While I am not a doctor, nurse nor EMT, I have been receiving first aid training for about 45 years through Scouting, scuba courses and as a police officer. So I have been around the block a time or two. One of the best new things I learned at the BSA Wilderness First Aid Instructor Course taught last week at the Florida Sea Base is to administer 50 mg of Benadryl® if someone is using an epipen® for anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis is a serious concern at all three National High Adventure bases due to our remoteness. Of the three, the Florida Sea Base is probably closer to professional medical care. However, it is not unreasonable to expect a delay of four hours or more even when trying to receive medical attention in the Keys. PLEASE CLICK ON READ MORE.
Weather Underground
I have ALMOST completed the summer scuba staff hiring. I have just one or two spots left and now a whole new wave of applications are pouring in. I guess that’s a good problem to have. But it is very stressful having to tell young people who really want to be of service to other youth that I don’t have a spot for them. I am mentally exhausted. Capt. Kelly, Capt. Alex and I got most of the supplies ordered for the new Eco Adventure program. Since we haven’t conducted the program yet, we are trying to get what we think we need without getting stuff that we won’t use. The crew arriving on the 13th will be our guineas pigs.
Make time to read this blog from Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground, http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1444. It does NOT say that 2010 is going to be a bad hurricane season, but it does give us some information to follow-up on. The bad news is the water off Africa is already hot and potentially ripe for spawning hurricanes. The good news is El Niño effects are lingering longer than expected and the higher Atlantic temperatures do not statistically guarantee an active hurricane season. We will see.
A Coral Reef Sailing crew arrived at the Florida Sea Base this afternoon. With more staff than participants, they were able to work through the arrival day routine and actually depart the dock. They are aboard the S/V Ciao Bella with Capt. Mike Lucivero. The rest of the week will be slow ,but the crews start arriving pretty steadily on 13 March. Our first Scuba Adventure crew of the spring arrives on 14 March.
The weather is great this evening. The stars are unbelievable. The temperature is going to bottom out at about 55 – 57 but it won’t too bad since the wind has laid down. We may hit 80 degrees on Thursday or Friday. Maybe spring is finally here. We can only hope.
Don’t forget …
Florida Sea Base Ship’s Store – www.fsbshipstore.com
Official FSB Website – www.bsaseabase.org
Sea Base Alumni and Friends Association – www.sbafa.org
ALMOST everyone was off today at the Florida Sea Base. Andy set out some breakfast items, Clyde dealt with the Sea School folks and Sarah had to put together a food order for the Coral Reef Sailing crew that arrives tomorrow. Oh, Kathleen and Logan worked in Admin. As far as I know, everyone else enjoyed a day off. I saw Ranger Joe riding his sail board, Capt. Carol was working on nursing school assignments, Capt. Kelly was working on the lesson plan for the upcoming Eco Adventure crew. Capt. Mike spliced some dock lines and prepared S/V Ciao Bella for tomorrow’s Coral Reef Sailing crew. Capt. Rich is still in St. Petersburg. I worked on S/V Escape, picked up my laundry, and picked up my dinghy outboard. I have just a touch of a sore throat so I took some Nyquil and I am headed to bed.
Yeah!!! The forecasters were WRONG. The record low for today is 43. We bottomed out at 49 this morning. Today was sunny, still breezy (North at 15 – 20) and we barely made into the 60s (about 61). But we are forecasted for gradually rising temperatures through Thursday when it should be in the mid 70s. Hurry up spring. We have an ocean we need to warm up for the kids. It is a GORGEOUS night; a bit cool, but stars galore.
The first class of the BSA Wilderness First Aid Instructor’s Course has concluded. We are now BSA Wilderness First Aid/AED/CPR for Adult/Child/Infant Instructors. Wowy Zowy; I am simply too old to sit in a chair for most of eight hours a day. I am EXHAUSTED from not doing anything. It’s already past my bedtime so I am hoping to sleep in a little in the morning. (That means 0700 or maybe as late as 0800.)
In staff related news, Jake (our head cook) is sick and banned from the galley. Capt. Rich is in St. Petersburg, Florida inspecting a large schooner that may join our Sea Exploring program. Capt. Carol is still attending nursing school. Milly is still working with the PADI Instructor Development Course at Flakeys.
Good night.
