Sea Base

The Florida Sea Base is a high adventure Boy Scout camp located in Islamorada, Florida. The base offers multiple different activities such as sailing and scuba diving. On July 24th, 2019, Feelix, Zigzem, Lm1xb, Cotton621 and Gene set out from their home state of Ohio to Florida to embark on a week long scuba diving trip at the Florida Sea Base.

## Beginning

The prospect of going to Sea Base was discussed as early as January 2018, as sign-ups for the trip were years in advance. Feelix, Gene, and Lm1xb signed up first. At that point, Zigzem and Goombario had no plans to attend, and, eventually, the final spot was filled up. However, Feelix's father dropped out of the trip and allowed

for Zigzem to attend, as it would be better for more Scouts to go. Finally, on June 6th, 2018, all of the Crusaders, minus Goombario, were signed up and were nearly ready to go. The Sea Base Five had come together. All that remained was to learn how to scuba dive. All the attending members signed up for a scuba diving certification class starting later that month. The classes would be each Tuesday for seven weeks*.* After completing all the classes, they would be required to complete four dives demonstrating their skills. Before attending Sea Base, Zigzem posted a picture in the Duckpond that he had acquired a GoPro camera. Lm1xb stated that "We better get a scuba vlog" to which Zigzem agreed.

### The Classes and Certification Dives

One of the main requirements to attend the camp was to be a certified scuba diver. In order to achieve the certification, one must participate in multiple classes and diver training activities. Once completed, four open water certification dives must be completed to demonstrate the skills that had been learned. Lm1xb, Zigzem, Feelix, and Cotton621 attended the seven-week long course. Gene was not present for these classes, as he already had his scuba certification; He and Goombario had gone to Sea Base a few years prior.

The classes began on June 26th 2018 and consisted of a short lecture period at the start where quizzes would be taken over the material that had been assigned to read and then be followed by driving to a nearby pool to participate in diver training. Once the course was completed, Lm1xb and Zigzem completed their certification dives on August 11th and 12th 2018 in a quarry in Ohio. The remaining Sea Base Five had to complete theirs at a later date.

## Sea Base

### Day 1, July 24th

Sea base began with an early morning. The Sea Base Five met at a nearby church at 6:45 AM where they would carpool to the airport. Their flight left form the Cincinnati Airport at 8:15 AM and would arrive in Fort Lauderdale by 11:00 AM. Once at the airport, the members reunited and made their way to their gate. While going through TSA, Gene's hat had mysteriously disappeared and was never seen again. They arrived at the gate with time to spare, so they spent it playing Super Smash Brothers Ultimate on Lm1xb's Nintendo Switch. During this time, Feelix also discovered that he could no longer livestream on his YouTube Channel. Smash Brothers was commonly played on the trip, usually with Cotton621 winning each round.

While on the plane, Lm1xb read The Brother's Karamazov, Feelix watched The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot, Zigzem watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and Cotton621 watched Alita: Battle Angel. Once the plane had landed, Feelix began to clap, to which Gene immediately reprimanded him. They made their way through the airport and into a large van that would take them to Sea Base about an hour away. While on their way, Lm1xb, Zigzem, and Cotton621 played more Smash Brothers, as well as Kill la Kill If. They stopped at a Burger King on the way to the camp for lunch. In Zigzem's vlog, he erroneously says they stopped at a McDonald's.

Once at the camp, they exited the vehicles, set their luggage on a table outside, and headed into a building for a short orientation where they met their dive instructors. After the orientation, they were given a tour of the camp. Surrounding a small cove, there was a large mess hall and outdoor dining hall. In an elevated building above the dining area was a gift shop. To the right was a large pool that was used as a training area for divers, not for free swim. Across a field was the dorm area and a concession stand. Once inside the dorm building, the Sea Base Five discovered they would be separated into different treks. This meant they would sleep in different rooms and have different dive instructors. Zigzem, Gene, and Feelix were in a room together, while Lm1xb and Cotton621 were in the adjacent room.

