Caribbean Scuba and Sailing Voyage

Prior to going on my Broadreach trip I was a little nervous going into it, not knowing what I was getting myself into and meeting bunch of “strangers.” Little did I know all the instructors and everyone else were so welcoming and kind spirited, I immediately felt a sense of relief and knew I was gonna have the best time. Learning to scuba dive was my favorite part, I always felt so safe and it was just such an exciting and fun thing to do. Also, living on a boat and learning to sail showed me a new side of myself and the world. It taught me to be so great full for the normal Luxuries like unlimited water and internet but also taught me that you don’t need fancy things to live your best life. Exploring all the islands was so cool, I was immersed so many new cultures I had never experienced, and I loved hiking and exploring. The bond I formed with the people around me, is a bond I will never forget, and by the end of the trip I didn’t wanna leave and was ready to come back as soon as I could.

This trip was really fun, but also a bit stressful. For starters, the living situation was rough. It was too hot to sleep in the cabins, so we had to sleep outside, but it rained every night, and it was difficult for all of us to fit under the covered area. My boat had seven people on it, but some had 12, which must have been really cramped! I loved learning to dive and meeting new people, but I felt a little bit unsupported sometimes. For instance, I got this rash (probably due to the fact that you're only allowed 10 seconds of fresh water to shower with), and I wasn't sure who to go to. I guess I could have gone to my counselors, but I would have rather spoken to someone from the support boat. It was kind of frustrating because, even though they were supposed to be there to support us, we never really had a chance to talk to them. I kind of just wanted to call my mom and ask her what to do. I know that all of our counselors and staff were adults and professionals, but I would have felt more comfortable talking to my mom and having her contact support boat for me. We weren't allowed to wash out hands, we could only use hand sanitizer, and we almost ran out before the trip was over. We washed our dishes in the ocean (although we rinsed them off at the end), and if someone used the bathroom while we were doing dishes, we had to wait for a while. Maybe I'm just not cut out for boat life, but I did have a pretty good time.

This voyage was insane! I had so much fun and new friends that I think I got more memories there than in all of my previous camps. If you will ever go on that trip, get some candy to share with your teammates and counselors (if you do that they might even take you on the unplanned night dive :). I had a lot of fun!!!

This trip was amazing!! I loved it so much that I did it twice! Seeing all of the amazing life and islands was insane. Being able to learn how to dive in such a cool place was one of my favorite experiences ever.

The whole trip was so amazing, I loved every second! My favorite part was definitely learning to scuba dive and seeing all of the turtles. It was a little disappointing that we were unable to go to Saba because of a storm but we still had a lot of fun. In replacement for the Saba land day we went to st.Martin and all got Shawarma for lunch. We went scuba diving at least once a day and saw stingray, starfish, urchins, Sandollars, small fish, and even a shark! My favorite dive was one of our last, during this dive we didn’t wear our fins and we were blowing ring bubbles and doing back flips. Overall I though this trip was an amazing experience and I would definitely recommend!

Working with Broadreach was a seamless process that clearly comes from experience. From the administration to the actual trip leaders, we always felt connected and that our child was safe. Our 13 year old came home with more confidence and an excitement for travel. Now that he has completed his level 1 scuba certification, he is ready to get his advanced diving so that he can use it to volunteer in the shark tank at the local aquarium. He made friends from around the world and saw parts of the Caribbean only known to the locals. Thank you Broadreach for taking such wonderful care of our child and opening his eyes to the world.

I went to broadreach during 2021, during a lot of COVID cases. I felt safe and healthy during the camp, and there were tests when we needed them. I also loved the sailing and scuba combination, and I enjoyed most of my time during the camp. I am going back a year later, and am so grateful for all the amazing experiences I had and friendships I'll have for a long time.

She loved the sailing and learned a lot about scuba diving. It was also a good opportunity for her to be on her own without her parents making all the decisions. Things were well coordinated and ran on time.

