Day 8...Seven miles of Awesomeness

Day 8 / C6, June 22nd:

NOTE:  Some of the posts may have appeared on the blog out of order!  I know you will be able to figure it out.  The ship lost its internet connection for a little while and all of the emails were being sent out very slowly and out of order… 

Today, we got to see what we have been waiting for all week!  LAND!!!  At 13:00, me and all of my friends (we call ourselves “the group”) went to the upper deck to catch some rays and watch for our first glimpse of foreign land.  One hour later:  “This is the Captain speaking.  The ship is scheduled to pass through the Straight of Gibraltar at 15:00 hours; however, you may begin to see land from the bow of the ship within the next half hour.”  The whole ship roared with excitement!  Everyone on the ship made their way to the decks to see our first view of Spain and Morocco.  It was soooo exciting!!!!!  We began seeing all sorts of ships, smaller boats/yachts, high-speed ferries, and wildlife!  AWESOME!  It really took a second to take in the fact that I AM LOOKING AT LAND OVER TWO AND A HALF THOUSAND MILES AWAY FROM HOME and IT IS ON TWO DIFFERENT CONTINENTS!!!!!!!  WOW!  It is really hard to believe…  As we were taking in the views and taking millions of pictures, there were several whales and dolphins playing in the waters near us!  Even little baby dolphins!  I bet we saw 30-40 dolphins and 5 whales.  One of the whales kept waving at us too.  It was AWESOME!!!!  Wish you could have been here!

Time for a little history lesson! (BTW I suck at history, so this will be fun)  The Mediterranean’s only outlet to the wider world of ocean is the Straight of Gibraltar.  This small body of water is extremely ancient (over 5 million years old), and without it the Mediterranean would have dried up.  When passing through the Straight today, Spain was on the port (left) side and Morocco was on the starboard (right) side of the ship.  Did you know that all water traffic entering and exiting the Mediterranean pass through this seven nautical mile wide Straight!  Is that not amazing!  Now, I know seven miles seems like a lot, but look at it like this…  On most clear days, you can see approximately ten miles away from you if your view is free from obstructions (and you put your glasses on…hahaha…ok, I tried!).  That means that on a clear day you can see ten miles to the left and turn to see ten miles on your right.  Now, how wide do you think seven miles really is?  (I know that some of you are saying “duhhh it’s seven miles…” but in this case seven miles seems sooo small.)  It was amazing to see how the two continents look like they converge into one large sea:  THE MEDITERRANEAN!!!!  Here is a piece of trivia for you!  Now that we have just passed through the Straight of Gibraltar, what sea is the ship currently located in?  I will give you a hint: it does not start with an “m”!  Answer will appear in tomorrow’s blog…what a cliff hanger!

I can’t remember if I mentioned this or not so here it goes…I signed up for a tour of the bridge for July 7th (that is after Italy).  It should be exciting.  Moving on to the rest of the day… Tonight, the “group” went to two different Explorer Seminars. The first speaker was an interport student from Barcelona.  He told us all about what to see, when to go, how to get there, how much it costs, cultural norms, and much more.  It was pretty nice having an actual student from Spain (and even Barcelona) provide us with so much information.  The second speaker was our SSO (Ship Security Officer) and he told all about safety in each port. Both were very informative (as always both were very funny too)!  I also signed up for three SAS trips:  Sufi Dancing in Turkey, Evening with a Moroccan Family, and a service visit to the SOS Children’s Village in Morocco.  These should be pretty cool.  More about those as we get closer to each port… 

Okay, so I guess I have never really described the “group” or the roommates.  Drum roll please!  Beginning with the roommates: Daniel Pell is a senior Philosophy major at California Lutheran University and Nick Despoditis is from New Jersey majoring in the art of having a girl for each arm / some random humanity (in the words of Danielle).  The rest of the “group” includes Danielle, Clark, Lacey and Heather.  Nick is also known as “champ” and is only seen with two females next to his side. No really!  Clark is the quiet one of the group, but he is so funny when he talks.  Lacey is Danielle’s long lost twin!  Lacey, Clark, and Daniel all go to the same school.  Heather is also from California, but she goes to California Baptist University.  The group changes size daily based on time, place, and event; however, we all welcome adopted children!  We eat together, hang out on the deck together, play games together, play hit the person sleeping in class together, pick on Daniel together, watch Heather (all of 108 pounds) eat six dinner rolls together, and in general we have a pretty good time!  Daniel and Lacey were pretty good friends at school and it is very funny to see how much they act like Danielle and I.  We notice this every other minute.  Take last night for instance; the entire group was sitting in my very small and cramped room for about two and a half hours laughing our butts off.  It was sooo funny.  We were playing with pillows, passing the basketball around, as well as the goldfish and banana bread/cake they stole from the late night snack, and just having fun!  What a great time at sea!  Well, we have a full day of pre-port meetings tomorrow so I better go to bed.  We also advance the clocks ahead another hour tonight!  Good night!

Noon Report for June 22nd:

2865 NM since Halifax, 465 NM since noon yesterday, 597 NM to Barcelona, average of 18.17 knots since Halifax, average of 19.38 knots since noon yesterday, closest land is 45 NM SW of Cabo Roche (Spain), sea depth is 2,789 ft, sea swells are 1.6 ft, water and air temperature is 68 degrees, sunset 20:38, sunrise 06:48, we change our clocks one hour ahead tonight to +6 hrs from EST.

A few extra fun facts:

We create our own water onboard, so they track water consumption daily.  Today we used the lowest amount of water since we left Halifax (61, 024 gallons/58 gal per person).  We also have been at sea for 157.7 hrs as of noon today (it’s hard to believe we have been at sea that long already)!  Just to see if you paying attention...the answer to the question above is the Alboran Sea!