Departure and First Days at Sea

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1/20/12

Well first thing that happened today, neither my alarm nor my roommate’s went off this morning so we did not wake up for breakfast and only woke up because the voice over the speakers gave the announcements of the day and mentioned that the first meeting would be starting in ten minutes, oops! First things first, we are still in port and they updated us on the missing passengers with visa problems. We were told that they would be boarding today, but not until later in the evening. Everyone seemed very disappointed because we were all very ready to get going and start our exciting adventure. Everyone was also worried that this meant we would be arriving late in our first port, Dominica, and therefore change the dates of the entire trip. There was another catch to all of this: we had to leave port for the afternoon and come back at five to get the new passengers because of some port rules in Nassau. This was strange and is apparently the first time in history that any SAS voyage has been to Nassau twice. As the engines started up everyone got excited and a flow of enthusiasm spread throughout the ship because we were going to be moving!! Everyone crowded out onto the decks to watch as we left. I went out on one of the back decks and sure enough, far below behind the gates was a group of parents yelling and waving goodbye for now. Mom & Dad were there waving and taking pictures too. It was an exhilarating feeling to feel the rumble of the ship beneath my feet and watch the dock men untie the gigantic ropes from the dock. I had never been on a ship before, only tiny motorboats and scuba diving boats, so this was a whole new experience.

Our departure was slow, but fun to watch nonetheless! As we left, the ship had a tugboat that pulled us out of the dock and bay area. It led us out and then spun the ship around so that the front headed out into the ocean. As we exited we passed a thin strip of land with little houses on it and a pretty white and red lighthouse at the point of the land strip. We were off into the brilliant blue Caribbean ocean with the sun beating down on us. Everyone filed back into the ship for our orientation day.

All day we sat in the Union or in front of screens in classrooms watching everyone speak on all the info we needed to know. They went over all of the rules, which there are a ton of, and informed us of how strict and tightly they stick to them. They have a very strict no drugs, harassment, drunkenness, or food in your rooms policy. All of the countries we will be visiting have drinking ages of 18 and so does the ship, but they limit you to three glasses of alcohol a night that must be spread out over a certain amount of time based on a stamp card. I personally think this is great! I don’t want to be around crazy drunk people haha.

About classes I learned that there are A days and B days and there are no such thing as weekends because we have to make up class time on the ship that we don’t get while at port. However, there are pre-port days and reflection days before and after some of the ports so we do have days off occasionally. The crazy thing is there are only 22 days of each class or 44 class days total!! So few! So to make up for that and make this whole thing accredited with enough hours the classes are each an hour and fifteen minutes long and we have Faculty Directed Practica (FDPs). These are in port trips that are related to class that we are required to do as part of our interactive learning experience. For each class you must do two. I’m really excited for them!! There are also SAS led trips that will be lots of fun!

Some random things I learned. Meal times, Breakfast 7am-8:30am (I won’t be going to that much), lunch 11:30-1:30, dinner 5:30-7:30 and snack time is 10:00pm-10:30pm. All cabins have stewards. The steward vacuums your cabin, cleans the bathroom, makes your bed, changes your sheets and towels, takes out your trash and when you need it he does your laundry for $6 a load!! What the heck!! I was shocked at this. How handy and kind of nice but weird. They also do randomized cabin searches every week where they pick 20 random cabins and quite literally go through all of your belongings and every nook and cranny to make sure you do not have any of the prohibited items, they are serious I guess.

When all of orientation was done with we were coming back into Nassau. We were out on the ocean for six hours and I watched as the tiny pilot boat led us back into port. The sun was setting and I could hear the loud music coming from Senior Frogs as we passed by and watched parents waving. I watched the sun set over Nassau and stood out on the front deck until a voice came over the speakers, “Please give a warm welcome to our last few students!!!” Everyone flooded onto the decks and looked over the railings cheering clapping and screaming with excitement as they came running down the dock to the gangway with their luggage on a fork lift not far behind. It was a very exciting, positive moment as the entire shipboard community welcomed and cheered for our new shipmates. When everyone and their belongings were onboard the engines started up again and everyone stayed on the ship decks cheering as the ship pulled away and blew its massive horn twice. I could barely make out Mom and Dad down below cheering and waving goodbye once again as the shipped pulled away from Nassau for the last time. I yelled, “I love you!!” as the ship pulled away and off into the dark ocean we went.

