On our 12 day Atlantic Ocean crossing, many new thoughts and experiences have emerged. While I have been thinking for months that this period of time without land would make me stir crazy (as you all know), life on the ship has been fun and full of activity. It actually has been nice to have a set routine, even if it means 12 days of work in a row. In terms of classes, we have study days occasionally thrown in, so those are a nice sleep in days for the students, which allow for conferences with teachers, study groups, and catching up on reading while sitting near the pool in a bikini. While my time is still spent in my windowless office when not in meetings, I try each day to eat lunch outside on the back deck, since walking up O-Hill is not an option. Some days, it is windy or chilly enough we need a jacket, but most days it’s just grand. My favorite memories will be eating lunch while watching humpback whales waving their fins at us, and watching their blow spouts. One day we saw whales while eating lunch and dinner. It’s so tough to be on Semester at Sea!
Amazingly, this long stretch, which takes us the farthest from land passes by the most remote island on earth, 1750 mi. from the nearest land in South Africa. Tristan da Cunha has only 295 inhabitants and only sees boats come and go 2x a year. It does not want any new inhabitants and there are only eight surnames of their people. The 1961 eruption of Queen Mary's Peak forced the evacuation of the entire population via Cape Town to England, with the residents returning in 1963. The island’s main source of foreign income is the crayfish factory and the sale of postage stamps and coins to overseas collectors.
We have had the most amazing birds following the ship, too. The white chinned petrol and the brown albatross have been trailing the ship for over a week catching food from the ship's wake. In this extremely remote area, it is incredible that they can continue, since they do not need to rest on land and can fly while sleeping.
One part of the passage that had surprised me most has been that the ocean has been smoother than our trip down the coastline of Africa. A day or two we had 10 foot swells, but generally it has been some of our smoothest traveling Many folks have taken to using the sea sickness patches to prevent nausea and headaches, but we have been very fortunate that we have had no storms and very calm weather.
One of the main sources of entertainment during the long crossing is the Sea Olympics. Teams are comprised of the students on each hall (and named for the Yellow Sea, the Bering Sea, the Red Sea, etc), a team for the faculty/staff/ and life long learners and their spouses, and one for the children of the faculty and staff. After weeks of planning, there were eight teams, all wearing a team color, competing for a day of activities including balloon toss, lip sync, human knot, a spelling bee, spades, as well as physical challenges like pull-up contests, dodgeball, volleyball, and limbo. The opening ceremonies include banner contests and one for the best team chant. This year the faculty and staff named their team the Diploma Sea (i.e. diplomacy) and we were the winners of several less physical contests, like the chant, Scrabble, and spades, but did not win the final gold. It was a whirlwind day of activities, as we were judging some contests and competing in others. The winners got to decide whether to disembark first or last when we arrive in Ft Lauderdale. There was a lot of cheering and screaming, Iva tried to help cheer on the Diploma Sea. Good times!
Most days at sea, we have seminars in the evening. There are small group talks about such things as writing resumes, sustainability, the disaster in the Philippines, determining management style, relationships, etc as well as a large Union seminar most evenings dealing with topics about our approaching ports. Often these bring together several faculty members, or interport students or lecturers, to present a variety of perspectives about topics such as media, politics of a region, culture of a country, and historical events critical to understanding an upcoming country, etc. In addition, there are classes each day that we can drop in on, for topics ranging from Business Ethics, Global Music, World Geography, World Religions, Cross Cultural Psychology, Marine Biology, and Comparative Politics.
Another surprise for us was that the email system, which is consistently unreliable, was more stable at sea. Occasionally in ports the signal is blocked by buildings in the way, but while we were at sea, it was reliable. The students are only given 2 hours of free internet the entire voyage so most of them have had to buy additional time. Certainly at every port finding the wifi is a priority for students so that they can update Facebook, Skype family and get back in contact with their friends. We have hours in which the system is maxed out and cannot connect to the internet. Many faculty have discovered the benefit of rising early to get on while the students sleep. Bill and Iva have the benefit of unlimited internet as necessary for work, so we are fortunate for that.
There are many choices of forms of exercise on the ship. There is an area with free weights and Hammerstrength machines outside on the pool deck; treadmills, elliptical machines and bikes in a room off the spa; and some classes that faculty and staff have volunteered to lead. The classes this time around are yoga on occasional evenings at 7 PM (a little tough since right after dinner) and crossfit, which is a torturous class that Iva has been trying to get into. While Iva goes to the yoga class often, it is not particularly challenging class, since the ship is moving, sometimes more than others. Balancing poses are the biggest challenge, so we usually have to stand near a railing. We try to meet outside on the back deck, which is a magical place for yoga., watching the wake of the ship and the birds following us. In contrast is the crossfit class, which encompasses all the things that Iva doesn’t do well- speed, strength and quickness. The premise is to exercise hard for 1/2 hour nd get on with your day. What’s not to love? But the way it works is by beginning with warm-up jogging (which I hate) followed by a different mix of sprints, jumping, lunging, push-ups, sit-ups, and/or burpees! For those who do not know, these are the worst. Burpees begin with a jump in place, arms to the sky, followed by hands on either side of your feet in a squat, then jump your feet backwards to plank, then forwards to the squat, then jump in place again. These are done as fast as possible for a period of short time AND with reps. So the day’s exercise might be: 20 squats, followed by 10 push-ups (more if you’re a guy), 20 sit-ups, then 10 burpees. Repeat 8 times. Or sometimes we are timed to see how many reps you can do in a certain amount of time. It is torture for me who is to old to go fast. However, the motivation is really to push yourself, and not compete with others. It is good for me, I hate it, and it makes me sore for days afterwards, so then I don’t go as often as I should. It reminds me how much I like hiking!! Unfortunately the decks on this ship do not allow for walking laps, so those who want to walk or run without a machine, do so back and forth on sections of the deck. Makes us all glad when we hit land!
For a tour of the ship check out this link:
http://www.semesteratsea.org/our-ship/
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