Florida Sea Base News

It is definitely the end of an era for the sailing programs and all of the Florida Sea Base.  It was long expected, but still very sad a few days ago when my friend, Sailing Director Captain Richard T. Beliveau, told me he had accepted a new job in North Carolina.  Yesterday he made it official, notifying the General Manager and sending an email to the Florida Sea Base captains.

Captain Rich came to the Florida Sea Base in December 2004.  He quickly realized that running the scuba and sailing programs was more than I could do.  Not long thereafter he was appointed to the position of Program Director for the Florida Sea Base sailing adventures.  He took the position more to help me out than for any personal reasons.  We became friends as we struggled together daily to improve the sailing and scuba programs.  I have written several posts comparing Captain Rich to the Archangel Michael.  Without the partnership with Captain Rich neither the sailing nor scuba programs could have improved to their current status.

It is such a shame that the circumstances are as they are.  The Florida Sea Base is loosing and outstanding employee and I am loosing a dear friend and trusted co-worker.  But this is an incredible opportunity for Captain Rich.  He can work 40 hour weeks instead of the 60 plus hours he has put in here.  There will be no more 100 day stretches with a random day off here and there.  He will make more money to start than he was making here after  8 years.  His new position includes a house and dockage for his boat.  Heck, he may even be able to spend Christmas, New Years, Independence Day, and birthdays with family and friends.  While it is very hard to loose a friend, I am VERY happy for him.

This is also a great opportunity for Captain-turned-Nurse Carol Beliveau.  She has been sorely missed for the past two years while she turned 100% of her attention to studies; another outstanding employee lost.  The nursing opportunities are very limited in the Keys.  I know she will have great success in her new profession.

Captain Rich was sent to the Florida Sea Base to take the burden of the sailing programs off me and to build those programs into the success they are.  Without Captain Rich I would have crumbled under the stress of this job and moved on long ago.

I do not know of any stronger words to express my appreciation for being given the opportunity to become friends with Captain Rich than “thank you”.  This day has been in the making for two or three years.  When we realized this I changed my ringtone for Captain Rich so every time he called my phone would blare, “It’s the end of the World as we know it”.  This loss may not be the end of the World, but it is certainly the end of an era.

Thanks for everything Rich, you will be missed more than you can imagine.

If any readers of this blog have comments or well wishes, please click on the comment button; I will post those for Captain Rich to read.

Capt. Steve Willis
Professional Scuba Bum™
Aboard S/V Escape

WORKING VACATION

Not me this time.  Captain Rich is taking a week of “vacation” away from the Florida Sea Base to celebrate Captain Carol’s graduation from nursing school.  Captain Rich was so impressed with his fall recon trip to the USVI for our upcoming 2014 summer sailing program there that he decided to go back.  Even though this is a “vacation”, I know Captain Rich will spend much of the time gathering intel for our 2014 summer sailing adventure.

USVI 2014

Speaking of the 2014 summer sailing adventure in the US Virgin Islands, I recently realized that for many people there is a preconception that the travel costs will be prohibitive; not necessarily so.  Captain Rich checked airfares from Minnesota to Miami, the Bahamas, and St. John’s.  St. John’s was actually the CHEAPEST airfare, Miami was second and the Bahamas was the most expensive.  Also keep in mind that the US Virgin Islands are a US territory and therefore do not require a passport.  This is a pilot program for 2014.  Reservations will be VERY limited and there is no guarantee at this time of bookings beyond 2014.  (I want to go!)

CHRISTMAS SAILING AND OUT ISLAND ADVENTURES

Yesterday I commented on the weather forecast for the week after Christmas at the Florida Sea Base.  I mentioned dressing in layers.  This is an especially important consideration for participating in any of our sailing adventures and the Out Island Adventure at the Brinton Environmental Center.  Something I failed to mention is sleeping gear.  In these programs you are essentially sleeping outdoors or with very limited heating options.  Therefore, give consideration to your sleeping gear.  A pad, sheet and MAYBE a light blanket are generally adequate for these programs in the summer.  You will want something more substantial this winter.

