Where else do youngsters get to cruise the blue Pacific to the Farallon Islands and up local rivers to Sacramento and Napa, all while commanding their own 82-foot ship?

While having loads of fun, Scouts learn how to safely navigate and maintain not only the troop's ship, the SSS Challenger, but also operate sailboats, powerboats and other small watercraft. The troop's members cruise their boats down various waterways, holding work parties, preparing for regattas and drills and working on advancing through the ranks, all while eating and sleeping on the boat.

No boating background is required, just a strong desire to learn and a willingness to operate as a member of a team. Everything else is taught.

"We do pretty much everything, but adults are there to chaperone. It gives us a real sense of responsibility, and everyone's so happy to teach you," says Grant Hendricks of Sunnyvale, a Sea Scout who has been with the ship for seven months. In addition, the Scouts do all of the cooking as well as routine maintenance such as checking the engine while on their two-hour watch, and an adult skipper is aboard to keep everything under control.

"If something goes wrong, they don't yell at you. They may get upset, but they use the opportunity to teach you," Hendricks says. A freshman at King's Academy in Sunnyvale, Hendricks had been a Cub Scout in his childhood, but had only been on a boat on a few occasions before boarding the SSS Challenger as a crewmember. Family connections brought him into the group—his cousin is the ship's boatswain and Hendricks' uncle is an officer onboard serving as a chaperone.

The skipper, Layne Davis, is a sergeant with the Los Gatos­Monte Sereno Police Department. He's been running the ship since 1994 and has been involved in Sea Scouts since 1978.

The SSS Challenger, a former Coast Guard vessel, carried its young crew to the Coast Guard station at Yerba Buena Island for the annual Safety at Sea weekend last October.

After working a full evening doing community service at the Haunted Forest in Los Gatos, the Scouts set sail from their berth in Redwood City late in the evening, arriving at 2 a.m. The weekend was stunning—unusually warm, but crystal clear, with a beautiful view from the shadow of the Bay Bridge.

One of the first activities was a water rescue exercise where the Scouts got into what's called a "Gumby suit." The suit is specifically designed to keep someone afloat and on their back in the event they are unconscious when falling into the water. "It's a little constricting when you jump into the water—all the pressure gets sucked out," Hendricks says. Getting out of the water in the suit is just as difficult. Most land like beached whales, and they're greeted with lots of laughter and cheers.

The Scouts' ship looked inordinately clean in October, the result of a "haul out" last summer during which the ship received a thorough overhaul, as well as an ultrasound check of the bottom followed by the welding of new steel on any thin portions, this in addition to the routine painting done every year. The process took six weeks at Moss Landing.

The annual cost to run the group is about $25,000. This year was a little more expensive because of the haul out, says Skipper Davis. They raise money through dues—$15 a quarter—as well as through fundraisers such as working at Christmas tree lots carrying out trees for customers.

A division of the Boy Scouts of America, Sea Scouts was founded in the United States in 1912—two years after Boy Scouts was founded—and offers girls and boys an aquatic alternative to the outdoor experience. Youngsters join for myriad reasons, including those from traditional scouting programs looking for something different.

"In Boy Scouts, basically we'd load everything into a backpack, hike 2 miles into the woods and then it rained," says eighth-grader Cassidy Cannizzaro of Los Gatos. He's been with the ship nine months and says he's enjoying the experience—not to mention the comforts of a heated bunk on the ship.

There are ranks similar to those in Boy Scouts but with different names: boot, apprentice, ordinary, able and quartermaster—the highest rank and the equivalent to Eagle Scout. Dan Kroman, a junior officer on the ship, achieved the rank of quartermaster and for his project built a 30-foot stairway for the public works department to get up a hill in Los Gatos.

Hendricks is currently an apprentice and hopes to become an engineer, who makes sure the ship's engines are working correctly. "When I was a boot, I asked to go down below deck on night watches. The engineer showed me how to check the generators and refill the day tank," he says. "I can build stuff and get dirty with oil—that's cool." When he achieves a higher rank, he'll be able to take on the new, expanded duties.

