X-TREME December 2006.
THE BEGINNING
Five years ago Nick Powell and myself were sat in my living room having a beer one Sunday evening when Nick was talking to me about Survive X; a 24hr survival challenge weekend run at Air Cadets. I said to Nick that I would like to run a survival challenge at Sea Scouts for the older members in the Troop but it had to be extreme; no food, rationed water and the Sea Scouts would have to build a shelter to sleep in over night. With that in mind we dropped the E from Extreme and instead we took the X from survive X to make what we have come to know as
THE X-TREME CHALLENGE
DECEMBER 2006
Three of the Patrol Leaders Billy White, Will McEntegert and Isaac Nunn signed up for this years X-treme challenge!
We met up at the Sudbury HQ at 20.00hrs on Friday 8th December 2006 followed by a bag search and briefed on what was expected from them now they were part of a special task force.
After the briefing they were told to get some sleep as they would not know when they would be called into action. As part of a training session they were woken up at 11.20 on the Friday night, told they had ten minutes to get their kit ready and meet down stairs outside the front of the Quay Theatre. They had to complete a stealth mission before heading in to their headquarters. Time for sleep again after being told that they would have one more training sessions before the X-treme challenge starts.
At 06.45 the team were woken with the sound of the alarm ringing they only had 05 minutes to go. You need to meet with your agent in the car park and drive off to the drop zone. They were told if they want their breakfast roll they needed to be at their RV within 1hr or it goes in the bin. They made it with 10 minutes to spare.
X-Treme commenced at 08:00 when they were then driven to Brightlingsea in Essex.
The team joined me on Bri-sail 3 a 5.5 metre RIB from Brightlingsea Sailing Club (BSC). We were on patrol in the River Colne looking for boats being used by the terrorist cell. Nick Powell along with some Explorer Scouts were on board Bri-sail 2 one of the other RIB’s owned by BSC. Over 1 hour went by with no sign of the other boat. During this time the Sea Scouts got to drive the RIB, and picked up new skills in power boating. Then it happened! They spotted the other RIB and were soon engaged in a high speed chase on the river. Sadly the cell got away from us and we needed to change our plans.
I made a call to a friend and arranged to drop the team off on Mersea Island. He met them on the beach and then drove them to Marks Tey Railway Station. They boarded a train to the village of Bures on the Suffolk & Essex border of which the River Stour forms part of it. We had an agent working undercover and was on the train with the team. Once in Bures, James came forward and told the team that he knew a safe place they could hide up until we gained more info. on the cell. The safe site is also known as the Croft camp site in Suffolk.
The Sea Scouts then had to build a raft, which could also be used as their shelter, as a flood threatened at any time. When this had been done they got some well earned sleep.
A message from their agent woke them. Their kit had been dropped at the wrong point so they had to go and retrieve it from the village centre. When all kit had been retrieved they continued to sleep. Later in the evening they were woken once again and told to evacuate. The quickest route was across river which they did using an open canoe, and then continued on foot to an agent until danger had passed, and they could return.
More sleep until they were once again woken up at 02:30 to leave the site for the last time and make their way to a RV in Henny. From there they had to kayak upto the VEC in Great Cornard at 05:30 and take out the terrorists. Once successfully completed they returned to the Scout HQ by power boat ready for a well earned breakfast and to warm through.