Message to Broad Reach HYGIENE: First of all, I wanted to thank Broad Reach for the opportunities that were presented during the duration of my 12 day sailing and scuba trip. Sitting here today, I am appreciative that I was able to experience the good and the bad. Unfortunately, the cons deceivingly out weighed the pros. My goal is to keep my review as short as possible, because I am sure that I am not the only person that sees the astonishing amount of flaws fluent in Broad Reach. I chose to attend Broad Reach’s program in order to pursue exploring God’s creation and my interests. Each and every person had their own motives in why they wanted to attend. However, for the people I talked to, each one of them expressed their concerns about the health and well-being of every participant. Approaching and boarding the boat I was highly impressed with how clean and organized everything seemed. Far above my perception, I was rudely awakened with the comment stated on the second day by one of my instructors; “It is Broad Reach, everything breaks”. At first the comment flew over my head and didn’t hold such magnitude. This was until the first occurrence of the human feces and the sewage problem. I speak for everyone when I say it is our job take accountability; however, this was far to long for this to be a students problem. By the fourth day, the smell aboard was horrific to the point where we no longer could stay in our rooms for more than 2 minutes. The smell from the cabin had traveled to the saloon. To put yourselves in our shoes, imagine after a long day, you sit down to eat dinner and all you can fathom and smell is human waste. This is the last thing my parents want to hear and I want to experience after paying thousands of dollars. The sewage problem became so repetitive to the point were one of the instructors had to blow the sewage out of the pipe with an air tank. Like seriously?? These instructors didn’t sign up to blow human feces out of a sewage pipe. Then for me to have to go into my cabin room (shared amongst 5 girls) and clean a pipe leak consisting of a mixture of menstruation blood, human feces and urine off the wall is beyond me. Since there is only one bed for five girls you then have to become creative with how you will sleep. Majority of the boat would sleep on the floors of the kitchen. Which is fine, until you realize earlier that day there was human feces and sewage water all over it. Not once was that floor thoroughly disinfected. With all honesty, since this was part of my Broad Reach experience maybe you should include this in the description before people sign up. This is indefinitely known as false advertisement. FOOD: Changing paths, the ratio between the amount of calories I burned and consumed is drastically higher. I woke up hungry and went to sleep hungry every single day. Scientifically men need to consume more calories than woman (9 men and 6 total women on the boat), so the men needed to consume more of the food. I seriously felt as if I was slowly deteriorating. For the last 12 days I practically lived off of turkey and cheese sandwich’s, Nutella and peanut butter sandwiches. Unfortunately, I can’t recall the the last meal I ate on the boat that consisted of a fair balance of protein, starch’s, and vegetables. Everyone on the boat was constantly hungry, tired, and deprived of valuable nutrients. There were multiple days we I ate Nutella(purchased by one the students) for breakfast and lunch. I skipped breakfast many days because eating off-brand fruity pebbles and warm milk would make me feel more tired than just not eating at all. Three days in a row I vividly remember not eating breakfast. On day 12, all we had left was cheese puffs and stale cheerios for breakfast. One of the instructor’s refused to let us go off the docked boat to get a meal, which resulted in people leaving to eat a some-what nutritious meal because of how deprived of food they were. Many people came up to me and told me how bad there stomach and head was hurting from eating carb filled food for 12 days straight. I experienced headaches like nothing before, because of YOUR chosen diets. It doesn’t take a genius to incorporate nutrients in our daily meals. There can always be room for improvement, but the first step in growing is taking accountability and clearly Broad Reach didn’t do so. SAFETY: Wow, I don’t even know where to start or what to say that can compensate for the amount of times laziness outweighed the well-being of all 12 persons. The amount of times my trip was conflicted against or put at risk because of the pitiful, conscious, and congruent knowledge the instructors held was astonishing. Lets start off with my personal favorite when during our sail back from Saba the girls cabin ceiling fell. Instead of the ceiling being removed from our room for safety reasons, the instructors decided the leave it in there. Even better, after saying for hours they will take it out, they decide the place it in the walk way between our room and there room. This caused us to not be able to close our door for the duration of the trip(even when changing). This perfectly leads me to my other problem. A roll of paper towels was left in our room after cleaning the bathroom floors. As instructed, I was told to wipe the counters down so I went down to our bathroom to