Older boys are responsible for the younger ones and take the job seriously. Hendricks' cousin Matt is the ship's boatswain, in charge of all the youngsters on the ship. He is a senior at Oak Grove High School in San Jose and will be joining the Coast Guard after graduation. Usually Matt has around 16 to 20 under his command.

"They are so young and don't know a lot of the stuff, so they need someone to guide them," he explains. He keeps on eye on the group, as there's a tendency for them to goof off a bit, he says.

"Some kids my age do whatever they want and don't care about the rules or other people, but I credit the program with giving me a sense of responsibility," Matt says.

Brad Laeigue, a graduate of Leigh High School, will be joining the Coast Guard this month and training at Cape May, N.J. He's been with the ship two years and assigned to assist the younger crewmembers during a hypothermia demonstration. The exercise involves sticking one's hand in a bucket of ice water and grabbing pennies from the bottom. It's not easy, and the Scouts learn just how incapacitating cold water can be. The expressions on their faces say it all. "The first thing you lose when you get hypothermia is your motor skills," Hendricks says.

One summer activity pitting boys against girls is the fire-hose contest. It's similar to a tug of war contest during which approximately six Scouts on each side hold a fire hose and attempt to push a ball in the middle to the opposing side, using the force of the fire hose. Kailey Elliott, a seventh-grader from Los Gatos, likes this activity best and confesses it was a lot more fun getting the boys wet than winning the contest.

"My brother was in Sea Scouts and it sounded like a lot of fun because they went on cruises and swam," she explains. She's been in the group a year and finds the experience of working as a team with shipmates also helps her in sports.

Her ship, the Morning Star, is also docked in Redwood City, and the group accepts girls from all over the Peninsula. The Morning Star is half the size of the Challenger but big enough for the seven girls participating in the weekend event. They average between five and eight girls on each excursion and learn everything their male counterparts do. Davis was previously in charge of the crew before handing the job over last July.

It's easy to lose sight of the serious nature of boating, but the weekend activities remind the Scouts of the dangers. The damage-control drainage exercise involves a leaky boat with holes on the bottom and the boat filling with water. There are an assortment of rags, wedges and wooden plugs to stop the leaks. In the event an emergency happens at sea, the training from the weekend would help the youngsters respond appropriately—for example, how to properly use a flare in order to sound a warning. "A lot of what we learned in Safety at Sea helps if someone ever needs to go in the water—like if they have to help someone in danger of drowning," Hendricks adds.

These lessons might have come in handy very early in the SSS Challenger's career. The boat was purchased in Southern California, where it was berthed at a naval beach near Santa Barbara. The crew traveled every weekend from February to May of 1998 to work on the ship. It was finished on Memorial Day Weekend, and while the crew was at a competition in Alameda, the adult members went down to pilot it north.

They hit a severe windstorm and it took 42 hours to make it back. Of the nine people on board, only two weren't seasick—the skipper, Davis, who never gets sick, says Kroman, and a 75-year-old Naval veteran. The boat hit 20-foot waves and everyone took turns with six-hour watches while the Coast Guard monitored them the whole time.

The boys have never encountered anything quite like that. But it can get a little blustery on the Bay, and the ship can get knocked around a bit, says ninth-grader Andrew Alexander of Saratoga, who is also in the Boy Scouts and working on his Eagle project.

"We've encountered a lot of wind. Sometimes it's a little crazy, but you get your sea legs and balance yourself out," he says. It can get pretty cold, too, especially while on watch at night.

Alexander remembers a cruise to Napa last year—dazzled by the lights of San Francisco and the rowdy sounds emerging from SBC Park. Yes, he just heard the Rolling Stones concert, and he had the best seat in the Bay Area.

The Sea Scouts meet on Wednesday nights from 7 to 9 p.m. at 41 Miles Ave. in Los Gatos. For more information, visit their website at http://www.kmacorp.com/ship145.html.

Staff writer Allison Rost contributed to this story.