Troop 104's 2002 Sea Base Adventure
Part of Troop
104's 2002 Sea Base Adventure
August 2
Visit to Key West
Today we got up early (or at least early according to the scouts) to
take crew pictures. This will be the last time we wear our “Class
A’s” in camp.
After “flags” and breakfast, we had a leader meeting,
where they emphasized some safety things, and made it clear that the
leaders are supposed to step back and let the scouts take over. We can
mentor, but not direct (except, of course, if it’s a question of
health or safety), and definitely not do any “work.”
That’s going to be hard.
The reasons for this are two-fold. On one had, Sea Base points out
to the scouts that the leaders had to do a lot of work to get everybody
to the base. Now they’ve done their job, and it’s time for
the scouts to take over. (Matt and Eric made out like bandits as far as
this aspect is concerned.) But in addition, it’s a good learning
experience for the scouts. They learn a lot of self-reliance by taking
care of things themselves.
After the leader meeting, we were supposed to have a checkout
session with the kayaks, but due to some scheduling glitch there
weren’t enough kayaks in camp for us all to do it. We snorkeled in
the lagoon, instead, which was good exercise. (Since we had just done a
canoe/kayak trip on Sugar Creek the week before, Adam figured that we
could handle the kayaks fine.)
After lunch, it was into the bus for the ride to Key West. The AC in
the bus wasn’t working, so it was a hot ride, but fortunately not
too long.
The Island Mate who did the announcements had apparently been to
Philmont, and did pretty much the same “This is the top of the
bus, this is the side. If the bus rolls over, this side will be the top
and the top will be the side...” routine that we heard at
Philmont, right down to the bit about “an igneous intrusion of
dacite porphyry formed during the Tertiary period 30-40 million years
ago today” on our right (way on our right) known as the Tooth of
Time.
First, we stopped off at the monument marking the southernmost point
in the continental US. (There were lots of signs around:
“Southernmost house in the continental US.”
“Southernmost lemonade stand in the continental US.” etc.)
A few blocks short of the stop, our bus driver announced that we were in
the southernmost school bus in the continental US. As if on queue,
however, another bus went thru the intersection in front of us, just
south of us. (The bus driver claimed that the other bus was faded, so
it wasn’t official.)
We jumped out long enough to get a picture standing next to the
monument. Then, we shuttled into the main part of town for an afternoon
viewing the tourist attractions.
We went thru the “Shipwreck Historium,” a combination
museum and show about the “shipwreckers” who originally
built Key West. It was an entertaining show. The general theme was that
we were all applying for jobs as shipwreckers, and were the targets of
various jabs about our inadequacy for the task.
After the Historium, we split into groups to tour the town. Josh and
I ended up together. We walked up and down the streets, being bemused by
the tourist “attractions.” I must admit, I must be a lousy
tourist, being not at all attracted by the underwear imprinted with
off-color humor, the obscene t-shirts, the kitschy art, the drug-themed
souvenirs. It all struck me as pretty sad. Who buys this stuff?
There were several cruise ships in town, and we stopped to watch one
of them embark. The thing was huge. The whole process of throwing off
lines was fascinating.
From there, we wandered down to the restaurant were we’d
planned (at Adam’s recommendation) to meet for dinner. We were
early, so we killed time watching the fish in the yacht harbor. There
was a small nurse shark, about a 4 ft tarpon moping around, plus a
goodly number of green and red parrot fish. We also saw a number of (I
think) clown fish.
When the crew got together, we checked out the restaurant, and found
that it was a bit pricey for most of the guys’ budgets. Instead we
went to another place nearby (where all of the locals eat, we were
assured), and ate quite well for about half as much. James ordered
“911” chicken wings, against the advice of the waitress, and
was rather in pain as he ate.
After dinner, we barely made it back to see some of the Sunset
Festival. There was a profusion of strange street performers. They were
big on showmanship.
Then, finally, back to the base to shower and start repacking for
tomorrow's trip out to Big Munson Island. That will be the start of the
real Sea Base excitement.
(The guys did a good job of keeping on the sunblock today. There are
a few pink spots, but nothing bad. We’re going to have to be
really careful tomorrow,though.)
An interesting sidelight: I was talking to the leaders from a crew
from Kansas City today. (It’s funny. Most of the crews seem to be
from the Midwest. Kansas. Michigan. Minnesota. Illinois.) They had
planned to fly out and spend two nights in Ft. Lauderdale on the way to
Sea Base. Unfortunately, their tickets were on Vanguard Air, which
stopped flying last Monday.
They had checked around, and the best tickets they could come up
with were $550, compared to the $150 they had paid for Vanguard.
Fortunately, one of the parents had a (new) 8-person van. They rented a
trailer, climbed into the van, and drove straight thru, nonstop, from KC
to Ft. Lauderdale. After one night there (just a couple of blocks from
where we stayed), they made it here. Our trip down was easy by
comparison.