After the orientation and tour, they had some downtime. There were cornhole boards and a Ga-Ga pit set up that they made use of. Later that evening after dinner, they played cards near the concessions after which they headed to bed. Zigzem asked the attending Crusaders to rate that day, Feelix gave it a 6/7, Gene gave it an 8/10 and Lm1xb gave it a 10/13.

### Day 2, July 25th

Each day of Sea Base began around 7:30 AM, where everyone would wake up, head to a morning flag ceremony, and then after participating in various short games to see who could be in line first, they ate breakfast. After flags the Sea Base Five went up to the pool to practice their diving skills once again to prove to their dive instructors they were capable divers. Out of the pool they headed to a shoreline to test their buoyancy in the saltwater. Once finished demonstrating their skills they headed to lunch.

After lunch they began to prepare for their first dive. They all boarded a boat that would take them out into the ocean where their dive site would be. The dive location they arrived at was named Pillars The water was comfortably warm and the water crystal clear. During the dive Cotton621 began having trouble getting his ears to equalize, so he and Lm1xb had to ascend earlier than the others. This was the only dive they had that day as the first half of the day was reserved for the skills testing.

After the dive they headed back to camp where they continued their usual evening actions such as playing cards and video games.

### Day 3, July 26th

Once again bright and early the Sea Base 5 took part in the morning flag ceremony and breakfast. Lm1xb rated the break fast an Egg/Sausage a Honey Nut Cheerios/Frosted Flakes. Cotton621 rated it a Scrambled Eggs/Sausage. Gene rated it a Cheddar Cheese/Sausage. Feelix rated it Terrible/Sausage, and Zigzem rated it a Milk/Sausage .

This time, instead of eating lunch at the camp, the group made their lunch before leaving on the boat and put it in a cooler to take with them as they would be leaving much earlier than yesterday. Instead of only one dive they would have two. They boarded the boat and set off for the dive site named Davis. On this dive there was a small Buddha statue with a Bicolor Damselfish named Sparky living in it. Whenever anyone got close to the statue Sparky would emerge and attempt to drive them away.

The second dive the group headed to was named Davey Crocker. It was on this dive that the group saw their first shark, there were many Nurse Sharks all over.

On this dive they also practiced navigation. One person would hold a compass while the other swam a certain distance. They would do this back and forth a number of times for practice. Afterwards they headed to a different location where they snorkeled for the remaining time at sea. The group enjoyed jumping off the boat and attempting to do flips.

Once they returned from the dive they went to a presentation on Project AWARE, an organization with the goal of preserving the coral reefs, after that they headed to dinner and then bed once again.

### Day 4, July 27th

This morning was Gene's birthday. He was now 19 years old. To celebrate the occasion Feelix gave him multiple custom made Yu-Gi-Oh! cards that referenced many memes and lore in the Duckpond. It was this day when many of the members began playing Pokemon Go as there were multiple PokeStops, and Gyms at the camp.

This day the group went on an additional dive instead of their normal two dives a day. They would have an extra night time dive where they would be equipped with flashlights and a small beacon light on their backs.

The first dive of the day was at Rocky II. During this dive there were many large schools of fish all over, much more than at any other dive site so far. Their second dive was at Rocky Top, during this first dive multiple people saw a Bonnethead Shark. Once again the group went to a different area to snorkel for a short time. During the boat ride back to camp, one of the dive instructors leaped off the boat in order to test our awareness if anyone actually did fall overboard.

While the group was waiting to board the boat for the night dive later that evening, dark clouds began to gather which began to worry many of the members as the chances of rain were increasing. Despite this the group boarded the boat, a few members also drank shots of coffee to help keep them awake. On the ride to the dive site the clouds parted and the group got to witness the sunset over the ocean.

