Florida Sea Base News

Yesterday was day 2 of the cleaning in the Galley.  Wow; what a chore.  But the team is doing a great job and the kitchen will look and smell much better once they are done.  The rangers are busy painting, mowing and pressure washing.  The Eagle topper has been repaired, painted and refitted atop our big flag pole.  It has been down for most of the spring program season.  Instead of taking it down for repair in September, the facilities department decided to wait until we started the program season.  Who needs a flagpole during program season?  It’s nice that they could get it reinstalled in time for the Chief Scout Executive’s visit next week.

The Scuba Adventure crews and Scuba Certification crews combined yesterday and went diving aboard BSA Centennial Eagle with Captain Scott Costa.  The weather definitely took a turn for the worse with a sudden and significant increase in wind speed overnight.  Capt. Scott went to several sites looking for any visibility.  They finally dropped in at a patch reef called Donut for their first dive and then moved to Alligator Reef for dive two.  The forecast calls for continued blustery winds tomorrow then easing up Thursday night.

Two or three years ago I took a picture of the Coral Reef Sailing boats on the North side of the Florida Sea Base T-dock.  The photo was labeled “Easter Egg Fleet” and then “Morgan Rainbow”.  All of the boats in the photo, except one, are Morgan Out Islands and each one is trimmed in a different color.  It was a lucky shot taken with an inexpensive camera, but it had potential.  So I emailed the photo to my son who “enhanced” it and sent it back.  The photo has been used on the cover of the Florida Sea Base Participant’s Guide, was printed on t-shirts labeled “I’m on a Sails Call” sold in the Ships Store (currently on clearance no the website), and also on post cards sold in the Ships Store.  It has been used in some other places as well.  General Manager Capt. Paul Beal commissioned the photo to be made into a painting.  This painting will be the grand prize for the 2011 Annual Florida Sea Base Invitational Tarpon Tournament.

That’s all for this morning.  Make it a good day.

Capt. Steve
Aboard S/V Escape