Capt. Steve Willis
Professional Scuba Bum™
Aboard S/V Escape

I’ll try to bring you up to speed on the ongoing of the Florida Sea Base.

The galley project is almost complete. John and crew have been doing amazing work in there. I saw the fire marshal, fire installation guys and the county inspector in there yesterday. So I’m guessing all went well.

Rooms 9 & 10 as well as the Thomas Building have been rehabbed with ceramic tile. I haven’t personally seen the Thomas Building but the two rooms look great.

The Newton is still broke. It isn’t a big fix just a pain in the butt. I’ll get it going next week before we need to have the boat. We’ll start splashing all of the other boats getting them back to Sea Base as well. The BEC has the Tarpon, after they are finished with it we’ll be selling her off. I may have a buyer for it where I do part time work. You can never have too many boats (not).

Probably the biggest news I have on the sailing end is that Sea Base will soon be expanding, announcing “Sea Base St. Thomas” tada!!!!

Captain’s Mike Lucivero, Alan Robinson and yours truly invaded the quaint little island of St. Thomas. Captain Carol (my wife) soon to be RN Carol made a joke of us three going to the Virgin Islands BUT it isn’t scout appropriate so we’ll leave this alone.

Anyway our trip was very successful. Seems our old Coast Guard inspector from Islamorada was recently stationed there and just happens to be a pretty good friend our mine. He showed us all the good spots to go and places to avoid. So mark your calendar for the sign ups coming in January.

This adventure will be a combination of sailing, snorkeling, fishing (not eating them, I’ll explain) and hiking the Island of St. John.

The fishing; seems the fish have a disease called ciguatera. Parrot fish eat reefs that are diseased. Needless to say everything gets infected. The tuna and dolphin are ok, but most of everything else isn’t.

Captain Carol and I will head to the island one more time mid December on a semi vacation/ semi work trip. Carol wants a vacation, I can’t sit still.

Well that’s about all for now, take care and have a great Thanksgiving.

Captain Rich

I thought I posted this Saturday but found it in my drafts folder just now.

Good morning from the Florida Sea Base.  A couple of days ago I posted my fall travel itinerary.  Due to events beyond my control and despite my best efforts, I am (at this moment) hoping to finish packing my Civic and little trailer, run some errands, prep Escape and go to bed around 18:00 (6pm).  If I can pull all of that off, I can leave here around 03:00 Sunday morning and arrive in Midlothian, Texas just as everyone is waking up on Monday morning.

FORMER STAFF

It’s always a treat to hear from former staff members.  I saw this comment this morning from Derek Faust:

Captain Steve,

Not sure if you remember me or not. I was a Scuba Mate for Summer 2010. I read your post almost everyday. I really enjoy the updates and progress that Sea Base is making. As a scientist myself (earned MS in Environmental Toxicology at Texas Tech and currently at Mississippi State for my PhD in wildlife, fisheries, and aquaculture), I am really interested in the STEM program that you have posted about the past couple days. I think this is an excellent idea. As a nation, we are falling behind other countries in STEM and I think STEM education and outreach is where we need to start. I would like some additional information if you have it. I hope all is well and I am glad that Sea Base has thus far had pretty good luck in this busy hurricane season.

Derek, I’m glad you are doing so well with school.  I don’t recall (CRS disease) if Tim was working at the Florida Sea Base when you were here.  Tim Stanfill replaced Chrystene Matthew-Speed as the Food and Conference Director.  He is an Eagle Scout, former Florida Sea Base seasonal staff member, former District Executive, and a real life Boy Scout in every sense of the word.  Tim and Captain Rich Beliveauare discussing potential STEM programs with several local educators and many of the Coral Reef captains who are former educators.  We are looking at two approaches to the STEM project and hope to find a way to accomplish both.  The Boy Scouts of America has it’s own, in-house, STEM project.  There is a lot of information about their programs at http://www.scouting.org/STEM.aspx.  Our other approach is through the Florida Department of Education.  Florida’s STEM Strategic Plan is available at http://www.lsi.fsu.edu/centers/fcrstem/resources/documents/floridaSTEM_strategic_plan_dec2011.pdf.  I’m not sure of the proper title, but the Florida Sea Base is already recognized by the Florida Department of Education as a STEM facility.  The ultimate goal is the same, fill the Florida Sea Base with youth on a year ’round basis.

