Life In The Atlantic

Where do I even begin? This adventure has started off nearly perfectly. Aside from a few seasickness scares, and brief moments of missing friends and family, I am finding it quite easy adjusting to the luxurious lifestyle this ship has to offer. Who wouldn’t like to wakeup to beautiful sunrises, and fresh ocean breezes? The faculty is great, my fellow students are friendly, and we couldn’t ask for a better crew. It is hard to not feel a sense of selfishness at this point in the voyage.

There are some great service opportunities that I am excited to take part in. One of the professors founded a program called the “$100 challenge.” The concept of the project lies in the principal that small changes make a big difference. He told us a story that reminded me of a childhood memory with my dad. We used to take a little sailboat out around the St. Michaels harbor and visit a small beach by the Perry Cabin condos. Thousands of baby horseshoe crabs washed onshore unable to get back to the water. We would walk up and down the beach throwing as many back into the river as we could. To the outsider it may seem like a pointless effort since there was no way we were going to save all of the crabs. But to the life of the few we were able to save, our effort made all the difference. This analogy is applicable to helping fellow humans. We will be sent into different countries in small groups with a mere $100, and ask the indigenous people what we can do for them. This is what service is about.

I never thought I would be so genuine to say I am very excited for classes to start today. After sitting through long lectures yesterday on safety, health, and general guidelines to living a board the MV Explorer with the ship rocking and full bellies, it will be nice to finally use my brain.

Sailing Lingo:
Port-Left
Starboard-Right
Bow-Front of the Ship
Aft-Back of the Ship
Ship-Boat
Voyage-Cruise (Taboo to say cruise or boat)