Bobbing About on the Briny

We are now into day 8 of our transatlantic crossing, and the voyage has been smooth for the most part. The ship rocks almost always, since the ocean usually has waves. We've had some 25-30 kt winds, but more often, they're 5-10 kts. The past 3 days we've had 12-16 ft swells generated by a storm far off that passed over southern France and northern Spain. These swells are on the beam, so we rock! One surprising outcome is that you wake up
tired. It literally takes energy to keep from rolling back and forth in bed, unless you lay flat on your back and then it's OK. But who can do that all night? Reggie & Jackson at MICE

Also, going west to east across the Atlantic means giving up
about an hour each day to the time change. How many times have you said
figuratively that "There's not enough hours in the day?" Well, it is
literally a problem for us. As Dean, everyone wants a word with me. I
cannot have a casual hello with any one of my faculty without them raising a
question that they've been mulling, pending an encounter with me.
Fortunately, these episodes are declining in frequency, as folks adapt to
the situations on board. The mantra of Semester At Sea is "Be flexible!"
Since we hear it so much, we all now refer to 'flexible' as "the F-word".

Right now, 1 PM 'local' time January 27, 2009 (Tuesday), we are located at
35 degrees, 31 minutes N latitude, 13 degrees, 20 minutes W longitude. Our
clock is about 6 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. Our speed is 20 kts;
we are usually running either 15 kts (one engine at 85% max) or 20 kts (2
engines, each at 85% max). We almost never run all 4 engines at the same
time. We will arrive in Cadiz, Spain tomorrow about 8 AM, and everyone
(even me who loves being on board the MV Explorer) is looking forward to
setting foot in Spain.

Two nights ago, we had dinner at the Captain's Table, a dress-up occasion, by-invitation event. We met first in the faculty/staff lounge, a marvelous room on Deck 7 at the bow, with large
windows affording a wonderful vista of the sea around us. After cocktails and hors d'oerves, we went to the Main Dining Room on Deck 5 for a 5-course dinner, wine, and conversation. The protocol is to watch the Captain, since only when he picks up his fork or lifts his glass for the first time is it appropriate for you to eat or drink. His whim also determines the end of
the evening, and this evening, he was very much enjoying the conversation and wine, which kept everyone glued to their tables until 11 PM (which, since we had to advance the clock an hour once again, meant that we did not get to bed until after midnight. The ship's officers and crew are fantastic - incredibly professional, helpful, courteous, and kind.

My nutrition class has 39 students, one of whom is the mother of one of my faculty colleagues. My classroom is near the stern on the port side, and it has a row of large windows giving a fantastic vista of the sea. Since the ship is rolling, I've learned to stand in front of the podium and lean against it at a rather steep angle to keep from staggering back in forth.

Teaching on board is a totally new experience. We have started a blog,
with Georgia the sole contributor thus far. Jackson and I will have to take
up some of the slack, since all of us are surprisingly busy all the time and
Georgia cannot be expected to do it alone.

A guy on board is also writing a blog for the Institute for Shipboard
Education, about which I've lodged complaints since it sounds more like
"Entertainment Tonight" than a chronicle of an educational program. If
you're interested, you can find it at:

http://semesteratsea-spring2009.blogspot.com/

If you are curious about sea conditions along our way, check out
www.stormsurfing.com

It will take you to a global site where you can click on the map where we
might be and see what is in store for us. (It might get interesting off
Casablanca in a week or so!)

The view out of Reggie's office window. Not bad!

Music at Sea

Matthew Burtner, who is a member of the faculty on board, is from the Music Department at UVA , and is teaching a class on electronic music composition. He takes sounds from the environment and combines them with musical instruments. This is called ecoacoustics. He is one interesting dude and you can google him or read more about him here:

http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~mburtner/

Matthew has inaugurated MICE a World Tour 2009 and this was the first performance. This stands for Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble.

Last night he and his students had a mini ensemble performance on the bow of the ship at sunset. They had a very sophisticated microphone recording the wind as it blew across the bow. In addition Zoe Kinney, the daughter of faculty, played her cello. Matthew played a type of horn instrument (maybe a clarinet)and other students read some philosophical quotes about the wind. The sounds were all mixed and reorganized and played back to the audience. It was sort of like “found” music or captured sounds. While I am normally not a fan of this type of musical performance this was pretty cool. First of all it just happened in this moment in the middle of the ocean. Since it was windy and cold there was only a small audience. It was over quickly after the sunset. At one point I looked up and there was a great big Venus shining down upon us. Life does not get much better!

Their next performance will feature the sounds of the sand blowing about the desert in Namibia.

Tomorrow is Cadiz (pronounced CA deeth). Happy Birthday Mom!! I will try to call you.

It may be a few days before I get back to this. My next project is to try to download my photos to another website.

At Sea and Working Hard

We are settling into the routine of shipboard life. It has been hard work getting to this point. Five out of the last seven days have been only 23 hour days. It is amazing how much difference one hour makes. All of us have felt the stress of a new routine, new job, and new lifestyle. And barf bags are abundantly placed around the ship for those who have not yet acquired their sea legs. I myself have adjusted quite well to this rocking and rolling and it is especially nice at night when sleeping….very relaxing.

