6/23/11
MV Explorer
The seas are quite calm today, so I’m planning on spending some time on deck looking for whales, dolphins, flying fish, sea birds, and the Kraken. One of the assignments for my marine biology class to is keep a journal of what we see off the side of the ship throughout the voyage, so technically this is homework. This morning we passed the Azores, but I missed them. Apparently there were also two pods of dolphins near the ship this morning…so I’m hoping that today will be my day to see something other than the two flying fish I have spotted so far.
In Global Studies this morning, the same professor who yesterday claimed he saw snow yesterday morning introduced the lecture by talking about sailors around the 16th century. He said we all understood, now, how, after days onboard with only endless blue ocean in every direction, they could have seen the flipper of a manatee over the side and thought it was a mermaid. He admitted that he too was guilty of this mental exaggeration of reality to make the days more exciting. He was awake early yesterday morning and sitting on the 5th deck when he saw what looked like snow, little flurries of white fluff being whipped around by the wind, coming down from the 6th deck. I guess it wasn’t completely implausible, as it was at least overcast yesterday, but it was still about 65-70 degrees during the day. It turns out that the crew was washing the deck above him, and what he assumed to be snow was soap fluff falling off the deck above him. Never trust an art historian when it comes to the weather.
We have our first midterms coming up the day after tomorrow, on our seventh day of class. Because we don’t adhere to weekends while at sea, we call the days we have class C1, C2, etc., so I have to rely on my computer to tell me what day it is.
Most days, including yesterday, today and tomorrow, are only 23 hours long since we are traveling through time zones to get onto Barcelona time by the day we get there. Also, not having a window in my room means that when I wake up I always think it's like 4am and my alarm has gone off by accident...but no, it's 8:45 and time for me to get up. The lack of my accustomed zietgeber (HumBio shout out! I do miss the core…a little) in the mornings is making getting up much more difficult than I had anticipated, and I am really looking forward to a day when I can sleep in.
6/24
MV Explorer
The seas are fairly rolly today, especially for the past few hours. I had to brace myself in the shower to avoid slipping and flying out the curtain into the opposite wall of my bathroom. All though my marine biology and history classes today, we heard bangs echoing down the halls. I assume they were caused by previously secure objects falling off shelves. The rougher seas, combined with a general sleep deprivation accumulated over the last 5 days of losing an hour each night due to gradual time zone change, is making most people on board groggy, off balance, woosy and a little punch drunk in some cases. This is perfect timing, because out first test in Global Studies (the required course of the voyage) and my Mediterranean history class is tomorrow. But, tonight it the last time we move our clocks forward an hour until we get to Bulgaria, so that’s definitely a plus.
Tonight at dinner I meet my “extended family”, a group of other students and a few faculty to be a surrogate family for the next two months. I’m not sure what we will do…but it will be nice to have another group of friends (or “siblings”) in any case. The “faculty” part of our family is Drew Kahn (the theater and acting professor aboard, who also does work repairing war-torn societies using theater, primarily in Rwanda), his wife Maria (who is a chef) and their nine-year-old son, Nate (who is a huge Lakers fan even though he and his family live in Buffalo, New York). This is their first voyage aboard Semester at Sea as well as ours. I have five new “siblings” in my family, so some of my independent travel plans (which are still, like most other students’, half-baked) may involve them.
By this time everyone is dreaming about getting to Barcelona…especially for the food. I wouldn’t quite say cabin fever has set in (please YouTube “cabin fever Muppet Treasure Island”, I would have included a link but I have very limited internet), but it’s not far off.
6/25
MV Explorer
Last night I was feeling a little seasick, so I took a meclizine (the ship provides them for free in the medical center, which happens to be just around the corner form my room) and went to bed around 9:30. I woke up today feeling very rested and not at all seasick…success. We did have a Sea meeting (deck meeting) last night at 10:30, but I missed it for the worthy cause of sleep and avoiding nausea. I’ll find out what we discussed sometime today. I’m guessing it was about part 2 of the Amazing Race, which will continue throughout the voyage.
My Global Studies test this morning went well, and before the test the girls behind me were actually talking about cabin fever. I found out today at lunch that I had not missed the Rock of Gibraltar (I though I had slept through our passing of it early this morning). We will be bunkering (stopping to refuel) right under it today, and then we will officially be in the Mediterranean! We’re currently in the strait between Portugal/Spain and Morocco, but not quite to Gibraltar. We just have today and tomorrow sailing and we arrive in Barcelona Monday morning!
