South of Newfoundland, Enroute to Galway 25 August ‘12 There’s still lots of water out there. The past six days have been filled with orientation, meeting and greeting faculty and staff, prepping for day one of class, and, yes, a day of golf in Halifax. So I haven’t had time—“taken” the time is more accurate—to keep up with blogging. I’ll try to reduce the past 6 days into capsule form with the promise to be more diligent and detailed in future entries. That, at least, is my good intention. We boarded the MV Explorer last Sunday, 19 August, in Boston Harbor and spent the afternoon unpacking, reorienting to the ship (not “boat,” as I have to keep reminding myself because “boat” is the slang I’ve been using for the past year), and meeting new friends and a few old ones. Truth is, we’re all old on the faculty. I’m writing this in the faculty-staff lounge, a sanctum sanctorum, off limits for students and a wonderfully quiet place to work. The lounge is near the bow of the ship, and it’s encased in a 180-degree glass wall looking out on the waters. I was just distracted by a pod of humpbacks swimming, breaching through the water, occasionally slapping their flukes to stir up krill. Either that or they’re prepping for an upcoming TV commercial. Not much teaching getting done in the port-side classrooms right now. And the Queen Mary 2 just appeared on the port horizon. It’s enroute from Southampton to New York, according to the Cunard website. Back to last Sunday. I was very happy to see my home for the next 106 days: a deck-5 cabin with king-size bed, plenty of storage for my stuff—including golf clubs under the bed—a decent-size bath complete with tub, and, best of all, a small balcony facing starboard. I’ve slept 5 of the past 6 nights with the heavy sliding-glass door open, allowing me to listen to the splash of the water against the bow and alongside the front quarter of the ship. The digs are just fine! On my last Semester-at-Sea (SAS) voyage, I was in a deck-4 cabin, smaller living space, a little less storage, much smaller bathroom, and, of course, no balcony. That cabin was ok. And it had a nice, big porthole looking out at the water. But there’s much to be said for a balcony. The terms “starboard” and “port”—right-hand side and left-hand side of the ship, looking toward the front or “bow”—come from old square-masted days when ships included an extra rudder on the right side to help steer. It was referred to as the “steering board,” which has been slanged down to “star-board” over the centuries. And, because the steering board was on the right side of the ship, the only side that could be tied to the pier in port was the left side. It’s now, simply, the “port.” That was one of the more interesting facts I learned during the first of two long days sitting in the large meeting room called “the union.” The union was where the entertainment happened when the MV Explorer was a cruise ship plying the Mediterranean. Today, it’s the large lecture hall, equipped with essential learning equipment like a lecturn, easels, a large screen for showing slides and videos. But it also retains artifacts from the days of dancing chorus girls, broadway musicals, and stand-up comics. Fortunately, it also retains the lounge furniture, making sitting through the full-day meetings on Monday and Tuesday almost bearable. We arrived Wednesday morning in Halifax, where, following the 2-hour clearing through customs, I left the ship to pick up a few essentials I had forgotten to pack—there’s always something. This time it was wet-weather gear for our 3-day golf tour of Ireland (odds are almost 100% we’ll see rain during any 3-day stay in Ireland), a few pharmaceutical items, and, most important, a couple liters of wine for the Halifax-to-Ireland crossing. We’re allowed to bring onboard up to two liters of alcohol in each port, and few of the faculty and staff fail to meet their quota. Even though the passage from Boston to Halifax had been very smooth, it was still nice to feel solid ground under foot, and the Halifax weather was perfect, so walking around was a good way to spend the day. Halifax has the feel of a seaside town: narrow streets in the older part of the city where we docked, buildings dating back to the late 19th century and earlier, steep hills climbing from the harbor to an old citadel that used to guard the city, and, of course, the smell of sea air. But it also contains a few tall glass buildings, and a modern highway bridge connecting the downtown with suburbs to the north. The city sits inside a U-shaped harbor that opens east into the Atlantic. And on days like the two we had in Halifax, the scene is beautiful: green, heavily treed hills sloping down into the very blue waters. Wednesday evening, I was back onboard to greet parents of the students who would board the next day. After the meet-and-greet, I went to a very good Halifax restaurant for dinner with Jim Cooper, my golf partner and retired dean of UVA’s school of education; Shamim Sasson, Jim’s wife and onboard registrar; and Laine Hanson, a field-trip coordinator from SAS’s Charlottesville headquarters. Laine would be disembarking in Halifax and returning to Virginia. Thursday morning, Jim and I escaped the ship at 08:00 just as the first students climbed the gangway loaded with duffels and backpacks. For the next 4 hours, as students signed on, found their cabins, wandered the ship, and started making new friends, Jim and I played a Donald-Ross-designed golf course named Brookside Golf and Country Club, built on the hills of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, overlooking the waters of Halifax Harbour. The weather was perfect and the golf was fun. As always, the course won. We sailed from Halifax Thursday afternoon at 17:00 (ship’s time, 5pm for civilians). Yesterday was class prep time for me as the students went through a compressed version of the 2-day orientation that had filled my time from Boston to Halifax. And today, it all began: day one of classes. There is, as I expected, a distinct air of familiarity about being back on board the MV Explorer. Many of the same faces who were with us in ’09 are back again, especially among the lifelong learners, a group of adults and a few children who pay for passage and for the experience of sharing a relatively small ship with 475 students, 35 faculty, a staff of another 40 or so, and a 185-member crew. So, in some ways, it’s as if the past three years didn’t happen. At the same time, it’s all new. The students are new, the curriculum is new, most of he faculty are new, and, of course, a few of the ports are new. Plus, I know many new experiences are out there waiting for me. So I feel back in the groove and happy to be on board with many who I’m sure I’ll one day call close friends. Six days to Galway. Meanwhile, there’s still lots of water out there. And it’s still very blue.