The good news is that I am pretty sure I am burning more calories using my muscles to continually adjust to the ship movement, while keeping my body in a mostly upright position. The bad news is the food is very good and it is incredibly difficult to not load the plate which then results in more calories to burn. I am hoping to get into a gym routine after the Textbook Center closes.

The work has been exhausting…setting up and operating a bookstore without knowing what I am doing. Now that I have gotten the hang of it, this part of my job is coming to an end.

The students have been wonderful ….very patient and forgiving. It has really been fun getting to know them and helping them out with their books. And some of them could really use a mom right now. I think Reggie, Jackson and I are joining the “adopt a student or 2’ program that is on board the ship. More on that later.

For the last 3 days, David Geis from UVA's own Spanish Department, has been giving us fabulous and humerous lectures about Spain. He has spoken about the food, the art and architecture and the political history, especially since the repressive Francisco Franco Regime which ended upon his death in 1975. These lectures occur everyday during the Global Studies classes which all are expected to attend...even the worker bees like me. They will always be relevant to either the environment we are presently in as well as the approaching port. We had lectures on ocean currents and weather patterns and climate the other day.

Today is sunny and still relatively warm. We are at Latitude 34 degrees, 6.4 North and Longitude 22 degrees, 5.4 West. Our course is 80 degrees and speed is 14.7 knots. Less than 48 hours we will arrive in Spain.

By the way scroll down to the bottom of the blog to get my first entry. I am catching up and there is more to come.

Just Another Day in the Atlantic Ocean

We were somewhere on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean around 26 degrees latitude and 68 degrees longitude, when Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. And just like UVA, all activities were cancelled on the ship so that we could all partake in that historic event. I sat between two students, one from the University of San Diego and the other from the University of Arizona. We were all one in our appreciation of the moment. Tears of joy and exclamations of pride echoed around the ship.

I am not in this photo. There are many monitors placed around the ship so that all one thousand of us could see it.

The Three Musketeers

My travelling companions are Reggie Garrett, my significant other, and Jackson Garrett, his grandson from Eagle, Colorado. Jackson has come loaded with textbooks and I believe Reggie has loaded him down even more. There will be no slacking under his tutelage and my role will be resident Mom and study hall proctor. And maybe I will relearn some Algebra. Ha Ha!

Beginning at 0900, we will start loading 730 students from 250 institutions of higher learning primarily in the US, but also Canada and other countries. There are at least 23 students from UVA, the highest number ever and it puts us in 3rd place as the most represented university on this voyage. I attribute that to the efforts of Reggie and others to raise the level of awareness at UVA of this international studies program. While this is an expensive endeavor on the part of the parents, at least 45% of the students boarding today, will have some sort of financial assistance. We also have a large contingent of work study students.
This is the 98th consecutive voyage of the Semester at Sea (SAS) program and the 3rd ship. SAS now owns this ship which is considered one of the best cruise ships sailing the seas. Having now seen plenty of large cruise ships since arriving last week, I consider the Explorer the trimmest of vessels, and built for speed.

The SAS program is designed to be a living learning community of students, lifelong learners, faculty, staff and dependent children. It is not unlike Thomas Jefferson’s plan for the Academical Village which was the original way the University of Virginia was organized around teaching and learning on The Lawn. That is one reason why SAS wanted to have UVA as its academic sponsor. Who would have thought that one day the idea would be embodied in a shipboard community. I am so lucky to be a part of this endeavor.

My office is the Textbook Center. With the help of some able bodied volunteers, I have now gotten the books unpacked, counted and shelved with only a few problems. It is a very different operation than my usual job in OSP and I am struggling with a small learning curve as I try to figure out the hierarchy of go to people, new email system and MS Office 2007 which I have learned to hate. In a week the worst of it will be over as we will have closed drop/add and I can move on to selling sweatshirts in the Campus Store and supervising Jackson.
We have a nine day Atlantic crossing, arriving in Cadiz, Spain on my mother’s birthday. By then we should all have our sea legs and the students will be immersed in their studies. As Reggie has said,"I have been waiting all my life to sail across the ocean". It is the beginning of an amazing adventure.

January 26, 2009-A technical note...The ship has limited band width and it has been a challenge working with photos. It may not be possible to upload any photos onto another site unless I do it between 3-7AM while the students are sleeping. I will keep trying.

The Little Ship That Could

In the Turks and Caicos, parked next to a condo ship, our ship the MV Explorer looks small. You cannot see the bold orange stripe which runs along the side….as she proudly wears UVA colors!

A few statistics about Explorer….she weighs 25,000 tons and is 590 feet long She is one of the fastest ships on the sea, and can cruise up to a maximum speed of 30 knots using 4 engines. The ship has stabilizers which help to minimize excessive rolling on the high seas. The Explorer being like a small city, makes her own water and electricity.

Operated by V Ships headquartered in Monaco, there are 8 officers and a crew of nearly 200 who represent 20 countries. Our captain is from the United Kingdom.

We have been parked off of Miami now for 24 hours while we have orientation meetings and get down to the business of creating a “learning living community” for the 725 students and lifelong learners who will board in 3 days in Nassau.

The most challenging part of my job will be during the first week of classes when the drop/add period is open. At that time I will be refunding students for books that will not be used and selling them books they will need for classes added. Hopefully I will have a small group of volunteers who can help keep the operation on track. Once this period is over I will have more time to devote to the blog