grab the paper towels. As I proceeded to step into the bathroom and reached for the paper towels, the bathroom door completely collapsed on me. Yes, at first it was funny; however, we need to look a the potential harm this could’ve caused. If it hit me any harder I could have been left with an injury that could have been prevented if the screw in the door was screwed on correctly. I am completely aware that these boats are not Broad Reach’s, they belong to Dream Yacht. However, these boats are a huge representation of your company. Ergo, you should be completely aware of the recurring problems. I know these problems are reoccurring because an instructor had passed down this information. Read as follows: “We submit list’s regarding the problems but they don’t ever fix them and just send the next group on the boat while knowing about the problems.” Is that how you want your company to be represented? I’ve been on this earth for 16 years and never have I ever heard any company display such disregard to safety, especially with children. DISREGARD FOR VALUABLE HUMAN LIFE: I chose to attend this trip with two of my best friends; whom I care about deeply. Seeing the negligent circumstances my friend was put in was pathetic. I believe it was the sixth day of our trip, when my friend had lost the ability to breath. We were about 40 feet underwater when her air had ran out. There was a malfunction in the SPG. One moment it said 500 PSI left and the next it was 0. There was no time to respond in the life-threatening situation. Fortunately, she was able to do an emergency dissent; however as she reached the surface, she was left with a bloody nose and felt an extreme loss of oxygen. She stated as follows, “I felt really lightheaded as I got to the surface and I realized I had a bloody nose. It wasn’t till one hour did I feel ‘normal’ again”. I am fully aware that accidents happen but this happened to her twice back to back. My friend had consulted with one of the scuba instructors to figure out why she always feels as if she’s gasping for air. She had told her two things, “you are breathing too much” and that “the valve was closed alittle much and/or you had opened it”. That was clearly not the case, and there was more to the story but she was too lazy to handle it. Becuase of her lack and disregard to human safety my friends life was at risk. This is another prime example of child reckless endangerment. I am truly appalled that I would even have to include this in my review. Coming on to this trip Virginia, (from Broad Reach head quarters in Raleigh, North Carolina) explicitly told me safety is their number one priority and never to question their safety because we will always be in good hands and they are very proud of their plans they put in place to keep each one of their students healthy. Virginia, I don’t think this instance backs up your claim extremely well. Maybe you should rethink your boastful and overly confident claim before stating it. TIME AND PLACE: In the last decade, politics have had a huge uprising and finds itself in a lot of conversations, in our present day society. However, there is a time and place for everything and a boat with a bunch of children on it is not a place that it should be occurring on. There was a handful of times where political and religious topics were brought up. No matter what side of the spectrum you stand on, there should never be bashing of another side. I, myself, identify as a Christian and there was multiple times where a student would say “F**k Jesus” on the boat. The counselors would hear it but not do anything about it. This boat is meant to be an inclusive space where people all around the world come with different nationalities, races, religious backgrounds, ethnicities, and all can be treated as one. Unfortunately for me, I did not always feel as if my background morals were being respected. In addition, one of the counselors had brought up how there are many shootings in America. That is true, but you do not bash one’s country and talk down upon it because of an issue that has nothing to do with what I signed up for. Again, there’s a time and place for everything, political/religious conversations have nothing to do with scuba diving and sailing, ergo they should’ve never occurred. The conversation should’ve been shut down right away to avoid offending someone. Unfortunately, the lack of disregard to human morals was absurd. PRIVACY: The female scuba instructor had no regard for peoples private information. There were multiple times when private information such as prescriptions and medical records, were left out. They were not put away in sight, instead, they would sit out and completely open in front of the whole boat. This is extremely disgraceful that the public had access and insight to people medical prescriptions and records. Throughout my review, I try my best to stay consistent and only present the facts. I am writing this so other parents and children can obtain insight on the disgraceful occurrences that happen when participating in a Broad Reach trip. I genuinely want the best for each and every individual and I do not think by participating in a Broad Reach trip will account for your valuable and worthy life. I hope you take in my review with great consideration. Lastly, for you Broad Reach, DO BETTER.

