Scouting, Volume 68, Number 6, November-December 1980 Page: 48
58, [20] p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Cay Sal Cruise (from page 25)
Sailing through
the Bahamas, Explorers
braved rough seas,
raced porpoises, netted
and ate mackerel.
venture Base first started with Explorer
Dave Pieper while the Explorers were
returning in 1979 from an extremely suc-
cessful Philmont adventure. Also men-
tioned as possible 1980 superactivities
were horseback trips to either Colorado or
the Missouri Ozarks.
By the time Explorers from both posts
voted on the superactivity in November of
1979, there were seven trips to consider.
Three of them—subtropical canoeing,
sailing on the Sea Explorer /, and the
Florida Keys Adventure—were options
available through the Florida Gateway.
Each Explorer who voted was required to
fork over a $ 10 deposit.
The winning trip was the Florida Keys
Adventure, a sailing journey on smaller
ships that remain in the keys. Only six
Explorers initially voted to come. But then
the salesmanship started.
"We do a lot of promoting." said Pier-
son. "Actually the Florida trip was not
hard to sell.'"
No, not really. What happened was that
those who wanted to go began to work on
those who had expressed no interest.
Before long. 10 more had signed up. Since
14 was the limit for the Gypsy—the ship
the posts had reserved -another push for
still more Explorers began. The upshot
was that an additional 12 signed on the
dotted line..
That's when they reserved the Sea Ex-
plorer 1 and began looking around for a
swimming pool in which they could learn
scuba diving. Pierson found a pool at
George Washington University, his alma
mater, in St. Louis. He thinks that the
program capability inventory of a post
should include organizations and institu-
tions as well as people willing to share
their skills.
After dinner the first night out, the
rough weather continued. Most of the
Explorers stayed on deck, watching
lightning leap from storm clouds 50 miles
away. One of them was always at the
wheel, learning to steer a course set by the
captain.
During the middle of the night, those
still awake learned a lesson in practical
seamanship. Webster Robinson, a retired
sea captain who was the second master (as
required by nautical regulations), studied
48
some clouds approaching from behind
and then ordered the professional crew to
lower the jib. the sloop's foremost sail.
Because of his long association with the
sea. he could tell that there was more wind
in those clouds than he needed. "We were
making 10 knots," he explained to the
curious, "and the ship has a hull speed of
8The extra wind in the approaching
clouds could have blown out our sails.
Dropping the jib slowed our speed to 5
knots."
There was no hurry. By 6 A.M. the Sea
Explorer I was laying off Bimini. After a
check by Bahamian customs officers
several hours later, the Explorers went
ashore. They ate. bought T-shirts, swam,
and roared around on rented motor bikes.
At 2 P.M. they sailed toward Turtle Rocks,
where an old World War 1 ship, the
Soponica, had run aground. On the way
there, someone caught a cero mackerel.
Captain Robinson cleaned it on the spot,
and Captain Temeyer's wife. Jeannie,
cooked it immediately. The Explorers
gulped it down.
Quickly the snorkelers got into the water
when the anchor was dropped at the
Soponica, a ship made of concrete. Led by
divemaster Don Myerscough, a former
member of the male post now a Florida
schoolteacher, the scuba enthusiasts final-
ly got in the water. Everyone was duly
impressed by its clarity.
After the plunge, John Cole had a few
words for the Explorers. Did they want to
go on south to the Cay Sal Bank, a famous
fishing shoal about 100 miles away? The
bank, he explained, was ringed with unin-
habited islands dotted with white sand
beaches flanking some of the cleanest
water imaginable. The big disadvantage
was that they would have to run all night
through seas that might be every bit as
rough as the first night.
"No," cried those stricken by serious
seasickness, and the consensus seemed to
be not to subject them again to the rigors
of wind-tossed water. Why not hang
around Bimini. which was not wilderness
but had adequate scuba and snorkeling
water?
The matter seemed settled, until the
girls sat around the dining table in the
main salon and began to talk. Before the
Explorers had left the high adventure base
they had unanimously voted to sail to the
Cay Sal Bank.
"I still think we ought to go," declared
Sharon Anderson. "Besides, we didn't take
a real vote."
In 10 minutes the girls had polled the
boys and were convinced that the majority
wanted to go to Cay Sal. So they called for
a vote, and a majority chose to sail to the
new destination.
Once the decision was made. Captain
Temeyer immediately got underway, for
the time from Bimini to Dog Rocks at
the northeast edge of Cay Sal Bank was
about 10 hours. As the Sea Explorer I
sailed along the western edge of Great
Bahama Bank, an evening rain began to
fall. Storm clouds gathered on all sides.
Occasionally, a flying fish raced along-
side, and a school of porpoises flashed
briefly in the darkening water.
Most of the night the ship cruised
through smooth water, and, except for the
L
Hey, Dad! Your first steel-belted radial!"
November/December 1980 Scouting
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 68, Number 6, November-December 1980, periodical, November 1980; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353610/m1/60/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.