Florida Sea Base News

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We started out well at the Florida Sea Base yesterday, threatened by approaching showers, but making the best of the opportunities afforded us.  The divers went diving and sailors went sailing.

It was a little bumpy out and some of the divers developed gastroenpukeulitis.  In fact, one of the adults got so sick that there was some concern he may have had decompression illness.  But that was not the case and he made a full recovery when he returned to terra firma.

We had sort of a rough afternoon.  An adult scuba participant blew out an ear drum, big time, as in blood coming from the ear.  One of the rules in scuba is to equalize early and often.  It’s a good rule.  To top everything off, one of the staff members was transported late in the afternoon to Miami for emergency care.  I expect to get an update later this morning.

The tropics remain busy.  Tropical Storm Florence has dissipated and is not a threat to redevelop.  But Invest 92L (yellow circle in first graphic) is already on the scene and certainly bears watching.  Tropical Storm Ernesto continues marching towards Belize and is expected to increase to Category 1 strength tomorrow before making landfall.  But the good news is none of this will have significant impact on the Florida Sea Base.

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

From the National Weather Service:

Area forecast discussion for the Florida Keys 
National Weather Service Key West Florida 
431 am EDT Tuesday Aug 7 2012

Marine... 
overnight observations from along the reef and in the Bay/Gulf waters...along with an 
offshore ship report...all indicate steady east/southeast winds around 15 knots. Expect 
similar conditions to continue today through Wednesday morning for most Keys waters. East 
winds should decrease to the 10-15 knot range Wednesday afternoon... and remain there 
through Thursday. Weakening high pressure over the  Florida Peninsula should allow for a 
further decrease in winds across our area from Thursday night into the weekend.

More “weeeeeee” (as Captain Mike Lucivero likes to call it) through today and then improving conditions for the divers.

I spent Monday working on the 2013 budget.  My focus is on the challenges of dividing the Florida Sea Base programs into separate cost centers.  I apparently misunderstood our plan for this process.  Captain Rich and I have been tracking the 2012 sailing and scuba expenditures separately.  I thought we were going to review the results and decide at the end of the year if we wanted to divide the cost center for 2014.  But the decision has been made to divide the cost center without review of the data.  The boss said do it so it will be done.

Its time for me to get ready for my real job.  Scuba Commissioner Laura Kuras is off today so I get to pretend that I’m in charge of the scuba department.  But the staff members are almost on autopilot at this point.    I will take quite a while this morning to review the paperwork from yesterday’s incidents and disseminate them to PADI and Shelley for further distribution to the BSA insurers.  Hopefully we will make it through the day with no major medical issues.

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

Today was a great day at the Florida Sea Base, unless you were in the office.  Thank goodness it’s over.  Here’s how it went.

Before breakfast one of the staff members came into the office and presented with a possible concussion including severe pain at the site of an earlier blow to the head and exceptional drowsiness.  The staff member will receive medical care.  Also before breakfast Capt. Carl Olshenske who drives BSA Explorer for the scuba program reported that he had a youth participant on his boat this week who was having behavioral problems.  After breakfast I had the young man and one of his adult leaders in my office to get the young man’s attention and assure that he acted in a safe and reasonable manner on the boat.  (The captain reported this afternoon that the youth performed much better.)

Shortly thereafter I discovered that Florida Sea Base incident reports were not being completed to reflect these and other issues.  That will be addressed at Monday’s 07:30 staff meeting morning.

Before lunch it was brought to my attention that Davis Tours had not shown up to take a departing crew to the airport.  The crew was in jeapordy of missing thier flight from Fort Lauderdale.  I tried multiple times to call Davis Tours and their emergency phone number to no avail.  We are very short handed on Sundays at the Florida Sea Base.  Capt. Alex Bergstedt volunteered to drive them to the airport.  They barely made it and we never heard from Davis Tours.  I don’t mean to give Davis Tours a black eye.  I am only reporting fact.  For the 10 years that I have worked at the Florida Sea Base they have had an exemplary record.  However, something has happened and they have had major scheduling issues recently.  Our Director of Program, Rob Kolb, will be addressing our concerns with Mr. Davis on Monday.

Immediately before lunch I saw Capt. Dutch VanderLann hobbling across the yard.  He has re-injured his left knee.  He is a trooper and will gut it out.

Check-in begins at 13:00 daily.  Sundays are big scuba crew arrival days.  One of the crews had an adult leader who had refused to submit his medical prior to arrival as required.  So Ellen, the Office Manager, was reviewing the medical he brought with him.  It was on the wrong form and we couldn’t accept it.  So he called backed home and had the appropriate form faxed to us.  The form showed that he is asthmatic and taking three medicications for asthma.  This disqualified him for the Florida Sea Base scuba program.  He was allowed to stay with his crew and he can snorkel, but he cannot scuba dive.  Somehow this gentleman feels that his failure to submit the medical when required (01 March 2010) so we could try to resolve his issue is not the problem.  I am the problem.  I am very sorry for the situation but mostly I am disappointed that this gentleman failed to follow procedure and we were deprived of the opportunity to address his issue.

Then we had a youth check in who was taking some medications that required counseling of him, his adult leaders and divemaster.  He will likely do fine.

Then another crew arrived that had a bad experience with Davis Tours.  They were aggitated but Ellen (and an air conditioned office) helped the leader calm down.

After dinner, Commissioner Matt McClure had a severe alergic reaction to some aloe vera that was being applied to his sunburn.  After two showers and 50mg of Benefryl he decided to go to the ER for a cortisone injection.  Before he left, Divemaster Scott Costa slipped and twisted his knee and decided to accompany Matt to the ER.  By the time they got to the ER, Matt was feeling better and did not see a doctor.  Scott has a sprain or torn ligament and will miss at least a week of work.

Now the latest on T/S Alex.  The official forecast still shows T/S Alex will curve into Mexico below the Texas border.

Tropical Storm Alex - Weather Underground

However, one of the more reliable computer models (GFS) still suggests the possibility of landfall south of Galveston, Texas.  This is a good example of how crazy life can be when a hurricane is forecasted to approach within a thousand miles of the Florida Sea Base.  The forecasted trajectory changes frequently and radically at times.

T/S Alex Computer Models - Weather Underground

It’s past my bedtime.  I will post sometime tomorrow.

Capt. Steve
Aboard S/V Escape