I think my roommate and I have opposite schedules, because we hardly see each other at all in our room. Of course, we are hardly ever in our rooms because once you get past classes, meals, club meetings, sleeping and showering, there isn’t much free time and it’s more pleasant to spend that free time out of the room on the ship, hopefully on the deck if the weather is nice (which, for the most part, is has been). Most people do their homework out on the decks or in public spaces, like the library, the two dining halls, the computer cluster, the piano lounge, empty classrooms, or hallways. A particularly popular place is under the third floor staircase. This confused me for a while until I learned that most of the rooms on the third floor don’t get very good internet, but under the stairs on the third floor, the internet is just fine. In the afternoon the decks, especially the pool deck which has lounge chairs, are full of sunbathing people attempting to do their reading. I am frequently one of those people, and even though it probably takes me twice as long to do my reading out there as it does in my room, I definitely still count it as a win.
I just saw Morocco and Spain! It’s overcast today, so they are really just shadowy figures looming out of white-gray clouds on the horizon, but we’re pretty close to both sides (the part of the straight we’re passing through right now is about 10 miles wide) so the shadowy looming shapes of both continents are large. We are now refueling at Gibraltar, so we are very close to the coast. It’s exciting to see land again, and people are waving at the buildings along the shore from the deck, even though we are definitely too far away to have our arms distinguished by bare human eyes. Technically, we are in England now (Gibraltar) and a little piece of Spain is south across the about 6 miles of ocean to Monte Hacho, Ceuta. Vestiges of the colonial times may make for interesting tourism, but right now they are confusing my geography. The Rock of Gibraltar and the Monte Hacho (or Jebel Musa, another North African peak) are the two Pillars of Hercules of antiquity, the classic entry markers to the Mediterranean Sea (still learning stuff in my classes, don’t worry).
I know I haven’t posted pictures yet…but not to worry, I should have time and internet to do so sometime during my four days (probably the last day, June 30) in Barcelona. So check out Facebook then to see the visual journal of my trip so far. I won’t be uploading all the pictures…I won’t have time for that, but I’ll do my best to put up the highlights.
Still no sightings of the Kraken, or any other marine creatures other than the first few flying fish. Tons of people have seen dolphins and a few have seen whales, so I must need to spend more time looking.
We’re finally finishing refueling now…about six hours from when we arrived in Gibraltar. A smaller, cargo-looking boat came over to refuel us around 4:30pm, and it was quite the operation getting them safely nestled against our port side, with giant fenders between us. I don’t know how much fuel our ship holds…but it took over five hours (but with a single, few inch diameter hose) to fill us up again.
6/26
MV Explorer
We’re now officially in the Mediterranean Sea! It’s much calmer and has much less swell than the Atlantic did, which is nice. I think this is the first sold day where I didn’t see anyone stumble suddenly across the hallways. Instead, people managed nearly straight lines around the decks and halls, and I count myself impressed. I have seen at least two people in crutches who rolled ankles or twisted knees due in part to the ship’s motion on some of the rougher days, so everyone is glad for calmer waters. It’s beautiful and sunny, and I’ve seen several ships along the horizon, and some closer, which shouldn’t be surprising as this trek up the coast from Gibraltar is a common one. We’re about half way up the eastern coast of Spain now, so we’ll probably arrive in Barcelona sometime in the wee hours tonight.
Last night we had the “cultural pre-port,” or a meeting almost everyone attended in the largest lecture hall were a few people (two of them originally from Barcelona) gave entertaining and picture-heavy presentations on the culture of the city, what to expect there (including very skilled pick pockets) and suggestions of places to go. That made everyone even more excited to get there, which is impressive because for the last few days, Barcelona has monopolized conversation topics. I, being a planner, am getting together with friends at dinner tonight to make plans for our four days in the city. Many people have a few trips already planned with the ship, some of these are “FDPs” or faculty-lead trips to sites pertaining to their subjects. I have three ship-lead trips in Barcelona, one each on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, but they are only a few hours so I have plenty of time to spend exploring the city with friends. This is the first in a long time that I have actually had to make plans with friends and stick to them without being able to communicate by phone or text…so we’ll see how it goes. I guess people survived without cell phones in some distant time…back when dinosaurs roamed the earth ☺
We just had our “logistical pre-port,” where the administration team went over the process for debarking in Barcelona tomorrow morning. Apparently Immigration comes onto the ship and goes through all our passports on board before anyone can get off the ship. I think that’s better than making all 700 overexcited college students stand in line for four hours to go through Immigration off the ship. While in port, we can get on and off the ship freely (with our shipboard ID card, of course) and just have to be on board for disembarkation (and a group picture on the stern…we’ll see how that goes) at 1800 hours on Thursday. So, I have from tomorrow morning until then to make the most of Barcelona! I will blog every day, although I may not post them until Thursday (you have been warned…) and with luck I will get some pictures up on Facebook on Thursday as well.
As always, I love receiving emails from you, so let me know how your summer internships, research, work, and life in general are going.
Love from the Mediterranean,
Ginny
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