3,700 Miles Down and onto Spain!

Spain Today!! Well, tomorrow sort of since it is almost 2 am “here” time. So after 8 straight days of classes we now have 9 days off; 4 in Spain, 1 traveling, and 4 in Morocco! I have an awesome set of professors. My classes are International Entrepreneurship, International Organizational Leadership, World Studies and Geography (all students take this course), and Discrete Math (fills general ed requirement). Today, during entrepreneurship, we spotting two whales jumping and blowing water! They were about 200 yards off the boat and it looked like a sea world show! After about 5 minutes they swam away and we went back to discussing good/bad market types for new companies or new products.

The time zone transition has been pretty easy. We have had 23 hour days for the last six days to loose 6 hours off of Eastern time and it entertains me to think when I am eating breakfast at 7 before my first class, people at home have just recently gone to bed (11pm). Spain chooses to be on the same time zone as the central European countries, so the sun doesn’t come up until after 9 and will set after 7 (I only know this, because everyday during “the noon report” we are told the next day’s sunrise/set.)

There is a definite split between the people that are having bad cabin fever and those that are really enjoying the ship life part of the experience. I am very much in the second camp. The oceans are beautiful as are the sunrises and sunsets. The food is eatable and there are lots of activities on the boat. However, we do find out how much time was previously taken up with other activities and now there is a lot more pleasure reading, card/board games, movies, socializing, relaxing, and so on. I’m enjoying the slower side of life, and am getting my homework done earlier than usual :)!

Other than last night, the seas have been relatively calm for a trans-Atlantic crossing. The regular pitching and rolling of course, but only one short storm in which everything moveable in the room moved. This also included me! Have you every tried sleeping when you are sliding between the head board and the foot of the bed, back and forth, back and forth?? Yaa, but like I said it was a short storm, so I still got half a night of zzz’s. When in Cadiz, I am making a point to get some of that rubber like counter top gripping mats. I’m mean, there’s nothing better than all off the stuff on the night stand falling to the floor in the middle of the night when rocked by an unexpected swell. J However, the good news is, I have heard that we should have relatively calm seas except for around the tip of Africa and our trans-Pacific crossing. I have heard that this ship, the MV Explorer, is rockier (is that the technical term?? Oh, less stable) that the programs previous ship, because this is a very light (yeah like 20 max weight semi-trucks light, lol!) ship. Anyways, what we lost in stability we gained in speed since we are in the top three for passenger ship speed! They have almost 6,000 horses packed down in the bottom of the ship somewhere! But, mom, not to worry in ’05 the ship when through a major Typhoon outside of Asia, and well, obviously it’s still floating! Despite the fact the all the computers and the library on the top deck (floor) were a complete loss due to all the upper windows breaking, all students were dry and safe in the cabins. It is rumored the replacement windows are the same grade as the lower windows, to prevent further need for remodeling!

Now after about 8 hours of safety meetings, we are finally about to be set free in Spain. We arrive at 800 into Cadiz, Spain. Cadiz is a moderate size port town in the southern portion of Spain known as Andalusia (Andalusian horses!!) On the first day I am joining a group of around 100 SAS students on a 4 hour guided Cadiz city orientation. The following morning I will travel to Jerez (45 minutes by train) the home of the ’02 World Equestrian Games and the “Real Escuela Andaluza de Arte Ecuestre” roughly translated to The Andalusian School of Equestrian Arts. This active breeding and training farm is credited for the start of the famous white Andalusian horses. I will have the opportunity to watch an exhibition of the highly trained horses as well as tour the rest of the training and breeding facility. They also demonstrate making harnesses for the cart horses and have a museum dedicated to the history of the horse in Andalusia. Afterwards I hope to have time to go the Jerez Zoo, which houses around 1300 animals. For the remaining two days that I will have left in Spain, I will be in Seville (be like going to Portland). There, I will share a room with 2 other SASers for $12 and it included wi-fi! There we will do some shopping (I have already located an English bookstore), eating, and seeing! The city of Seville will probably be hosting half of the SAS students as it is the main destination for those not flying to Barcelona or Madrid.

I’ll report again on Sunday as we have a one day hopper over to Morocco.

I’d love to hear from anyone! My email on the ship is kjshoemaker@semesteratsea.net and on land is kshoemaker@wps-inc.com.

This months Schedule:
Arrivals at 0800 and Departures at 2000 (8pm)
Country Arrive Depart
Spain 28 January 27, 2009 31 January 27, 2009 (Sat)

Morocco 02 February (Mon) 05 February (Thurs)

Namibia 14 February (Sat) 16 February (Mon)

South Africa 18 February (Wed) 22 February (Sun)

Mauritius 27 February (Fri) 27 February (Fri 2200 hrs)

Captain’s list of “must know” terms:

Ship- We are not on a “boat”… shrug
Voyage- We are not on a “cruise”… I like Voyage better too.
Port- Left, my side of the ship! My cabin is amid ship-port on deck 3
Starboard- opposite of port…right
Forward/Bow- front
Aft/Stern- back
Deck- “Ships do not have floors” but I’m telling you when I look down in my cabin it sure looks like a floor!
Keel- lowest point on the ship
Knot- 1 knt= 1.15mph
Master- this is the Captain’s formal position, I have no idea why, but he is still called “Captain”
Bunkering- Fueling
Circumnavigating- going around the world

Next time I will include an “about the ship” section, if anyone is still reading this far :)

Finish of Day 2!

Welcome to my first blog! I am passenger number 685 out of 724 students that are around 350 miles into our 3,700 mile Atlantic crossing to Cadiz, Spain. Spain will be our first stop of thirteen taking us to a total of ten countries. You can follow the ships progress around the world and find much more information at sesemsteratsea.org > current voyage.

Twenty hours after arriving in Nassau, I stepped out of the taxi at the port. Apparently, there are a lot more S and T last names than A-C since the “20 minute check-in” took 3.5 hours! Nonetheless, my new found line buddy, Amber from Edmond, OK and I still had enough time to disembark the ship and make a stop at the local grocery store for some snacks and hangers. Later and after of conclusion of our lifeboat drill, just a few minutes after 1700, we were officially on our way!

I am only going into my second night on the ship, but already it feels as if we have been here a week. We had orientation from 1900 to 2300 last night and again from 700 to 2100 today. We just finished with an inauguration party and I have never seen so many fancy deserts made at one time!

I am very lucky to not have experienced any seasickness so far without the help of Dramamine. Many of my shipmates are not so luck as the hard headwind is making for a lot of rocking and rolling (no pun intended :) ). At dinner tonight we, literally had to hold onto the table settings to keep from having everything spill on the floor! It is quite entertaining to walk down the narrow hallways bouncing from one side of the hall to the next!

I have a great window cabin midship. The ship’s pitching is really evened out in the middle and very good for sleeping. I how know why we rock babies to sleep. We were even told during orientation that a moderately rocking day makes very difficult to stay awake in class, but that we will get used to sooner or later.

My roommate Jackie from Long Island, NY has been very easy to get along with. She was not one of the 6 semester at sea participants that were on the Hudson plane crash. Those six students were coming down to spend the week in Nassau and despite loosing all of their clothing, text books, laptops, etcetera all were able to join us yesterday for an on time departure.

We will be starting classes tomorrow morning and have seven class days before we arrive in Cadiz. We are traveling at 21 knots average on a course of 79 degrees. The ship has a maximum speed of 28 knots, but head wind and rough sea require a lower speed for the engines to run efficiently.

Hope to hear from you all soon!
Kate
kjshoemaker@semesteratsea.net