Lunch! Ps, we are only two days from Capetown, South Africa!!!

Today was a repeat of fish and chips. This is our second time having it, the first time it was amazing. Ahh shipboard food. I can't wait to eat when I get off this thing. I've been desiring a Jamaican beef patty, with cheese and coco bread for quite some time or real food from anywhere. But back to lunch. At some point folks ran to the windows and people were whipping out cameras. They sighted a whale =( I had no camera on me... and in my hand was my loaded plate of food...I've waited long and hard to get a glimpse of a whale or dolphin so the randomness that it occurred kinda sucked lol.. The up side was the lunch with the captain. It wasn't as snazzy as it sounds. Actually, I kinda stumbled upon it. During lunch and occasionally dinner, there is a reserved oblong table for him. I always assumed people were notified ahead of time about dining with him. I was looking for Louis whom I had came with… but the minute I walked over to the middle section of the dining hall, one of the stewards asked if I would like to have lunch with the captain. I look over at the table and see other students eating with him. No lie, in that moment I wanted to say no. Actually, it was written on my face because the steward kinda laughed and said it'll be okay. So he grabs my plate and starts walking towards the table. He plops my plate down and pulls out my chair. To my right is a champagne glass (which he of course fills with….water!) and he produces this fancy lap napkin thing. I'm sitting on the same side of the table as the captain so that was an awkward seat in terms of trying to hear and communicate. At the same time it was enough distance so that I could think of intelligent things to say or ask. We were all trying not to stare at the food on his plate. Lets just say, there is fine cuisine on this ship, it just depends on the recipient.  There were a series of awkward moments where we were all fumbling with our cutlery and trying not to look sloppy gorging french fries and fried fish.. I mean is there really an eloquent way to eat it? Then there were the highlights. It was fascinating getting direct answers about things we've wondered about…and what better way than to ask the source. I will share what I learned:

We are the fastest moving vessel on the sea. Which is pretty funny because at times (and just by looking at the knots on the SAS channel) it doesn't feel like it at times. The ship has gotten better about determining routes both for safety and classes. So in some instances we may take the longer route just to make sure we get an adequate amount of school days in... phooey :( Who needs school? haha. In the event that we come across unsafe pirate waters there are some means to handle that... (speeding up insanely). In the case of the voyage in 2005, the captain said the ship went faster than he's ever driven. That should tell you something. They also eliminated the route they traveled through. Again, I am sooo excited to see what happens after Mauritius for us. Moving on, the ship can go about 11 days without refueling. The captain himself doesn't actually maneuver the ship, there is a General Engineer manager or a title similar who does. He is in charge of other things pertaining to the overseeing the overall function of the ship. We asked him about his internet access (haha) he told us his internet isn't as slow as ours but it isn't super fast. We apparently have the biggest bandwidth in terms of ships. But what makes it still slow are the data transfers. The way that they try to combat that is having a limited list of free sites and making students pay for internet plans if they use up our initial 125. This discourages the use of multimedia sites (youtube etc) and sites with a lot of data transfer (facebook). The captain also said that instead of having a semester at sea email account, he has a yahoo account. It is for storage and communicative purposes. With the number of data transfers he does on a regular basis he would clog up the internet access if we used the same server. Makes sense. I can't wait to sign up for a bridge tour.