OTHER INITIATIVES

Simultaneously, Captain Rich Beliveau is working on a program to attract collegiate  sailing clubs to the Florida Sea Base and I am working on expanding our Divemaster Academy from an annual event to two or three times a year and working on hosting the first PADI Instructor Development Course at the Florida Sea Base, hopefully in the spring of 2013.

As I mentioned yesterday or the day before, the Scouting programs will ALWAYS come first at the Florida Sea Base.  Programs like STEM, collegiate sailing, professional scuba diving training, or whatever else we come up with will always be used to fill in our non-Scouting times.  Any income generated by other programs will benefit Scouting.  We have tried other programs in the past that were unsuccessful.  But we try to learn from those experiences and improve our proposals.

TYPHOON SANBA

The good news is Sanba is down from Super Typhoon to Typhoon (category 4 hurricane) status.  The bad news is the eye of this system is about 150 miles from US Air Force Base Kadena on the south end of Okinawa.  The track looks like it will take the eye through or very near the Air Force Base.  Please keep these folks in your prayers.

TRAVEL

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I hope to be on the road from 03:00 Sunday until sometime Monday morning.  So please excuse my absence for the next day or two and I will post again as soon as I have recovered from the 24 hour ± drive to the Mother Country.  It looks like I will beat much of the rain but will likely be wet from mid-Louisiana to Midlothian.  (Maybe the bugs will get washed off.)

Capt. Steve Willis
Professional Scuba Bum™
PADI Course Director #39713
Aboard S/V Escape

I am running late this morning and I was up late last night, so I’ll try to hit the highlights for Thursday at the Florida Sea Base.

Thursday started very early for Sailing Program Director Captain Rich Beliveau.  He received a call at 01:00 to extract a Scout from one of the Coral Reef Sailing vessels.  I do not have the full details but apparently theScout feel opn the boat and whatever he struck was stronger than his hard head.  Head injuries bleed profusely and frequently look worse than they are.  Regardless, Captain Rich retrieved the Scout who I assume was transported by Florida Sea Base staff to mariners Hospital in Tavernier. I do not know the final outcome of the event so he was likely treated and released and spending the rest of his adventure on base.

Three or four new seasonal staff members have arrived and were introduced at the 07:30 staff meeting.  At least two are on the Coral Reef Sailing staff and one may be working in the Ships Store.  I’ll try to get more details.

The full time staff of the Florida Sea Base met at 09:00.  We actually had a good meeting.  Most of us don’t like meetings in general and sometimes these are frustrating, but not so yesterday.  The meeting seemed unusually relaxed.  The main topic was timelines and preparations for the 2013 budget.  Starting Monday, that will dominate our time until early September.

The meeting dismissed at noon and I hopped in my little Civic and drove at the posted speed limit to the PADI Instructor Development Course.  The class was in the pool when I caught up with them.  PADI Course Director Captain Bert Hubby was very accommodating (again) and let me pretend that I was in charge of scoring the Confined Water presentations.  (Being a new Course Director is just like being a new Scuba Instructor.  There is a lot of the practical application that was not taught during the preparatory course.  Working with a mentor is critical  to future success.)  When finished i the pool around 16:30 and relocated to the classroom.  I was again allowed to take the lead on evaluating Knowledge Development presentations.  All of the candidates did well with their pool and classroom presentations.

I was given a teaching assignment for this morning.  We dismissed a little after 18:30 last night.  I had over a dozen phone messages and 36 emails to answer.  I started working on my presentation around 20:30, hence getting to bed late.

Speaking of late, I’ve taken more time than intended.  Gotta go.

