Palau

“Give them a week they will remember forever” is not just a catchy tagline. It is a true sentiment of the memories you make on Kids Sea Camp trips.

If you had told me at eight years old, on my first Kids Sea Camp trip, that twenty-ish years later I would be bringing my nieces to their first sea camp to learn how to scuba dive and explore the wondrous magic of the ocean, I would have said that was crazy. It’s not something I could have conceptualized as a kiddo in Honduras. Ahhh, Honduras, where the story almost began. Let’s back up a bit…

Picture this: a husband and a wife who were both certified scuba divers before ever meeting each other, both with a passion for the sea and the creatures it carries. Throughout their early days of marriage, they scuba dove together without a care in the world. Then, enter stage left, three energetic kiddos. Did my parents still long for the ocean and love traveling after having us? Of course. Did they think they could make a scuba diving trip work with three kids under ten? To quote my beloved mother, “Who were we supposed to leave you guys with? Someone on the beach?”
Here is where the genius and family focus of Kids Sea Camp get to shine. One glorious day, about twenty years ago, my dad saw an ad in DAN’s Alert Diver for Kids Sea Camp and ended up booking a trip to Anthony’s Key in Roatan. The butterfly (fish) effect of that decision has impacted my life and my family’s in ways I can only attempt to capture in writing.

I am eight years old, boarding the plane to Honduras, bouncing with anticipation. What will the island look like? How will the water feel? Will there be any kids my age? Am I going to see a real-life mermaid? I’m wearing a yellow Kids Sea Camp shirt with a seahorse on it and the red KSC hat that came in the care package Margo sends before each trip. I have my flip flops on and an airplane snack pack full of goodies my mom packed to make the travel day even more special. My parents are snuggled in the row beside us, with Dad reading a book he picked up about the local flora and fauna. My twin baby brothers are next to me, playing thumb wars. I look out the window and watch the sea shift from a deep, dark, moody blue to a light, vibrant aquamarine. We are approaching paradise.

Roatan was the dream I had hoped it would be on that plane ride: swimming with real-life dolphins, playing games on the beach, trying new and delicious fruits, making artwork of sea critters, and an island treasure hunt where I walked away with the prize of a lifelong best friend and a family I consider my own.
Quin Severo was the kindest kid I could ever hope to meet, and she was imaginative, silly, and so fun to play mermaids with. I thought I was lucky just to meet her. Imagine my surprise when she told me she also had younger twin siblings, Max and Sydney, who were just as kind, quick to laugh, and ready for adventurous shenanigans as their big sister. Long story short, once the six of us kiddos met, we were inseparable. Her family and mine became two peas in a pod, even coining ourselves the “Severetts,” a blend of both our last names.

Quin and I were dive buddies on every trip, and wherever we were in the world, we’d find a dock to share our secrets and our dreams under the shooting stars. On the Sam’s Tours dock in Palau, we stayed in the water an extra hour while everyone else ate dinner, trying to catch a glimpse of the colorful mandarin fish that lived underneath it as the sun was setting. And I always loved when we got each other laughing so hard underwater that the seal on our masks would break and start leaking.

Max and Sydney were right in the middle of it all. I’ll never forget Sydney’s first hike ever, in Fiji, in her little red glasses and rainbow straw hat, with a backpack packed with every snack and supply she could fit. It was maybe a twenty-minute walk, but she took that walk as seriously as an expedition, and her joy was contagious. Max was always in his Lakers jersey, and after an intense session of Marco Polo, he and the boys would eat ice cream in the pool. I have such a clear memory of the three of them sporting ice cream mustaches above their cheesy grins.
Then there was the one dive that was pure magic, and it involved all six of us. We took off our fins underwater and did party circus tricks, ran along the sand pretending to be astronauts on the moon, and got the zoomies underwater. Above the surface, it was just as silly: riding the boat in Little Cayman, catching serious air and getting the giggles on our ocean rollercoaster, playing made up on the spot pool games, and laying out in the sun together.

The adventures, the core memories, the growth, the fun, and the love that have blossomed since I met Quin, Max, Sydney, and their parents all those years ago are something I am eternally grateful for. Every year, I was SO excited waiting for summer to roll around so I could see them and pick up right where we left off. Thank you to my Mom and Dad, to Janet and Pat Severo, and to Margo and Kids Sea Camp for bringing us together. How lucky are we to have crossed paths with a family who melted into ours in the most destined of ways?

The Severos are in a category all their own, but the magic didn’t stop with them. Over the years, there have been so many families and people on these travels that you can’t help but love and want to see again (The Wakelys, Aunt Jen and the Witteks, the Sulleys,the McClures, Haan and Dave, and Peytons, I’m looking at you!). Kids Sea Camp has a way of connecting you: to new people, new cultures, new marine life, new perspectives, and a new way to live your life. It’s an environment that makes it so fun to step outside yourself and learn about the world around you.

