Splashdown!

Alex Coolman

With her little, wet head poking out of an enormous orange life vest,

10-year-old Nicole Colgrove almost resembled a young turtle that had

somehow climbed its way from the harbor onto the dock at the Boy Scout

Sea Base.

Nicole was shivering, her tiny arms wrapped around her body, but she

was smiling.

“It’s cold,” she noted. “But there’s a couple of warm spots.”

Nicole was taking a momentary break from her busy routine Thursday as

she and about 140 of her youthful colleagues from the Stanton Community

Center partook in a free community outreach effort. The day was a joint

production of the sea base and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

And though Nicole maintained that swimming was the most pleasant

activity to be experienced on this sunny afternoon, opinions on the issue

differed widely.

“I liked the tug of war,” asserted 9-year-old Karen Velarde.

Meanwhile, Amanda Cagle, 10, maintained that making “gecko key chains”

out of beads was the most sublime experience.

“A gecko is like a lizard,” Cagle pointed out, nodding sagely.

Whatever the absolute coolest activity was, the Stanton children

seemed entertained by the range of options -- from canoeing to sailing to

engaging in an occasional hose fight -- available at the sea base,

located off West Coast Highway. And that was the point of the

organization’s efforts, said sea base director Bill Mountford.

“This particular community center doesn’t even have a pool,” he said.

“They don’t get in the water, they don’t get boating and things like

that.”

For this week, though, the kids have been exploring everything the

ocean has to offer.

It’s only the first time this year that the sea base has opened its

doors to kids from inland communities, but Mountford said he hopes this

kind of thing can become a more frequent affair.

“We’re trying to head toward where we can get community centers being

able to use the facilities” on a regular basis, he said.