Capt. Steve Willis
Professional Scuba Bum™
PADI Course Director
Aboard S/V Escape

Three Coral Reef Sailing crews and one Sea Exploring crew returned to the Florida Sea Base for their luau and to prepare to return home.  S/V Misty Shoals, S/V Silver Crow, S/V Silent Harmony and the Schooner Yankee all returned from sea yesterday.

The Scuba Adventure and Scuba Certification crews completed two more dives yesterday plus a night dive last night.  They have one dive this morning and then have their luau tonight.  They will depart the Florida Sea Base tomorrow morning.

Four Coral Reef Sailing crews will arrive at the Florida Sea Base today.  They will be aboard S/V Misty Shoals, S/V Lady Nell II, S/V Midnight Dragon and S/V Jewel of Athena.

More crews arrive at the Florida Sea Base Sunday including five Coral Reef Sailing crews, one Sea Exploring crew and one Scuba Adventure crew.  The sailing crews will be aboard S/V Silent Harmony, S/V Excalibur, S/V Silver Crow, S/V Spindrift, S/V Adventure and S/V Calypso Gypsy.

Next week is fairly busy, but the week after that, the week before Easter, the sailing and scuba programs will both be full.  The galley will be insanely busy.  Our Galley Manager, Captain Rae Murphy, has not yet experienced the volume of Scouts that will be feed that week.  But it will be a good eye opener for summer because as busy as it will be, it will only be half the volume that we will have for about 100 days in a row this summer.  And the Florida Sea Base sailing schedule is also full for the two weeks following Easter although the scuba schedule lightens up dramatically.  More on all of that as we get closer to the arrival dates.

Coral Reef sailing vessels on the Florida Sea Base T-dock are having to play musical chairs as they move from slip to slip during the installation of new pilings.  Hopefully this part of the game will conclude prior to 01 April when we get super busy.

Have a great weekend.

Capt. Steve Willis
Professional Scuba Bum™
Aboard S/V Escape 

Final approval of the Kayaking Merit Badge was granted on Tuesday.  The text and photos for the merit badge pamphlet have been delivered to Media Studios for publication.  The Kayaking Merit Badge should be released prior to summer camp.  The Kayaking BSA Award will remain in place as an introductory experience.  Florida Sea Base participants in the Coral Reef Sailing and Eco-Adventure programs and Brinton Environmental Center participants in the Out-Island Adventure will continue to be eligible for the Kayaking BSA Award.  Since Florida Sea Base and BEC seasonal staff members are not approved merit badge counselors, they will be able to attest that certain elements of the Kayaking Merit Badge have been accomplished but cannot sign off on the merit badge card.

Tripoli, Libya has been in the news quite a bit in the past year.  I made my first dive in the Mediterranean Sea from a Tripoli beach in 1961 at the age of 9.  I spent a lot of my childhood exploring my little pieces of the “Med” and Sahara Desert.  Libya, hot, desert, Mediterranean – the memories are burned into my brain.  Monday, Tripoli received two to three inches of SNOW.  What?  There was never any snow when I lived there.  But here’s the photo, courtesy of Weather Underground.

Click to enlarge.

We really need to change the phrase “Global Warming” to “Global Freezing”.

I spent part of yesterday and hope to complete the first phase of my PADI Course Director Training Course application today.  (It may take part of Wednesday to polish.)

It looks like the base received more rain today.  A high chance of rain remains in the forecast through Saturday.  It rained a lot the last time I was away from the base for a while.

I hope the weather is decent in your part of the world.

