Class B Uniform. Also, we had no need for water shoes. The only kind of shoes that were worn were slides/ flip flops and the Neoprene Socks, which helped prevent rashes on feet while snorkeling. We also had no need to bring any clothes really on the boat except for Key West. All we needed clothes-wise were sim shirts, swim trunks and Neoprene Socks. One other thing that just was never really used by anyone was the headlamps we were supposed to bring. Since we had the deck lights on all the way until everyone was in bed, we had no need for them.
One thing that almost all the Scouts were disappointed in was the Key West visit. Not all of us were able to do what we wanted. Something that was not fun was visiting Fort Zachary Taylor. We had no real reason to go there. What most people wanted to do was to split into groups consisting of an adult and four scouts. Some of the groups may have been uneven, but it would have made the experience much more fun. If you think about it, it is easier to make a decision on things to do with a small group of about 5 people instead of 20.
Now onto more positive things. So many things went incredibly right. Things to continue is the snorkeling part of Sea Base. Living on a boat with all your friends was an amazing thing to do. Sea Base does offer other programs of scuba diving but you live at base camp. Both trips sound fun though! I want other people to experience what I did when living on the boat. I loved nearly every aspect of it. The only thing I would say is that the trip felt a little short. Right when we were getting into the swim of things, it was over.
Another thing that went really well was all the places we visited in Fort Lauderdale. It really helped all of us ajust and get comfortable with everything. Staying in the hotel was great and so was visiting the museum. Breaking off into small groups or using the buddy system let everyone enjoy what they wanted to do. But as I said earlier, we should have a tighter schedule to help things run smoothly.