There are about 250ish crewmen - about 15 or so are women, the rest are men. We have an incinerator on deck 1 which helps for burning things... out of the ships at sea (cruise lines etc), we are a leading edge in conservation. This is always a controversial conversation. I mean, you can't entirely be a green ship. Kinda an oxymoron considering the fumes, the gas consumption, waste etc. The question about food preparation and choices came up. Potatoes and pasta can be found at every meal... (pasta not so much during breakfast, but yes to potatoes). But the food is prepared in a way that is biodegradable (again, compromises the taste in our opinion) for the sea life. We sort things out to the very last detail. For example, napkins during dining hours are placed in one bin, silverware, meat/bones, rice and other similar things. There is a chute in the gallery in which when it gets full, the food is all dumped out in the ocean. The water sorting is a little more complex. We make our own water. There are restrictions to what water we can use in regards to proximity of land. For example, water was shut down while we were in Takoradi. For the four days we had no water from 10 pm- 6 am. This is because we were using from our purified stash and we would not be doing any intake until we return to the Atlantic Ocean. The reasoning is because the people of Takoradi had not had fresh water or clean supply for years. We also were not clear on their sewage system. As with all of our locations, this is important insight as to whether we can use the water. If the water is possibly tampered with/contaminated, we can't even think to use it. Makes sense. Liability issue. Plus we weren't even allowed to drink tap water while in Ghana. We didn't know where it came from. So back to ocean water. If there is anything in it (feces from sea animals) it is easily diluted (hahaha) and of course we have the filtering system. The first two days after we acquire new water or when fresh water is made is the worst to drink. Chlorine takes some time to degrade so it is the strongest then. You never really know what batch is fresh or not though so that's the catch haha. Everything down to the water in the showers, toilets and used for laundry service is clean. I had wondered if they didn't purify it to the maximum form if it was only being used for laundry, but that's not the case. We talked about his personal life. We asked him about how difficult it must be to travel so much especially by the sea. 

The captain told us he has been traveling since he was 18 years old. This is his second time on the SAS MV Explorer but he's operated previous cruise lines. He has a sense of humor and told us how it makes his marriage better. When he does come back it's almost like a honey moon all over again. There are strains on the relationship at times (which obviously happens) but he said he met his wife on SAS in 2005. He isn't the first to tell us that they found love on SAS. It's hilarious how many of the staff and faculty personnel who have fallen for a fellow SAS and now traveling with their significant others as previous SAS alumnus. This ship is quite the Love vessel. Gotta say, Valentines Day was a weird holiday to have here. Totally woulda preferred halloween or something. More for the comical standpoint. I think its wild that I will have sailed virtually most of the major oceans, seas/rivers. We sailed the Caribbean sea to get from the Bahamas to Dominica and Puerto Rico. Then the Atlantic Ocean, Amazon River and Rio Negro...then back to the Atlantic Ocean. We left the Atlantic Ocean and traveled upstream to get into Takoradi, Ghana. Don't know the name of that river. Now we are en route to Capetown, South Africa via the Atlantic. Once we depart we are entering the Indian Ocean to get to Mauritius (near Madagascar). We spend a day, the ship will refuel. From the map hanging in our rooms, I can't tell how far inland Chennai is. If it is, we may continue sailing via the Arabian Sea. To get from China to Viet Nam, we may take the Bay of Bengal or the Yellow Sea or East China Sea...or even South China Sea since we are going to Singapore as well. Once we do Japan we will be sailing the Pacific Ocean... and it will be another long stretch of classes and ship life since the next stop would be Hawai'i. But enough about things I am not even certain of. It's just amazing and exciting to think about. Especially coming from a girl who can't swim...but am having the opportunity to sail on what could be ominous waters. Feels like just yesterday we were getting back on the ship from Ghana... somehow time has elapsed and we will be arriving by 8 am Thursday morning. Insane. It took soo much for me to finally have the strength to write up what happened in Ghana. Just thinking about typing it all up was overwhelming. I had to force myself to get it out before we get to SA because if I wait, its a lost cause... and with the time advancing for us, we are all sleep deprived around here. Actually, we will be advancing it tonight another hour. In total, South Africa is +7 hours, Ghana was +5.Then there has been an influx of ship activities. It is college life all over again. You want to be involved because social interaction makes up the experience... so I've been running around like a loose cannon. There are movies being played in the Union (some for leisure, others/majority for Global studies),the SAS choir as well as practicing with John for the presentation Bill is presenting, Black Student Union (I am the event coordinator and met with Ian last night), meetings with Amy (planning Red Sea events and making sure I am upholding my RA duties)... there was the theater club meeting because we are planning a Cabaret. The theme is jazzy/bluesy... I am doing At Last and am one of 4 girls performing Lady Marmalade (which should be a blast but hilariousssss). There are the Vagina Monologue auditions taking place between today and tomorrow. For those unfamiliar it is a collection of monologues or scenes focusing on different struggles of femininity/womanhood (some examples include bits about child birth, rape, pleasure, abuse, identity/sexuality struggles etc), But it feels great to be exhausted.

