South Florida kids learn diving and sailing at summer camp in the British Virgin Islands

Jessica Stich looked her last student in the eyes as they said their goodbyes. The two hugged one last time at the end of the ferry dock.

“Have a good rest of your summer,” said the 24-year-old instructor. “And I better see you next year.”

A line of staff members, nicknamed the “Tunnel of Tears,” waits on the dock to send the students on the ferry to the airport. Students cry as they say goodbye to friends and staff with whom they have spent the last three weeks. They were learning how to scuba dive and sail on a boat in the British Virgin Islands. More importantly, they were making friendships that will last a lifetime.

ActionQuest is a summer camp that certifies students ages 12 to 18 in scuba diving and sailing. Around 500 students participate in one of the three different sessions, which lasts for three weeks. Students come from all across the United States, including South Florida.

A small 14-year-old boy in a raggedy red shirt slowly walked down the dock next. He looked out at the bright blue water and dragged his feet in hopes of making time pass more slowly. He was not ready to confront the line of staff members waiting to tell him goodbye. He hugged the staff as he walked down the line.

At the end of that line was Emma Linberg.

The young boy looked at Linberg with tears in his eyes. When Linberg saw him, she started crying, too. He was one of her favorite students this session.

“I’m a sympathy crier,” Linberg. 23, a summer boat skipper and high school teacher from Aventura, said while recounting the encounter. “They are always so sad to go.”

The arrival

Three weeks before that day, the kids arrived at the dock on Soper’s Hole West End in Tortola, largest of the British Virgin Islands but home to only 23,419 people as of the 2020 census. They had all signed up for a summer camp named ActionQuest. The staff that picked them up from the airport told the cab drivers, “Soper’s Hole.” And when they got close they said, “Right there, see all those boats with the matching flags?”

Before the students arrive at the start of every session, Mike Meighan, executive director of Global Expeditions Group, the parent company of ActionQuest, gathers the staff in the upstairs patio of a local bar. Over the years, Pusser’s has become a gathering place for staff meetings. The red Caribbean brick floor has smoothed out over time.

An old wooden bar used to sit toward the back of the patio. After Hurricane Irma came through in September 2017, the bar was torn down, and the upstairs of this local restaurant became more of a gathering place. Pusser’s lets the camp, ActionQuest, part of Global Expeditions Group, use the space at their leisure for large gatherings.

ActionQuest has been around in the British Virgin Islands since the 1980s, and they have fostered a relationship with the local community. Many of the restaurants in Soper’s Hole open up when they know the students will be at the dock. Local grocery store owners and boat captains deliver food to the camp while they sail to different islands.

The upstairs patio of Pusser’s is also one of the only places in West End that can comfortably hold more than 50 people. As Meigan looked out at his staff for the summer of 2022, wind blew through the patio.

“Do what you can to enjoy this one,” Meighan tells his staff. “Take the time if you need it to make sure that you’re decompressing, that you’re making the most of it, but also make sure that you give it back to the students.”

Meighan has been involved with the company since 1995. Now that his kids are teenagers, they attend the camp as students. Meighan says he is just as dedicated as he was when he started. The camp typically has 14 student boats in the fleet.

“It takes a lot of oversight, and I’ve always been very hands-on,” Meighan said in an interview later.

At the start of each session, once the students have all arrived and settled into their prospective boats, Meighan gathers them all in the same upstairs bar where he held the staff meeting.

About 160 students in total sit on the worn brick floors and look up to the director of the camp. Some have been coming for years. Others are experiencing this all for the first time.

Andrew Tsagaroulis, 16, from West Broward High School in Pembroke Pines, is one of those students listening. He looks up at the director while surrounded by other students packed into the small patio.

This is the second time he’s heard this speech.

Tsagaroulis attended ActionQuest last summer and came back for another program. He is getting his Advanced Open Water scuba diving certification this year. He says they learn more than scuba diving and sailing during their three weeks on a boat.

“I wanted to express emotions and have experiences with a whole new set of people,” said Tsagaroulis.

These activities that prompt deep conversation are what make ActionQuest something more than just physical training.

Tsagaroulis says he is aware of the personal growth, or soft skills, that come with living in an enclosed environment with people he has never met. He says the bonding that happens is almost more vital than the physical skills of a new certification.