Back inside I enjoyed another good dinner with a group of random students. I really enjoyed them all and knew I would be hanging out a lot more with two of them, Sarah and Grace. I headed off to the union with them again after dinner for something called the symposium. They introduced to us all of the resources available to us on the ship, writing center, library, tech lab, health center, mental health clinic and psychologist and all of the clubs and activities that would be on board. They told us about photography clubs, music clubs, shipboard families that we could join with adults, babysitting and other kid related things, service club, intramural sports; they had just about everything but we were also allowed to make our own clubs. The meeting broke off for sign ups. I decided I had interest in photography and lots of other student led clubs such as hiking, scuba, zumba and much more. I asked for more info on all of them and we will see what I decide later.

Following the sign up we had another sea meeting and this time I went to the correct one. Apparently I was not the only one who had done this. I found out I am part of the Baltic Sea and our color is green. My RD is a really great guy named Kyle who I can tell is going to make events fun. He explained to us something called the sea Olympics, where we will be having a series of contests against other seas to win some sort of grand prize. Sounds like a fun friendly competition. We played a fun get to know people game where we got in two lines facing each other and Kyle read off questions that we had to tell the answer to the person in front of us. This was very entertaining and fun! Lastly, we needed to pick our captains for the Olympics, so anyone interested stood up and in 30 seconds explained why they would be good at being captain and then we had a cheering contest to see who got more cheers. I participated and wasn’t enthusiastic enough so I got eliminated. The last two girls and boys standing had rock paper scissors competitions to see who won and it ended up being the perfect boy and girl captains. The girl happens to be Hannah Brown, one of the girls I went to the Hard Rock Café dinner with in Nassau!

Walking around the ship was hilarious. Everyone was swerving back and forth down the hallways as the ship rocked trying to catch their balance. Everyone looked hilariously drunk and everyone was running into each other laughing and gigging as no one could help it because none of us had our sea legs. I put on my seasick wristbands so that I wouldn’t get sick and went to bed where I enjoyed talking to Ashlyn for a while and then went to sleep for the first night at sea. The ship basically rocked me to sleep it was so gentle and rhythmic. Excited for my first classes tomorrow!!

1/21/12

First day of classes!! So excited! I got up just in time to get ready and run up to global studies. Everyone on the ship must take global studies. It is split into two days, but the class is in the union and it is so packed! I sat way in the back and could not see the screen. The teacher for this class is awesome and very entertaining, which will be great. I learned a bit about the history of Dominica and about why it is called the nature island: being the most pristine Caribbean island covered 2/3 by rainforests. It has 3,000 indigenous people called the Kalinago that still live on it. It is volcanic, very steep and tropical with rainforest, reefs and all sorts of tectonic plate activity. I learned that the reason the island is the nature island is because Columbus had no interest in it since it was too steep to grow stuff on and it just missed the silver shipping routes, so therefore the native people did not get diseases and die off and the habitat was not destroyed from agriculture and European animals. However it was fought over under British and French rule at one point, so the native language is a combo of all three languages and they are strict Catholics. Another interesting fact, anyone thought to be homosexual or who performs homosexual acts in sentenced to death, even as a visitor. There are many beautiful waterfalls and hot springs and the whales are breeding there right now because of the refuge and nutrients of the steep underwater cliffs and reefs. Lots of neat info, but there are some serious downsides to this class. He uses crazy sound effects that get annoying, it is at the front of the ship so I got quite sea sick and it will always be hard to see the screen unless I sit in the front. So after the first class I felt very seasick and decided to lie down for a while. I fell asleep and woke up feeling much better but took some Dramamine.

