I’m sure some in Troop 58 thought we’d never make it to a High Adventure base, but I’m here to tell you – we did! What an amazing adventure, in the truest sense of the word. The photos above barely scratch the surface of our Sea Base “Out Island Adventure,” which was surely the most arduous experience of most of our attendees’ lives. Our week on Big Munson Island was equal parts austere, beautiful, odoriferous, fun, exhausting, and a source of equal parts team stress & team-building.
Even your crusty old Scoutmaster was surprised at the challenges and rewards we experienced 6 miles off the coast of the Florida Keys…by the way – paddling a man-of-war canoe that far in open water, loaded down with all of your gear for the week, is not easy! Where to start – learning to “use the facilities” in an open-air fashion (CTS, anyone?), turning SPAM into a delicacy, dodging vacacoons & key deer (Is that Steve? I thought I just saw him over there…wait – how many Steves are there?), counting beads of sweat rolling down your body all night long because it was too hot to sleep, doing your best Shawshank Redemption impersonation whenever a random rain shower blew through to rinse the salt off, tasting the freshest tuna and mahi ever that had just been caught by a fellow scout (who knew fish eyes taste chalky?), swimming in 1400′-deep water, having to swim back through the mangroves due to a kayak that sunk, snorkeling at night with underwater flashlights, catching a shark, and oh yes – the sargassum! Yuck. Seriously – yuck. Clearly, I could go on and on! I think we were all surprised at how physical discomfort and exhaustion changed the fabric that binds us together. No one lost sight of the Scout Oath and Law, but a few came close…just another dimension of the value of spending a week at a High Adventure base where there are few comforts and plenty of creatures (did anyone get that play on words?).
It seems like just yesterday that we were starting the detailed planning for this year’s Sea Base trip in August of 2018, and now we’re in the same mode for 2020’s Northern Tier trip. We’ll have some different scouts with us in 2020, and some of our older scouts will have aged out by then, but I’m sure the lessons – and adventure – will be similar. I don’t know if we’ll say “Ladies & Gentlemen – we got him” over and over or with as much force at Northern Tier 😉 …but I’m guessing there will be plenty of other sayings, jokes, and memories of a lifetime. As they say…if you don’t know, you don’t know…just ask anyone from Troop 58 wearing a Sea Base patch what that means.