I am endlessly grateful to my parents for showing us how much wonder our planet holds. Sharing that world with us through these trips taught my brothers and me lessons no classroom ever could. Getting out to new places far from home, meeting the people there, and seeing the beautiful creatures who live in these diverse environments expands your lens and shows you how little you know about this magnificent earth we live on. I learned biology from manta rays and nudibranchs, culture and connection from playing rugby with the locals in Beqa Lagoon, and the importance of protecting the marine ecosystem and our sharks from meeting the president of Palau.

Kids Sea Camp helped me build skills, expand myself, and make lifelong connections. It taught me to come from a place of curiosity and optimism, because you truly never know who you are going to meet, or what new experience you might discover. It taught me to keep my heart open to people who grew up very differently than I did, to ask questions about the things I don’t understand, and to care about my fellow people, all living creatures, the oceans, and the world we share.

Some of my most beloved and sacred childhood memories were made on these magical trips: coming face to face with a blue-ring octopus, thresher sharks, and whale sharks. An epic basketball tournament in the Philippines. Bioluminescence on a night dive in Indonesia. Celebrating getting certified in Fiji with my mom and dad. White water rafting in Costa Rica with my big sister Britney. The smell of frangipani flowers (makes for a great homemade perfume). Kids’ pizza movie nights while the parents went on night dives. Collaborating with my brothers on a poem for the end-of-week poetry contest. The warm wind in my hair on the boat ride back from a dive. Learning how to protect our precious coral reefs. Drift diving Ulong Channel with Quinnie, which literally looked like a scene out of Finding Nemo. Living out my dream of living on a boat on the Arenui. Jellyfish that don’t sting you at Jellyfish Lake in Palau. Blowing bubble rings underwater (if you know you know). Singing Fergie hits on karaoke night with new pals. Beach volleyball with Tom and Big Ben. Diving with my parents for the first time and realizing how skilled they are. And getting to spend quality time with my family, experiencing a new place and way of life together. I could go on forever about the joy, human connection, and lifelong impact these travels have had on me and my family, but I think you’re starting to get the picture: it’s beyond epic.

So imagine my full-circle joy when, this year, I got to watch my three nieces, Loralie, Evelyn, and Hazel, step into the same story. My mom and dad took our whole family, which now includes those sweet, wild-child girls, to Kids Sea Camp in Bonaire, and I got to see it all through their eyes.
It started on the very first day. The girls were bursting with questions. Who am I going to meet? What are we going to do? Who will be my teacher? Will I see a real life mermaid? I knew those questions by heart. They were the same ones I had asked on the airplane to Honduras, bouncing in my seat with anticipation, twenty years earlier. I looked at them and thought, that was me.

Then came the afternoons. The grown-ups would surface from a dive, salty and happy, and there the kiddos would be, waiting for us, ready to report! They had spotted a parrotfish in the wild. And they learned what they could do to protect coral reefs. Someone had a shell she couldn’t wait to show us. And there was the pride of a kid whose parents saw her in scuba gear in the ocean for the first time. In between all of that there was fun chaos to be had at the donkey sanctuary, karaoke performances that will go down in history, and everyone’s new favorite activity we didn’t know existed; blokarting. In the evening we would all have dinner as a family as the sun was setting over the ocean, and recap upon all the excitement that was had that day.

On our last night in Bonaire, my nieces ran up and down the beach playing tag with kids from other families, friends they had made in just a few days. And the next morning, I watched the same girls say their teary goodbyes. Big emotions, because it is hard to say goodbye, even for now, to such special people, places, and experiences. I knew that feeling too. It’s the same one that made me count the months until summer so I could see the Severos and pick up right where we left off.

There was nothing more sweet than watching my parents, my sister, my brother-in-law, my little brothers, and now my nieces become one with the ocean, looking so free, weightless and joyous. There is an unspeakable beauty in the shared, precious moments Kids Sea Camp sets the stage for. Moments you will be grateful your whole life for. It expands your soul and helps you fall in love with the world, its oceans, and its people. It is a blissful bubble, as Tom Peyton tells us, a bubble of love and light and curiosity and stewardship of the sea that brings us together, an oasis not just in its locations but in the people, the energy, and the connections you get to open your heart to along the way.

To Margo: thank you for turning your wonderful concept into an enchanting reality that has deepened so many people’s lives. To my parents: thank you for taking that leap of faith twenty years ago to explore the world with your kiddos. and for continuing to choose adventure in the years since then.You gave our whole family not just weeks we will remember forever, but people we will love forever and places we will cherish forever. The open-mindedness, compassion, and wonder you planted in us will always be a part of who we are. And to think that eight-year-old me, staring out the plane window at the changing blue of Honduras, now gets to watch my nieces begin the same story. It doesn’t get more full circle than that.