At Sea

Students Plugging a leak aboard the ship

(Excerpts from the Ship's Librarian, May 27 - June 2: Photos by Joseph Williams)

May 27:
Midnight on The Bridge:
While on the bridge, I was first introduced to the technical navigationaland GPS equipment they have. While their GPS equipment does not providevocal directions such as, “Turn starboard at the next reef.” The system is incredibly intricate where the navigators lay in waypoints. In the training ship, they also use paper charts to plot the ship’s course. They use triple backup systems since this is an educational voyage, and safety is paramount.
By the morning, we had left the island of Majorca behind and now we are sitting and recalibrating the compasses in front of the island of Minorca..

May28:
Today we saw the first drops of rain in about 2 weeks with apassing shower, and the sea has been remarkably calm. Today, we also passed through the Straits of Bonifacio, which separates the islands of Sardinia and Corsica. I only saw Sardinia, and Corsica was out of sight.

May29:
So last night we passed through the Straits of Bonifucio between Sardinia and Corsica.Tomorrow we will pass through another strait, this one will be the Strait of Messina which was considered perilous in ancient times because of its rocks and whirlpools. According to Encyclopedia Brittanica, “The strait was greatly feared by sailors in antiquity, mainly because of the rocks and whirlpools known as Scylla and Charybdis, personified as female monsters in Greek mythology.”




May30:
The ship today went through the Strait of Messina and now we are in theIonian Sea. It was rather dramatic looking, since there is a wall of mountains that suddenly drop into this patch of open water. I took some pictures and it was somewhat hazy out, but I did get good views of MountEtna.

June 2:
We are now in the realm of Odysseus, and much like the “man of twists andturns” the ship is going on its own odyssey through the famed Aegean. We have already passed our anchorage and Andros, and now we are going tobe circling islands. All of the ones I have seen have been very rugged,very mountainous, and many are covered with windmill farms. Generally speaking, everything thus far has been very scenic.
One of the things I have noticed is that our students have an intense curiosity about where we are going – not just for the recreational stuff –but they also want to learn more about the history of the ports andcountries that we are visiting. There is something beautiful about taking two weeks to get to a port since it allows time for curiosity to build.