Some students, like Tsagaroulis, come back year after year, and some even go on to eventually become staff members, like Sydnei Rubin.

Rubin, 23, originally from Chicago, is a recent graduate of the University of Miami. She started scuba diving at 15 while a student at ActionQuest. She went on to get her instructor’s license and now teaches the kids at ActionQuest how to scuba dive.

“Getting back on the dock here I’m brought back to my first summer,” said Rubin. “Mike reads you your boat name, and you’ve got a massive duffle bag, and you’re trying to find a boat that I guess has the name, and I’m so confused…And now, coming back every year, it just feels like I’m coming back home.”

After Meighan’s speech, chatter can be heard all over West End. The students get ready to board.

“Everybody get to their boats!” one of the staff members shouts.

The building that serves as a storage unit is locked up, the inflatable dinghies are brought to their prospective boats, and the ActionQuest dock gets cleaned up.

As each catamaran or monohull leaves the dock, packed with about 12 students and three staff members, the chatter grows quieter.

The fleet will return at the end of the session, three weeks later.

Out on the water

The first day of each session is a sail to Virgin Gorda, an island on the East side of the country. Depending on the wind, it can take all day.

Sydnei Rubin, one of the diving instructors, recalls what it felt like being a student.

“When I was a student, I idolized the staff because they were weird and it was OK to be weird,” said Rubin.

According to other staff members, Rubin plays a similar role for the students, and the other staff, now. Her nickname is Squid or Squid-nei. She is always planning her next prank. More importantly, Rubin always checks in on her fellow staff members.

Stich, another dive instructor, grew up in Sarasota, where she did her basic Open Water scuba diving training and eventually worked her way up to instructor level. After completing her hospitality degree at Ohio State University, she wanted to get back into the ocean.

From eight in the morning until five o’clock, the two prep students for diving, but they say they take care of each other too. If one of them is having a tough day, the other one picks up the slack.

While Rubin and Stich are teaching diving, across the bay, at Mountain Point, Linberg is teaching sailing.

After her first year teaching at ActionQuest, Linberg knew that she wanted to be a teacher. Now, Linberg is a high school AP Biology teacher in Aventura. This also leaves her summers free to be a sail instructor and boat skipper, or captain, at ActionQuest.

The students are one of Linberg’s favorite parts of the job.

“One of my favorite shipmates, Jack, came onto the boat and he was like ‘when do the cleaning people come?’ And I was like ‘Jack! You are the cleaning people! This is your job now.’”

Linberg says the cards they write to each other at the end of the trip make her emotional.

“[Jack] wrote me a card saying, ‘You always encourage me and never give up on me, and it made me realize that I have purpose and value.’”

The biggest change Linberg sees in her students is that they realize they can all be friends no matter where they come from. Even though they might be hesitant at first, by the end of the trip, they’ve made a connection with every person on the boat.

She says she witnesses many of them realize, “When I’m just myself, people love me and accept me for that.”

After the three weeks, many students develop a changed perspective on life. Stich, and Linberg say that is the most impactful aspect of the experience of being on staff.

“You can just tell when they’re leaving the boat and walking off the dock that they are leaving a little bit of a changed person, with a little bit of a different path and a different outlook on life and how they want to go about it,” said Linberg.

But the students aren’t the only ones whose lives are changed by ActionQuest.

A Camp for more than just the students

Along with the pranks and the support of one another comes a close bond among the staff. Just like the students, they live together in close quarters in what can be a high-stress environment.

Instructors say it takes a special type of person to want to live on a boat with 14 other people in a vessel made for eight people and deal with teenagers every day. They also have to teach them real skills. Developing close friendships is almost inevitable.

“These people are like my best friends in the whole world,” said Rubin. “Coming back and getting to work with them every year, and the community that it’s created, is the reason I keep coming back.”

At the end of the summer, once all of the boats are returned to the charter company, the dock is quiet.

As the staff gets ready to go back to their lives on land, goodbyes can be heard across the water.

The staff goodbyes are even sadder than the students. They stand on the dock, just like the students did before them. Instead of a tunnel of tears, there is just a big circle of people standing around, crying.

Stitch and Linberg hugged Meighan for the last time before hopping on to a ferry that will take them to the airport to head back to Miami.

Another staff member could be heard saying, “I know you’ll be back next year!”