Florida Sea Base News

One of the things I have learned as a Program Director at the Florida Sea Base is “never say never”.  That was not my philosophy during 26 years in law enforcement.  Dozens upon dozens of psychiatrists have documented that work related circumstances can change your personality.  So I have definitely learned to apply the never say never philosphy.

So all of that is to offer a little encouragement to those who applied for the Florida Sea Base 2012 summer staff but weren’t selected.  We generally receive more applications than we have positions.  Your dates of availability is a key factor.  As I mentioned yesterday, the hiring managers do the best they can trying to make choices based on a few telephone calls.  But if you weren’t chosen, don’t give up hope.  Some people will cancel at the last minute and not show up, some will discover quickly that the magic they experienced here as a participant is the result of a lot of hard work behind the scenes and, while they enjoyed the benefits of the magic, they don’t want to put in the long, hot, repetitive days that make the magic happen.  And a few will be boneheads (as my wife likes to call them) and get sent home for making poor choices or not playing well with others.  In essence, we can say that round one of staff hiring is over for this season.  But experience has taught us that we will likely be digging through the pile of applications again, looking for replacements and reinforcements.  Never say never.

We had decent weather yesterday.  The wind held from the east but dropped to 15 knots.  It was sunny, a little cooler than yesterday and the water was 77-78ºF.

I ran errands yesterday from the Florida Sea Base to a suburb near south Miami called Naranja (orange in Spanish).  I picked up some new hoses for the scuba tank fill station, ordered compressor filters for the Scuba Liveaboard boats, picked up a new tricycle for Dr. Ellen to ride between the Program Office and Admin, and picked up a recharged fire extinguisher.

[Sidebar:  The trike would not fit through the cash register isle at K-Mart.  So I pushed the trike around to the end of the line and peeled off the price tag.  Then I got in line.  When it was my turn the nice lady was not able to scan the price tag and called the manager.  The manager was smart enough to be able to directly enter the amount into the registered.  Everything was fine.  Until I was given the receipt.  According to the receipt I had just purchased $376 worth of ladies shoes.  The clerk was no help so I tracked down the manager.  I thanked her for her help but explained that I did not think the BSA would reimburse me for $376 worth of ladies shoes.  She looked at the receipt and discovered she had entered code 96 for ladies shoes instead of 69 for bicycles.  She hand wrote the correction on the receipt.]

 Captain Holley Whitley, a truly lovely lady and Queen of the Schooner Conch Pearl, sent me this photo of Divemaster (soon to be Scuba Instructor) Mike Roesel and the SIX AND A HALF POUND spiny lobster he caught during last week’s Scuba Liveaboard trip.

Click to enlarge.

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