Adults get up at 7:30 and pack everything up.  Scouts said they’d have breakfast ready at 8:00 am.  At 8:30, the adults wake up the Scouts who rumble that their ‘alarm didn’t go off.’  Their room is an absolute wreck with clothes strewn everywhere, candy wrappers and dive gear all over.  No damage to the room, but it looks like a tornado visited them overnight.  We all pitch in and fix a great traditional eggs & bacon breakfast and then the Scouts begin cleaning things up.  We overbought on food and packed all the extra up and gave it to the motel owners, who told an adult they had some neighbors who needed the extra food, so it went to a good cause.

Considering the state of the room, the adults pitch in to ‘help’ the Scouts clean up their room.  No one would lay claim to the wad of underwear and t-shirts in the bathroom until an adult starts reading their names off the labels, which just goes to show it pays off to label everything!

The motel was gracious to give us a late checkout time for 12:30, which we just made.  After filling the rental cars’ tanks with gasoline, we still had an hour to kill and went to the Sport Fisherman’s Store (a division of Bass Pro Shops) to look around.  Inside is the restored sister-ship to Ernest Hemingway’s fishing yacht.  Only a few purchases and just over hour later, we arrive at Sea Base to find the Brand Van waiting for us with Blake and Chris F. (Paco) frantically putting on their Scout uniforms.  After hellos, an adult asks Paco why his eye is so swollen and he mumbles something about an elbow getting in his way (?).

We unload all our gear and take it to a cabana behind the main building where the Scouts meet their Sea Base Mate, Emily Allen, from Montana.  While Emily told Scouts about Sea Base, the adults checked our crew in.

After check-in, the adults drove to Marathon to return the rental cars at the airport and returned to find the Scouts ready to move into the dormitory.  As soon as everyone could, we changed into swimsuits and took our snorkeling gear with us for that all-time Scout camp favorite: swim check.  Before the check, Emily briefed us on snorkeling so everyone in the crew knew how to be safe.  Without any doubt, the Sea Base swim check at sea level and in salt water was incredibly easier than our last one a month earlier at Camp Alexander in Colorado at 8,500 feet and in fresh water.  Everyone checked out fine and our snorkel test was a simple 100-yard swim from the end of the pier back to shore.

Since we were at the pier, we walked down to look at our home for the next week, all 44-feet of the good ship Dutch Love, and were met by the captain’s wife, China, and her dog.  After brief hellos, the crew trudged back to the dormitory, got a change of clothes and took showers.  Crewmembers were free until flag ceremony and everyone toured the camp and just killed time.

Flag was at 6:20 pm, and we were one of only two troops wearing Class A uniforms.  Everyone else had on his or her crew shirts, or Class B’s.   After flags, the camp does a mad dash for the Quarterdeck and we ended up being last in line, which was okay considering the quality of the food.  After dinner, the Scouts were free until 8 pm and the adults had a meeting with a Staff representative to go over the rules and expectations for the next week.

At 8 pm, the crew walked down the pier to the Dutch Love and met Captain Harman for the first time.  He welcomed us aboard and had us all sit on the aft deck while he gave an hour briefing from the cockpit covering what life on board will be like for the next week, what he expects from the crew and the next morning’s schedule.  He released us just after 9 pm to join the other departing crews for a slide show on the marine life we’d see snorkeling.  Staff members did their best to keep the show entertaining, but a bunch of tired Scouts didn’t make it an easy task.  Their presentation was informative and proved helpful as the week went by.

The slide show ended about 9:30 and we returned to the barracks to pack our sea bags for in the morning.  By 10:00 pm, camp quiet time, we’re all in our bunks and lights are out, even though we’re all excited about what tomorrow brings.

NEXT: Day 5