400 Nautical Miles West of Galway, Ireland 29 August 2012 I said there’s a lot of water out there. And for the past 4 days, it’s all been just a little upset. The first two days out of Halifax were like the softening up period, especially for the folks who had never been on a ship at sea before. The seas were rolling just enough to let us all know that we weren’t walking around in a Hyatt but not enough to wipe the smiles off the faces of students or faculty busy exploring the nooks and crannies of their home for the next 107 days. Then the North Atlantic started behaving like it’s supposed to. Once we got east of Newfoundland, the swells started picking up, the skies started darkening, and the temperature started dropping. But Monday evening, the seas were steel gray, laced with white tops as far as I could see, covered with the mist created by 50+-mile-an-hour winds, and rolling with what became 15- to 18-foot waves. The ship was rockin’ and rollin’, and many faces were turning green. The large swells seem to travel in pairs or in threes. So we go for 45 seconds to a minute in what is relatively smooth water before being slammed again by the next traveling duo or trio. I can look out my balcony door and watch the bars on the railing swing up and down as each successive wave hits us. It’s a lot like watching the artificial horizon on an aircraft’s attitude indicator, with the horizontal bars of the railing working a lot like the ascent and descent indicators on the aircraft instrument. Based on that movement, I’m guessing we have rocked and rolled as much as 25 degrees in either direction at various times over the past three days. It’s a very large see-saw. We could watch the ship’s course on the in-room TVs, and it was apparent that the captain was trying to make the journey as comfortable as possible. But it’s a big ocean and a small ship. We first veered to the southeast to put the wind at our back as much as possible. That way, the swells weren’t hitting us from the port side but, rather, from behind. In a way, we were surfing down the swells as they first caught us from the stern then pushed the ship forward before sailing off ahead, leaving us in the valley waiting for the next one. It’s a much more comfortable ride than being slammed from the left and rocked 15 to 20 degrees first one way then another. I heard from one of the deans that the captain was actually trying to steer into the center of the low-pressure area that was creating the storm we were caught in. He was heading for the eye of the storm where, like in a hurricane, the water is calmer. Apparently he was successful because late yesterday afternoon, I opened the sliding glass door to the balcony and was almost sucked out by the rush of air from the high pressure inside the ship to the low pressure outside. It is, indeed, a tight ship. As predicted, the water in the eye was somewhat calmer. But eventually we had to move forward to the other side of the storm. Last night was the roughest of the trip so far. Glasses, books, and other accoutrements were sliding around and falling onto the floor, waking me from what was already a light sleep. I stumbled out of bed several times to stash them away in cabinets and cupboards. Worse, though, was the creaking, groaning, and banging of cabinets and doors in the cabin. When a large swell would hit, rocking us back and forth, the closet in my cabin would creak loudly, making a combined scratching and banging sound as if someone were imprisoned and trying to get out. I was hoping the sound was coming from my clothes moving back and forth in drawers and on hangars, but no such luck. It was the closet itself, which, from 10 years of moving back and forth across the waters of the world, has loosened just enough to move and creak when the ship moves and creaks. I have an appeal in to the ship’s engineer, but I don’t have much hope that the problem will be fixed before we reach Ireland. The wine bottle in one of my cabinets was rolling back and forth too. That was easy to fix. The sun is out now, and, while the swells are still in the 6- to 8-foot range, they’re far more manageable. And I have a couple of little-used books wedged between the top of the closet and the cabin ceiling. For the moment, the prisoner in the closet has given up trying for freedom. Class started on Saturday. We’re on an alternating “A” and “B” schedule, with half the classes scheduled on “A” days and half on “B.” I teach one class on “A” days—intercultural communication—and two on “B” days: public speaking and business communication. It’s Wednesday afternoon as I write this, so we just finished class day A3 and will finish B3 tomorrow before arriving in Galway Friday morning. The students seem bright and very engaged, moreso, in fact, than I remember from fall ’09. But that might be because, by the end of that voyage, I had read and graded far too many papers and reviewed far too many exams. My cynicism was high. Now my hope is high that these students will be almost as engaged in the classroom as they are in the sights of the ports we visit. Frankly, there’s little more to do onboard than go to class and study. Maybe this fall’s batch of students is catching on to that more quickly. We’re all looking forward to Galway. We’re looking forward very much to planting our feet on surface that isn’t moving. And I’m wondering if I’ll be able to steady myself long enough to hit a golf ball. I’ll soon see.