I had such a fun time getting SCUBA certified and learning how to sail. I met people that had became my family for 21 days and that I will remember and talk to for a very long time. I had such a fun time and will never forget this life changing experience.

My trip to the Caribbean was, in short, a life changing adventure. Living out on the water for 2 weeks made me connect with the people around me and further appreciate the beautiful nature and marine wildlife. I was able to witness things while scuba diving that many dream to see, such as sea turtles, nurse sharks, spotted eagle rays, and the overall diverse species of fish. While I do have amazing memories of the sites I saw, more importantly, I cherish the friends I made and the fun times we had together. Right after the first day, the whole group immediately bonded, and every night on the boat we would dance to music and just get to know each other. We became so close, that by the end of the trip we were already planning a reunion. Every day was a new adventure with something fun planned, and if I had the chance to do another Broadreach trip I would do so in a heartbeat.

My mom was in this position of researching how the trip would be and she was concerned she wasn't getting the whole truth about people's reviews towards this since it was the same cliched words. However, she goes back on her word as she lights up when I tell her the amazing experience I had over there. To say this was the time of my life and it is so easy for me to say this because it was. I have a glass bead necklace that I have never taken off since I got back. It’s been on whether it be a formal event or going to the beach for a swim, much to my mom's dismay. Those 21 days in the Caribbean not only introduced me to the most extraordinary 10 people but my family (ohana). There was never a moment on Pom D’ô, our boat, that I wanted to be elsewhere. Screaming glum free on the top of my lungs every chance I got. Making dinner and all of us taking a few moments to watch the sun disappear in the horizon with the explosion of colors coming from it. It was breathtaking; that bright orange glaze that would become the ocean and the swirls of red-blue that would become the sky and later, if we were in Saba, that sky would later reveal the never-ending Milky Way and the awe/silence that would overtake everyone. I met the greatest people on my trip and we all still keep in contact, before I went on the trip I was nervous about it, but looking back I know for a fact that it all disappeared with the first hour of meeting each other and the same goes for everyone ready to embark on a never forgetting journey.

This trip was a great experience especially for my first time being involved with Broadreach. The community and environment for this trip was very positive. The counselors were very engaged with us and were always there to help us learn something new or when we had a questions about something. I had the best time and this trip was awesome! It is a summer to remember! I look forward to doing more trips in the future and having more memories to share.

This trip totally exceeded my expectations! I was so amazed by the underwater world we were able to discover. I learned so much about both sailing and diving. My instructors and other boat mates became like family to me. There were many great leadership opportunities, and we got to learn about island culture and do community service. Every day was filled with activities and fun, there was never a dull moment. Over the 17 days I learned so much about all the friends I made, and most of all I learned a lot about myself. This trip is one of a kind!

Caribbean underwater adventures was one of the best trips of my life! It taught me how to respect the ocean, cultures, and especially my group members which will now be some of my best friends for life! Learning to sail and scuba dive is always a plus because you get to experience the world in a whole new way. All in all this trip was one of the best trips of my life! I also loved the Costa Rica Spanish Immersion, Costa Rica field biology, and Panama eco-adventures trips!

If you haven't travelled with Broadreach before, I recommend this trip to be your first experience. On this trip, you will be exposed to many amazing things - from swimming with sea turtles and sting rays, to rising at 4:00 am for a sunrise hike. A personal highlight for me was the shipwreck dive. It was fascinating to explore the ruins and come face to face with so many different fish. One of the most amazing things I got out of this trip was really connecting with people on the boat. We listened to music and danced and stayed up late talking (even though we knew we had to get up early). It was really hard to leave these wonderful people when it was time to go. Not only will you meet kids your own age, and form friendships that will last forever, but you will interact with truly amazing instructors. I can't emphasize enough how much more you will get out of a 21 day trip over a 12 day trip. That extra week gave us the time to create strong bonds and I really didn't want to leave after three weeks so I can't imagine leaving a week earlier. This trip changed my life and I can't recommend it enough!

I showed up for the program not quite knowing what to expect, but as soon as I met the group at the airport, I felt welcome. As we traveled among the amazing islands, and witnessed beautiful aquatic species and structures, I made great friendships with the diverse array of personalities who accompanied and supported me. I learned about the people I was with, but maybe even more about myself. Even though I was two feet away from my dive buddy, being forty-feet under-water with the light piercing through the surface above and a dull array of matted colors of the magnificent coral structures bellow became a spiritual journey as well. Furthermore, I learned of the complexity and magnificent power of the ocean in a way that cannot be taught in a classroom. I would definitely recommend this adventure! If you are reading this and are on the edge, telling yourself, "Well, maybe but...," just do it. There will be nothing to regret by going, unless you don't like having fun!!

I came on this trip expecting to live on a boat, get some certifications, meet some friends and go home. I left with a new outlook on life. I learned teamwork, cooperation, hard work, humility, respect, and so much more. I will forever have my Broadreach family who I will stay in contact with for years to come. It took me months of being back home after my trip, to begin to understand what Broadreach did for me. Advice I'd give to people considering this trip: Pack more bathing suits than you think, don't bring anything you wouldn't want to go in the ocean, and be open minded.

I don't even know where to start. From the unbelievable dives, the beautiful sights, to the amazing people Broadreach isn't just your everyday camp. From the minute you get there from the minute you leave your day is jam packed with once and a life time opportunities. The people there are amazing, and I still text them everyday. When I show my friends at home pictures from the trip they are all in awe. I can't imagine a better way to spend my summer than at Broadreach.

I cannot stop telling everyone how great my trip to the Caribbean with Broadreach was this past summer. I had the experience of a lifetime. I made so many new friends, all of whom I am still in contact with, and learned so much. My time spent on the Africa was by far one of the best trips I have every been on. The counselors were very knowledgeable and great to be around. They had everything organized, taught us how to sail, and showed us how to properly scuba dive. I am already planning my next summer's trip - hopefully, I can talk my parents into two!!