Seabase Journal - David Heath, Troop 1424, June 12-19, 2011
2012-05-19 13:36:46 -0500

Seabase Journal

Scuba Adventure

6.12.2011 – 6.19.2011

Troop 1424


Day 1			6.12.11			23:11

Today was our first day here at Sea Base. We traveled super far, which was basically 2 hours by plane and 2.5 hours by van. I woke up at like 03:50 so that I’d be at the airport on time. Upon arriving at Sea Base, we discovered that Florida is pretty much just as hot as Texas, but with more sunburn. I’m in Crew B, and in Divemaster is Anthony. He and Scott are in charge of the Troop. We got all of our gear and such today, and I’ll probably end up buying a lot more stuff, but it’s necessary so whatever. Tomorrow will be our first dive, but we’ve got to go through tons of checks and skills tests and bla bla bla before we could go out. But after that it’ll totally me smooth diving! My stomach was a little upset today, probably from the fast food we had for lunch, but I’m pretty much over that by now. For the most part, everything is going awesome, I’m taking tons of pictures and I can’t wait for the rest of the week! 
P.S. The South beat the North in a slightly less deadly and impactful way tonight – beach volleyball = )

Day 2			6.13.11			21:47

Today, we had our first dive! We went to Alligator Reef, and it was definitely awesome! But ya basically we woke up around 7 for flags at 7:45 and breakfast at 8. We went through a lot of skills review this morning, basically like at Philmont, but in the water. So that was pretty much really boring, but at the end of it we loaded up the boat, had lunch, and then prepared to leave! At around 13:15 we shoved off. It was about a 30 minute boat ride to get there, and it was very comfortable. The dive site was really awesome. There were literally thousands of fish down there and we saw some really cool ones. Hopefully when I bring the camera tomorrow I can get some really nice pictures of the fish and the coral and plant life down there, but it’s pretty amazing. Alligator Reef was a ‘ledge reef,’ which had us going down with the reef on our left and the sand on the right. We were told that that dive site was largely considered to be one of the most diverse in the world! We had a small scuba class after dinner, and then we were free to go. I got to call Emily tonight, which was very nice!

Day 3			6.14.11		22:47

Today was by far the best day of the trip. I mean it was seriously tons better than yesterday for so many reasons! We were in like super beast running, lifting, and more running mode. We finally managed to shove off around 9:30 and we headed toward Ham. It was a patch reef which was basically just a big circle. We saw a moray eel and two lion fish like right next to each other, which was awesome but kind of scary. After about 45 minutes we surfaced and went a few hundred yards to the next dive spot. That time I was down for about 52 minutes and I could’ve going longer if it wasn’t for the time limit. On this one we saw a dead shark! After we were all aboard we had lunch for a while. We also eventually made our way to a cool little snorkeling spot. Mr. Farley and I were snorkel buddies. We were swimming around for quite a bit until we finally saw a barracuda! We saw him two more times, and it was pretty freaky. We also saw a couple of huge parrot fish. Overall, today was a totally awesome day! Also, I miss Emily!

Day 4			6.15.11			23:25

Today was the longest day of my life! Not really, but it was pretty incredible. We got up super early to clean, since it was our day, and we seriously could not keep that bano clean! We had breakfast and hustled over to the boat after. Our troop was so speedy in getting ready today that not only did we have all of our stuff on the boat before they ever started, but we also were ready too early for the sandwich people…win! Haha that like never happens for our troop so it was a great moment. The first dive was at Long Key Reef, which was pretty lame. It was basically a super confusing ledge reef with few fish. The second dive was at the Pillars of Atlantis, called so for commercial reasons. The current was super strong so it made the whole thing fairly unpleasant. There was a ton of soft coral though, and the fish were pretty rockin. After that, we had lunch and did lots of stuff for our Scuba Patch. My snorkel malfunctioned at the end, so I missed like 15-20 barracuda under the lighthouse. We eventually came back to Base, had a short break, and then had our orientation on night diving. Immediately after dinner we ran over to the boat, loaded up, and were off by like 7. On the way, we heard over the radio that there was a grounded sailboat. We tried using the wake to free him once, and he asked for us to try again but if we could ‘make it bigger.’ His request was answered with much laughter and a joke from The Office. He heard, he laughed. We dived down with the sun, and eventually saw a gigantic sea turtle. It’s impossible to describe for large it was. There wasn’t much else, but the experience was amazing. Everyone here is totally exhausted now, and we’re all still feeling the rocking of the boat as we try to sleep. Also, I still miss Emily. 

Day 5			6.16.11			22:29

What a tired day! We were all fairly exhausted from the three dives yesterday so waking up was quite difficult. We went on our normal two dives, but this time without Anthony! Woo! Haha no one really likes him. But ya our first dive was at Boink. It was a pretty dang deep dive; down to 45 Feet! It was also probably one of my favorite so far, even though we didn’t see much. The second dive was in Labyrinth, which was pretty intense. It was all three reef types combined, and it was pretty shallow. Both dives were just super cold, but I’m glad that I decided to snorkel later regardless. We saw some really cool rubble, and we were engaged in a piracy fight with the Eagle. We definitely destroyed them! Beyond that, today was a pretty boring day. We went out to dinner, which was nice despite the service. All in all, a pretty good day.

Day 6			6.17.11		22:39

Our last full day of diving has finally passed. Tomorrow is the last day, with only a single tank. I must say, most of us are fairly happy to be nearly finished, too. I, however, am not necessarily ready to go just yet. I’ve been having a ton of fun over these past 6 days, and it’s hard for me to want it to end. Anyways, today was a lot of fun! We had a very relaxing boat ride out to Victory, which was a spur-and-groove reed. While Dylan and I didn’t see much, we did get lost very promptly and ended up following another group back to the anchor. Also, this was our deepest dive yet, going down to over 50 feet! I also got pretty cold. The second dive was to a spot called Davis Reef. There was a small Buddah memorial here in honor of a captain who died. A little fish by the name of Sparky was a very good guardian of Buddah, and has supposedly been there for a decade. In all, today was a very cold day, and I’m somewhat thankful that I only have to jump into the cold water once most. Also, I miss Emily!

Day 7			6.18.11		23:59

Well, this was the last day of camp. We’ve been checked out and such but Sea Base allows us one extra day to stay so that we can be O.K. to fly. So anyways, I can’t really say that a whole lot of people are upset about leaving. We really didn’t enjoy our stay here too much for a lot of reasons. But mostly just Anthony. We did one dive today at Landing Strip, and I totally had a blast. Dylan and I had the longest run under the water and I finally beat him in air consumption!!! We had our Luau also, which was really lame, but the food was okay. For the most part, I think we’re all pretty much ready to go home and look at all of our awesome pictures! = )