My son has been in cub scouts/ boy scouts since first grade. He is a life scout, working on his eagle. He joined Sea Cadets in September, 2009, and absolutely loves it! They meet every Saturday for 4 1/2 hours. They do physical training (PT), drills, and lots of hands-on training. Last week they did fire fighting and damage control training (as in, what to do if you have a fire or a leak on your ship). They have visited an air traffic control tower, put on "gumby suits" and learned how to rescue people from the water, and did a weekend survival training bivouac This past summer my son attended recruit training for 2 weeks and field operations training for a week. The cadets can attend advanced trainings all over the country and even have a chance to do an international exchange. Sea Cadets is a great program with like-minded young people who have lofty goals. Many of them hope to attend the Naval Academy -- and quite a few graduates have! Sometimes my son has to choose between a boy scout campout and Sea Cadets, because they are always on weekends. He's learning to choose between what's fun and what's important in order to reach his goals. Sometimes, as senior patrol leader, he has to choose the boy scout event, but his commanding officer supports the kids in their other commitments. Other times, he has given up a fun boy scout event for an important Sea Cadet function. I don't know anything about CAP, but Sea Cadets is great!