I had slept too long and had to run up to my next class, marine biology. This class was much smaller in a very nice little room with oval tables and a projector. Professor Jenna Lawrence is awesome! She is kooky, has lots of energy and is very enthusiastic about the subject. She introduced the course and talked about marine life in Dominica. I am so excited for this class! It does sound like it is a bit more for freshmen who have never had a class on marine life, so I think it will be a lot of review for me, but I think the info about marine life in each country we go to will be great! I signed up for an FDP where I get to snorkel with her on the champagne reef in Dominica! I am also signed up for a whale watch safari the second day in Dominica!

Starving as I was by 2:15 I remembered that the only place serving food was the pool deck so I ran up and ordered myself a cheeseburger before my next class. Well I had to do this because I might have passed out otherwise, but this was a terrible mistake. The cheeseburger was soooooo good! I knew I should have waited until later in the trip before spending money on the delicious food on the ship or I am going to want that all the time. Upon finishing the cheesy deliciousness I ran down to my next class, anthropology of the ocean. We talked about what comes to mind when we think ocean and a vast array of words came up, freedom, adventure, relaxing, serenity, expansive, healing, mysterious, options, home, never ending, creation, life, vast, fish, last frontier, Animals, power, diversity, sand, connection, beauty, new beginnings, majesty, open, community, salt and depth. We talked about the class and we talked about many different maps of the world, how they are depicted and why and also how these maps made the ocean look. It is a very interesting class that I am excited for more of. For FDPs I got into a swimming with fresh water dolphins in the Amazon trip and a castles and slave dungeons trip in Ghana. Both of these should be very interesting.

I spent a lot of time outside on the pool deck in the shade today meeting new people and emailing people. I met a girl named Anna Sophia from CU Boulder who is in two of my classes and on both of the same Dominica trips as me. She is another person I believe I will be hanging out with her a lot; we have lots of similar interests. We planned out what we want to do in Dominica today, which should be fun. I want to get some granola bars as snacks for my room.

1/22/12

The weather has been humid and mostly extremely sunny but it sprinkled on and off today as we passed islands. Tons of people have been laying out and tanning on the pool deck but I have been hiding in the shade afraid of burning my paper white Humboldt skin as we get closer to the equator. There are people walking around with raccoon tans from glasses and many people who look like lobsters, haha not gonna happen to me! It's always super windy on the ship as well, but I think that is because we are currently traveling as fast as the ship can go to make up for lost time. Apparently we will still be arriving in Dominica at the same time as was originally planned. The crystal blue ocean just seems to be flying by!

I got up really late today around 12:30 and then had some lunch and watched Puerto Rico go by which was pretty neat. I also had my biodiversity and conservation class, also with Professor Lawrence. Unfortunately it was very similar to the marine bio class, but once we start getting into conservation and endangered species it should be all new stuff.

I’m still trying to get used to my sea legs. I felt just ok today with the heat and the slight sickness. I’m hoping that will go away soon. The day was mostly uneventful and I am starting to notice that all dinners are good tasting, but it is the exact same salad and always some type of pasta, potatoes, rice, and meat options. I think this will get old eventually but for now I’ve been enjoying getting to know people better and meeting lots of cool new people. I haven’t been wasting much time getting to know people that I get the vibe I won’t be spending much time with because I figure I should focus on the connections that will last, make me feel at home and become good travel buddies.

The only other event today was the pre-port for Dominica because we arrive in the morning! They warned us about anything and everything they would think of and basically scared the crap out of people with all the things to worry about. I understand why it is all necessary, but really those things are already something I am constantly aware of and I just want to go explore and have fun without being scared about it all. Besides that, it was more information on Dominica, which was really cool. Excited for snorkeling tomorrow and exploring the town of Roseau!

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