Oh yesterday there was the "One Love" 2nd Club Union dance... it was supposed to be reggae music (according to the flyers). The theme was to wear any international clothes purchased thus far. I sadly haven't purchased anything substantial. I was supposed to buy a dress in Ghana but was so overwhelmed that I ended up using the 30 something cedis I had at a quiet supermarket on junk food. The peace of mind was worth it. I'm not too fond of aggressive salesmen haha. But after a bunch of techno and then eventual hip hop and latin music, we realized it was yet another cheesy SAS event. It was so much fun though. They kept playing the Shakira "Waka Waka" African anthem song. It was very fitting... Afterwards Freddy told me that they are  starting a latin dance club and asked me to join hahaha.They want to choreograph and perform that song for our upcoming South Africa pre-port meeting. What was cool was Raja and Alyssa (LLC's) who were "getting down" on the dance floor. Then it ended since its from 9-11 pm. We walked out and were trying figure out what else to do... snack time at 10pm in the dining halls had already ended...but then there was this massive group of people lounging in the piano bar. One guy was playing a popular song on the piano and everyone was singing along and rocking.. the name escapes me at the moment...It was awesome. Had a warm fuzzy feeling just being there. Then I ran into Ian in the dining hall in deck 5 ( most folks were studying in there) and solidified some Black Student Union programming.

Finally I got to delivering the Valentine's day cards I'd made for Anna, Kyle and Malachi (Obai had gotten his earlier). It was nerve wrecking. I'm not the greatest artist. I had limited supplies (paper and markers). Suddenly what I wrote didn't seem as funny. I wrote a different poem for each of them reflecting our friendship and incorporated some humor to keep it light of course... I wondered if they would even make it to the end of the voyage... if they would be tossed at some point. I wondered if people even cared about Valentines Day... I mean, I don't. This is my first time getting into it...and that's only because of Anna. Otherwise, it's a normal day. Funny story, earlier during dinner, Jack and I were watching people come in all dressed up (special dining was taking place...) and started singing "Lonely" by Akon. Elisabeth was so embarrassed, she kept trying to get us to stop and then later on decided maybe we should just change that song hahaha. We were talking about dressing in all black and roaming the halls while singing it...hahaha..  But back to Anna- she'd made cards for everyone and had packets of M&M's to go with it. Then I walked through the halls and there were all these notes and cards posted on folks doors and whatnot... What can I say? I got into the spirit... Funny how it wouldn't have been that difficult if I hadn't made them myself, brought them or even if they hadn't been homemade and perhaps just typed up on the computer. Mann, I was feeling so insecure and wasn't confident about them... that I kept going back and forth between tossing them... but after all that time spent on them I figured what the heck... and waited when Valentines was pretty much over to go ahead and deliver them hahaha. Like I mention, me and the guys don't have that kinda vibe going on... I get nuzzles on the head and we're pretty brutal with each other. To break outta character and send a cutesy Valentine's card would mean facing jokes... they would appreciate it for sure, but then it would be like an "aww" "c'mere and give me a hug" moment which we don't have too many of...and then we'll be back to our joking selves.  Malachi kept telling me to show him and Courtney was saying it was the thought that counted... but I was timid. Anna had posted our cards on our doors after 12 midnight when we were in our rooms and I figured that was the best way to go...  But Malachi opened his door and decided to stand outside the door (use the light of the hallway) to read it... He's gotta be the one to be so difficult... I couldn't be around to see the reactions so I practically galloped down the nearby stairs...haha. When I heard their door click, I headed back to my room. Shortly after the phone rings and its Kyle. He's telling me how he loved it and how surprised he was by the poem.. he jokes and tells me Malachi is in the bathroom and looked teary-eyed when he got out. hahaha. Anyhow, gotta run. Catch up with you good folks later.