4 years ago
Our Seabase experience was mediocre, interspersed ...
Our Seabase experience was mediocre, interspersed with moments of greatness. The Seabase facility itself was fine - clean and well organized (an important detail, given the numbers of scouts that pass through on a daily basis). The food, however, was blah at best and awful on occasion. Our first dinner at base was beef stew straight from a can, with a side of limp vegetables. We were hoping that was a fluke, but our second dinner on base was...beef stew. It was so bad that the running joke became that if you got out of line, your beef stew ration would be cut. Or doubled. Breakfasts were better, but not by a lot. But you don't go to Seabase for the food.
Base staff was generally helpful, if often morose. Our mate Pablo was the exception to the rule, cheerful, happy to be present, and generally pleased to be working there. The rest of the staff was a study in long sighs, bored expressions, and lack of enthusiasm. The galley staff in particular were nearly impossible to engage with, causing me to try an ever more forceful "Good morning" in an attempt to verify their humanity. But again, that's not why we came to Seabase.
Our sailing experience (we did the Coral Reef Sailing program) was awesome, thanks to the attention of Captain Martini. He related well to the scouts, pushed them hard but congratulated them when they succeeded, and went out of his way to ensure they had a great experience, even to the point of supplementing the prolific but boring groceries supplied by base, purchasing basic essentials like bacon (what scout trip is complete without bacon?!), extra fresh fruit,etc. with his own money. Other crews in our troop did not fare so well, ending up with captains that were aggressive with the scouts, belittling them regularly, treating them badly in general, and decreasing their enjoyment of the trip, rather than adding to it. Each captain returned safely with the number of scouts he left with, but my impression was that these men had no training in how to handle young men. Additionally, we had been sold on the idea that this experience involved a scout-led component where the scouts chose where to sail and what activities (sailing, snorkeling, fishing) were on the agenda, and then crewed the ship accordingly. This was most true on the Green Olive with Captain Martini, where the boys made those decisions with his input and provided the crew to achieve those goals. Other ships were told what their agenda would be, the motor was cranked, and they motored from one spot to another with little sailing (and therefore, little crew activity) involved.
My only other gripe involved midweek - we docked halfway through the trip to refuel/resupply. We docked about 2...and then sat bored at seabase through the evening, hours broken up only by dinner (beef stew!). The base had a rec center of sorts, with giant versions of checkers, jenga, etc, but you don't come to Seabase to play board games. We then spent the night tied up at the dock, fulfilling the promised number of nights on the boat, but not what I would consider on the water. We could easily have come into port am hour later, resupplied and eaten our beef stew, and been back in the Atlantic by nightfall.
Overall, our experience was a positive one, and I'm glad we did it. Given that Seabase doesn't let you pick your captain/boat, though, I won't come back, simply because my sampling of 3 boats (out of, given, about 40) gives a 67% chance of a captain with a bad attitude, which on top of the program's other faults, makes the trip not worth the investment.
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