Down in the dark water, the current had been picking up. This current made it difficult to stay on course with our group. This resulted in multiple people from a separate boat accidentally joining the Sea Base 5's group of divers. This wasn't discovered until everyone had returned to the boat and there were multiple new people aboard. Once everything was sorted out the boats headed back toward camp in the pitch black. While heading back toward camp the members could climb up a ladder to a small upper area of the boat and watch the stars. Once back everyone was understandably tired and quickly headed to bed.

### Day 5, July 28th

Every member was noticeably more tired than usual this morning due to their lack of sleep the previous evening. During breakfast many of the members began to voice their disappointment in the breakfast being the same everyday. Once again they boarded their boat and set off. Their first dive was at Conch Reef, and the second was at Conch Mini. During these dives the water was much colder.

Once back at camp the attending members were tasked with cleaning the restrooms of the dorms. After that they headed to dinner. During dinner a large thunder storm hit the camp and the members were trapped under the roof of the outdoor dining area as it was dangerous to run out into the rain. Eventually they migrated inside to the mess hall for refuge. After the weather cleared, Lm1xb, Feelix, and Zigzem all headed to the dorm to watch the final episodes of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Wind, that was airing that day. Afterwards they discussed the episodes in length until it was time for bed once again.

### Day 6, July 29th

Once again the Sea Base 5 awoke bright and early. They attended flags and breakfast as normal. Now that it was later in the week Zigzem had used up a large portion of his remaining storage on his phone. It would frequently have a server error causing him to lose some footage he had filmed for the vlog. To fix this he began to delete nearly everything off of his phone to make room.

They set out on the boat once again. This time they were going to the wreck of the Benwood, a ship that was used as target practice for the U.S Army and eventually sank. This was the farthest dive they went to, the boat ride being well over an hour. At the dive site they descended into many large schools of fish swimming all throughout the wreck. This dive had them descend to the deepest point in all of their dives, nearly 40 feet. Due to the depth we had to make a safety stop on this dive when ascending. The next dive was at Molasses reef which was a picturesque reef with a large amount of coral and sea life. Once back at camp they headed to the gift shop to buy shirts for the upcoming Luau as well as some other souvenirs.

### Day 7, July 30th

This was the final full day at the Sea Base camp. Because you shouldn't fly soon after diving there was only one dive this day earlier in the

morning. Once back at camp the group would attend the Luau, an event where a special dinner was served, games were played, and skits were performed.

Their final dive was somewhat different than the previous. Their normal dive instructors were switched to two new people and the weather had begun to worsen.

While under the water an alarm began to ring from the boat to signal everyone to return to the surface due to the weather. Once back at camp they practiced for the Torture Dance they planned to do during the Luau. Although they chickened out from doing the dance in front of everyone, they still were able to perform it on camera to a certain degree of success. The group all took part in the various games that had been prepared as well, such as Tug of War, Cornhole, and Limbo. That evening they watched the sunset over the ocean as their Sea Base trip came to a close.

### Day 8, July 31st

That morning the group awoke to finish packing their stuff and headed to the airport. On the drive to the airport, Lm1xb downloaded the new Smash Brothers DLC character: Hero. Lm1xb, Ziggy, and Cotton621 fought each other in game with the character and quickly realized how overpowered he was. This time their flight wasn't a direct flight, there was a connecting stop. While waiting for the flights Gene taught Lm1xb and Ziggy how to play YuGiOh. While heading to the gate for their connecting flight, Cotton621 was separated from the group when he missed the tram. Lm1xb ventured back to try and find him. Eventually they reunited with the group in the most emotional scene of the entire trip.

The group split up once again to ride in the same cars back to the church where they first met. They reunited for the final time of the trip at the church while they waited for their ride back to their homes. They all said goodbye as they slowly left one by one. They left with the great memories they had made, meanwhile in the shadows a new evil force was on the rise.

## The Sea Base Vlog

As mentioned earlier Zigzem filmed much of the trip and planned to edit the footage to make a high quality vlog in multiple parts. 5 parts have been released to date, each of high quality and well edited.