Today was day two of the first ever BSA Wilderness First Aid Instructor Certification Course. It was a LONG day at the Florida Sea Base. In addition to the WFA course, Captains Jeff Peacock and Alex Bergstedt drove the BSA Scoutmaster from the Florida Sea Base to Fort Lauderdale. The boat will be hauled out and repowered (new engines installed). Ellen worked on summer scuba medicals all day. Capt. Dennis flew back to Lady Lake to work on the new house he and Ellen recently purchased.
If I understood the forecast correctly the low temperature tomorrow morning is forecasted to break the record low temperature for 05 April that was set in 1934. Where’s the global warming? I am still thinking about moving to Tobago. It was 93 degrees there today. Plus, they are below the hurricane belt, meaning they are rarely hit by hurricanes and on the few occasions that one comes close they are on the weak side of the storm. I know I sound like a broken record, but it is TOO cold and TOO windy here this winter. The diving is good in Tobago (manta rays are common) and the cost of living is fairly reasonable. The fishing is also good (especially subsistence fishing). The proper name of the country is the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago; the two islands comprise one country. The country gained it’s independence from England in 1962. The primary language is English and their currency is called TTs (which makes me giggle). How many TTs does that cost?
I have a homework assignment to complete for the BA Wilderness First Aid Instructor’s Course. I hope it’s not as cold as forecasted tomorrow morning.
The Florida Sea Base is the FIRST location to host an Instructor Certification Course for the new BSA Wilderness First Aid course. I am one of 22 persons soon to be certified BSA Wilderness First Aid instructors. By this time tomorrow ww will be prepared to start offering BSA Wilderness First Aid certifications. Yahoo!!
The “mild” cold front I commented on yesterday grew a bit overnight. I was up around 0300 adding lines to the boat. The wind is still howling from the west and it is very chilly on the dock. Still, we are better off than much of the country. EVERYONE I have talked with says this is the coldest winter they can recall in the Keys. Brrrr.
Milly McCoy put in another day at the PADI Instructor Development Course at Flakeys. And GREAT NEWS — Ellen and Capt. Dennis Wyatt are back at the Florida Sea Base. I am SO glad they are here. Ellen and Capt. Dennis keep everyone laughing.
Speaking of laughing, I would like to share an experience from this evening’s BSA Wilderness First Aid Instructor Training Course. Tonight we were doing CPR. They had 10 adult dummies one the floor and 10 infant dummies on a table. So half of the class were on their knees working with adult dummies while the other half were standing working with the infant dummies. You had to be there to appreciate this part, but our good Divemaster friend “Ranger Joe” kept ripping the head off the infant dummy while performing the choking hazard skills. That was funny but this part is better. I am fat and old and have a bad leg. So kneeling on the floor is very difficult for me. But it was time to cowboy up and save a dummies life so on the floor I went. I tried to get on the back row but wound up on the next to the back row with another rescuer right behind me. I was okay in the compression position, but I had a little gas so everytime I leaned all the way down to give rescue breaths I farted. So it went like this: compressions 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30, FART, 2 rescue breaths, compressions 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30, FART, 2 rescue breaths, etc for five cycles. We are lucky that we didn’t have to do a real resuscitation for the poor person behind me. Because we were doing these skills in unison, every time I was bent all the way forward farting, the person behind me had their face very close to my ”gas producing area”. It was sad, but I was about to pass out from trying not to laugh. The instructor said to have fun, but I don’t think this is what he meant. At my age we were all lucky that it was only gas!
With that said, it is very much past my bed time. Good night.
THE news of the day is Capt. Rich. He had surgery on his leg yesterday to correct some problems with a vein. They thought the operation would take about 30 minutes but it actually took over three hours. He says the leg hurts a lot, but he is up and walking on it. Fell free to email him your get well wishes.
Today’s front moved through the Florida Sea Base between 1400 and 1430. The rain was mostly light, but picked up for about 15 minutes. The wind is much more tolerable this time, about 15 knots out of the west. The temperatures are supposed to be much cooler through Saturday, but nothing vicious.