Capt. Steve Willis
Professional Scuba Bum™
Staying dry but a little chilly

I’m sorry to post a little late this morning.  This is the first morning since 07 May that I have slept in.  (I was even up the morning after surgery.)  I managed to sleep in until 0630.  But I didn’t get to sleep until midnight so it was a wash.  Anyway, here’s my report for today:

Friday was the opening day of the 2011 summer season for the Eco Adventure.  The program is best described as Coral Reef Sailing goes green.  The crews will spend time study the eco-systems of the Keys while having all of the fun of a Coral Reef Sailing crew.  They will be sailing on two Morgan 41′ Out-Island boats, snorkeling, fishing and kayaking into eco-systems that the motherships can’t navigate. Captains Harold and Margie Ochstein will be at the helms of S/Vs Morning Dance and Island Dreamer with Dana Ochstein onboard as Mate.  Captains Ochstein maintain a website at http://island-dreamer.com.

In addition to the Eco Adventure crew, four Coral Reef Sailing crews and one Scuba Liveaboard crew arrived at the Florida Sea Base.  Four Coral Reef Sailing crews were in for shore leave.  Four Coral Reef Sailing and one Scuba Liveaboard crew returned to the base for their luau.

The weather is very good and will be perfect as soon as the wind drops 10 knots.  Fortunately, most of our participants are from hardy stock and reported cases of gastroenpukeulitis have been minimal.  Bad news – the wind will be even higher today.  Good news – the wind starts tapering down tomorrow.  Otherwise, there is a very small chance of showers, highs near 90 and lows near 80.  The ocean side water temperature is 82ºF.

Enjoy your weekend.

Capt. Steve
Aboard S/V Escape

Our last round of crews for this week will be departing today.  The Sea Exploring schooner Jolly II Rover, and the Coral Reef Sailing boats Juan Cadiz, Spindrift, Midnight Dragon, Chanticleer, Jewel of Athena, and Island Woman all returned to dock and discharged their crews yesterday afternoon.  The seasonal program staff will have the remainder of the day (once the crews leave) off and tomorrow off.  They have been working for 10 days straight.

I am going to try to go to the “Gigantic Nautical Flea Market” in Islamorada this morning.  The annual event is sponsored by the Upper Keys Rotary Club.  I spoke with Capt. Martin Ivy during dinner.  He said he went to the flea market today and it doesn’t sound like they will have much, if anything, that I’m interested in.  But you never know what you might spot at a flea market.  There is another annual nautical flea market held in Dania Beach (adjacent to Fort Lauderdale) in a few weeks.  It usually has more boat stuff.  The Islamorada event leans towards fishing and crafts.

There’s a 10% chance of rain today.  Otherwise, it will be partly cloudy, 82º and gentle breezes.  Perfect for getting sunburned at a shadeless flea market.

Capt. Steve
Aboard S/V Escape

Uneventful – the word of the day at the Florida Sea Base yesterday.  Don’t get me wrong, there was a LOT going on and tons of fun being had.  What I meant was there were no negative events taking place.  All was well and everything was under control.  I spent the morning working on summer staff hiring and reorganizing my office, including disposing of some clothes that are now too big.  (Since November I have lost one shirt size and almost three pants sizes.)  In the afternoon, Capt. Carol Chapman and I drove vans to Key Largo to pick up one of the Sea Exploring crews that was returning for their luau and final night at the Florida Sea Base.

Overall, our weather is holding.  Starting at 22:00 (1o pm) last night the wind picked up a bit to 15 knots with a few gusts as high as 20 knots.  The guys doing the boat delivery to Belize called by satellite phone yesterday morning to report they had hit some rough weather and are holed up on the Mexican coast south of Isla  Mujeres.

Sailing program boats ending their programs yesterday included Sea Exploring vessels Calypso Gypsy and Pirates Lady, Coral Reef vessels Silent Harmony and Silver Crow, and Eco Adventure vessels Morning Dance and Island Dreamer.  The Coral Reef vessels that came in for their mid-week day were Chanticleer, Spindrift, Island Woman, Midnight Dragon, Jewel of Athena and Juan Cadiz.  About 75 participants attended last night’s luau.

The will be more mid-weekers today and some crews returning to base for the end of their program.  But it won’t be as hectic as yesterday and we are in the winding down phase for this week.  Next week we have some conferences but know program participants.

That’s all I have this morning.  Be safe.

Capt. Steve
Aboard S/V Escape