Day 48...THE 102nd SEA OLYMPICS!

Day 48, August 1st:

The 102nd SEA OLYMPICS!

Hey Adriatic!  Hey what!  We’re Adriatic and we’re dark blue.  We’re gonna beat the ship out of you!  This is our chant for the Adriatic Sea!  There are 10 seas onboard the MV Explorer based on where you live:  Red, Mediterranean, Baltic, Adriatic, Caribbean, Aegean, Bering, Black, Albanian and Diploma (faculty, staff, and life-long learners).  We all dressed up in our sea color to represent ourselves throughout the day.  My sea (Go Adriatic!!!) met at 10:00 in the Garden Lounge Dinning Room to get Dark Blue-ified!  We had blue body paint, face paint, makeup, ribbon, hair bows, balloons, an inflatable dolphin mascot and much more.  All of the seas then met in the Union at 11:00 for the opening ceremonies.  The Dean of Students opened the 102nd SEA OLYMPICS complete with a parade of the sea captains displaying their team banners and an Olympic torch carried by the children onboard.  We then went over the rules for the day and listened to an awesome introduction of how the Olympics is an integral part of Semester at Sea, as well as the ports we have visited on our Summer Voyage!  The Captain even came down to share a few words with us before declaring the opening of the 102nd Olympic games!!!!!!!!!!!

We immediately broke into our first event of the day:  the Spirit Competition! Each sea had to create a chant and had to perform it for all over the world to hear.  Since the Diploma Sea was tired from performing their chant, we then had to have a break for lunch before the next events.  The Diploma Sea had a blast this year!  Most of the faculty and staff have sailed on previous voyages so they had an unfair of advantage; however, they did create some very awesome and clever chants and dances.  AFter lunch, many different events occurred all over the ship ranging from a pull-up competition to synchronized swimming to bagel on a string to Jeopardy to flip cup to pie eating contest.  I went to support my roommate Nick at the pull up contest, as it was the first real event of the day.  He got 23 pull-ups!  Some of the guys and girls were impressive!  One girl got 9 pull-ups (she beat out a few of the guys…)!  I then watched tug-of-war and we came in 2nd place overall.  Synchronized swimming won the funniest event of the day, but the lip-syncing and dance contest was a close second.  The guys and girls from each sea did a great job in both of these events!  They were hilarious. 

I participated in the Relay Race.  This event had 5 sections: Dizzy bat (spin around a bat 6 times, hopscotch, and then climb the stairs), hula hoop while someone else throws 5 ping pong balls into a bucket that the hula hoop person is holding, three-legged maze through the 6th deck dinning hall, human wheel barrel, and my event (egg on a spoon down the hallway and down the stairs to the finish line).  It was a great event.  We almost came in first place!  It was pretty exciting! 

For dinner, the crew surprised us again with a BBQ!  We had cheeseburgers, hot dogs, BBQ ribs, potato salad, coleslaw, millions of deserts, corn on the cob, baked beans, etc.  It was AMAZING!!!! 
I wish they would do that for every meal.  After dinner, we had the lip-syncing and dance contest.  It was pretty entertaining!  Each sea put on a show for about 5 minutes.  Everyone dressed up and corigraphed their dance moves.  Some seas “sang” songs like It’s raining men (since there are no men on the ship) and, of course, the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears.  Others did music from each country we have visited or music representing things specific to our voyage.  All did a great job!!!!!!  It was sooooo funny!  Again the Diploma Sea did a great job!  The Grand Prize was a one-hour party in the “hidden” Faculty Lounge, first Sea to get off the ship in Norfolk and, of course, bragging rights for the rest of the voyage.  Our sea came in 7th place; however, we were the first sea alphabetically so we were always first and the judges always were a lot harder on us than the other seas to follow.  We did pretty well considering the circumstances. 

The entire day was full of energy and spirit!  We all had a blast doing it and it brought every one together again.  It was really great to have something like this bring the entire ship back together again right before our last 3 weeks on the ship with only 4 days in port.  Our cabin steward, Angelito, even dressed up to represent our sea!!! He was the only crewmember on the ship to dress up for their sea!!!! WE LOVE THIS GUY!!!  After the closing ceremony and announcement of the final places, I went right to sleep.  It was a long and tiring day!  Goodnight!  GO ADRIATIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Noon Report for August 1st:

212 NM since Alexandria with average speed of 13.86 knots, 1591 NM until the Straights of Gibraltar, closest land is 55 NM N of Sidi Barrani (Libya), sea depth is 7708 ft, sea water temperature is 80.6 degrees, air temperature is 78.8 degrees, sea swell is 5 ft, sunset tonight at 20:24, sunrise tomorrow at 06:47.