Florida Sea Base News

Dr. Ellen rejoined the Florida Sea Base program team early yesterday morning and wasted no time getting caught up, throwing stuff away, and getting the staff in line.  Welcome back Ellen.  You were missed.

In yesterday’s Wunderblog, Dr. Masters reported:

The Atlantic is quiet
The Atlantic is quiet, but several models, including the NOGAPS and GFS, are predicting that a tropical disturbance capable of becoming a tropical depression could form near Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula about seven days from now. In the Eastern Pacific, Hurricane Beatriz is gone, after being torn apart by Mexico’s high mountains during landfall. Beatriz is responsible for at least three deaths in Mexico.

Our local forecast has not changed since yesterday’s post.

For YEARS the majority of our scuba participants noted on their evaluation forms that they didn’t enjoy spending a day in Key West and wanted more dives.  So two or three years ago we invested $600,000 in dive boats so we could increase the number of dives and remove a sightseeing trip from the itinerary.  This past week the divers complained that we made them dive too much and maybe they should take a day off and go to Key West.  You can’t please all of the people all of the time.  If you want to spend your High Adventure experience wandering Duval Street in Key West, please sign up for the Keys Adventure or Sea Exploring program.

The locals frequently joke that the only way to escape a hurricane is to evacuate to North Dakota.  Now North Dakota is drowning.  Is no place safe?  Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, fires, droughts, blizzards, snow storms, ice storms, icebergs, melting icebergs, no icebergs, volcanoes, sinkholes, ice packs, tundra, Mother Nature has a little something for everyone it seems.

Joy of joys!  We will have our monthly Team Meeting from 0900 to noon today followed by a meeting with the swimming pool company from noon to 1400.  Meetings are fun.  I love my job.

Capt. Steve Willis
Aboard S/V Escape

The Florida Sea Base will be honored today by the arrival of Capt. Dennis Wyatt and Dr. Ellen Stites-Wyatt.  They are two of my favorite people in the whole world.  Visiting with them will be a treat.  They are also going to be working at the Florida Sea Base this winter.  It will be their first Christmas with us.

I received a commitment Tuesday from a scuba shop owner in Pennsylvania who is going to purchase all of our remaining used scuba gear which includes 147 tanks, 29 regulators and 45 BCDs.  We will resume the sale of used scuba equipment in August 2011.  For now, we are officially sold out.  Laura Kuras’ primary mission now shifts from sales to overhauling the regulators that we will keep for another year.  She has approximately 83 regulators to service.

Haiti has been hammered by rain from a low pressure system in the Caribbean.  The system will not become “tropical” and will head out into the open Atlantic after passing Haiti and the Turks and Caicos Islands as a rain event.  Our weather is stuck in a GREAT rut; clear skies, mild winds, calm seas, warm afternoons and enough UV to tan but not instantly burn to a crisp.  We should start warming up next week as the high pressure system moves away.  We were hoping that the 2010 hurricane season was over – any MAYBE it is.  However, two of the computer models are predicting a strong tropical disturbance will form in the southern Caribbean off the coast of Colombia 6 – 7 days from now, and move west-northwest towards Nicaragua.  Stay tuned!

Yesterday’s edition of a local Keys newspaper, The Reporter, had a photo and article from our Saturday regatta on the front page.  Unfortunately, they did not make the on-line version of the publication so I couldn’t steal the photo or provide a link to the article.

Have a good day.  For the Divemaster candidates, study, study, study and swim, swim, swim.  You will be put to the test very soon.

Capt. Steve
Aboard S/V Escape