Several of the staff spent much of today in the 67 degree swimming pool working towards their PADI Open Water Diver certification. Capt. Alex Bergstedt is teaching the course. Divemaster Meghann Michalski has enrolled in an upcoming Instructor Development Course at Florida Keys Dive Center so she is assisting Capt. Alex and brushing up on her skills. Milly McCoy is at Flakeys (Florida Keys Dive Center) again today assisting with the current Instructor Development Course there. [So Capt. Steve, why do they call the Florida Keys Dive Center "Flakeys"? Well kids, I was told that many, many years ago when the Florida Keys Dive Center originally opened for business they needed a sign. So they hired a sign painter. Apparently the painter thought the name was too long so he decided to abbreviate it. Now most of you are probably too young to remember this, but the US Postal Service used have three letter abbreviations for every state instead of the current two letter abbreviations. The abbreviation for Florida was FLA. So the sign read "FLA. KEYS DIVE CENTER". That morphed into Flakeys Dive Center and eventually into just Flakeys. So there you have a bit of Keys history.]
I received a phone call from the owner of Ocean Divers in Key Largo today. Joe said all of his scuba instructors have been certified as Scuba Diving merit badge counselors. Check out their website when you have time.
For the prospective summer scuba staff – I am right down to the last 4 decisions. I will have those finalized in the next day or two. Thank you for your patience. Believe me, NO ONE wants the hiring to be finalized more than me.
While we have yet ANOTHER front forecasted to hit tomorrow, today was a typical spring day at the Florida Sea Base; 70 degrees, sunny, with moderate winds from the east. It was a great day to be outdoors. Unfortunately for me, I was in the office much of the day working on summer scuba staff hiring (with much assistance from Capt. Alex). However, we did get to spend a couple of hours outdoors putting new hinges on the back doors of my storage trailer. Yeah!!! Now I can get in and out of the trailer again. The next phase is to remove EVERYTHING, sort it, dispose or sell as much as is prudent. There are real antiques in there. Not valuable antiques, just old junk type antiques.
Some of you may remember Matt Standal who worked here as a Divemaster. I didn’t hear from Matt for a couple of years until recently. I received an email from him. I don’t think he will mind me sharing this part:
Steve, I have to say this: After working as a Hawaii instructor for over a year, after cleaning 20 sets of gear day after day, after fighting for commission pay on snorkels and DPV scooter classes, after hawking dive photo CD’s for 20 bucks to pay my car insurance, after busting my hump to drive complaining tourists in a van through traffic jams on a tropical island, I can honestly say being a Dive Master at Sea Base was one of the best jobs I have ever had.
I received an earlier report of a similar nature from another of our Divemaster Academy graduates turned instructor, Sargon Smith. He is currently working the the beautiful Virgin Islands. He will be back at the Florida Sea Base soon and I think he is really looking forward to “the easy life” here.
For the current DMA graduates, I am VERY close to finalizing the hiring. Today I notified a few who won’t be working with us this summer. I should get to the others tomorrow or Wednesday. So please stay tuned. And let me explain for a minute. As I said during the Divemaster Academy, I have several applications from returning staff members who did a great job last year. There simply isn’t room for all of this year’s graduates. So please don’t be down on yourself if I can’t find a spot for you this year. This is very agonizing for me. The bottom line is I have to do what is best for the program.
Well, the Florida Sea Base program staff and rangers had the day off. The conference and galley staff were working hard with the BBYO group. (As I mentioned yesterday, it’s nice having this enthusiastic group of young people on base.) Milly McCoy was a Florida Keys Dive Center all day working with an Instructor Development Course. Capt. Alex helped me with some moving and reorganization. I also spent some time in the office working on paperwork and other office related chores.
I hoped to have all of the summer scuba staff hiring completed today. I am running a little behind. I expect to have 75% or more completed tomorrow. It’s going to take several hours sending emails to the chosen ones. If you’re a summer scuba staff prospect and don’t get an email tomorrow, don’t freak out. “Stuff” manages to happen around here and cause unexpected delays. My boss has been out of town for a week so who knows what he will need me to do tomorrow. But completing the summer scuba staff roster is VERY high on my personal agenda and I will do my best to complete it in the next day or two. Wednesday afternoon I start a Wildnerness First Aid Instructor ocurse that is scheduled to last through Sunday. So I will really be pushing to get the hirees announced before then.
I would like to say a special “thank you” to Capt. Alex for helping me find the owner’s manual to my dinghy outboard motor. I looked for days. Today we found it in my storage trailer.