Saturday, December 20, 2008

High Seas, One

From aboard the MV Explorer, somewhere east and south of Puerto Rico, entering the Caribbean.

How strange is that? I have never thought of myself as the sort of person who goes on a cruise. (But then, who are they, and why am I not?) But here we are, and this is not a typical cruise or even at all a "cruise," as it is marketed by the Semester at Sea folk, who sponsor between-semester trips as well, as a "voyage of discovery." We're going to Brazil and up the Amazon -- excuse me, I meant UP THE AMAZON!!! -- and then back to Florida, stopping at half a dozen islands along the way. 

What have I discovered so far? Well, when I first saw our ship -- not a "boat" -- I said something like "wow, that's really big." It still seems large to me, as it has 7 decks to navigate and carries over 700 passengers and 200+ crew. But I've learned that it's not that large, as cruise vessels go and, more importantly, that the ocean is a whole heckuva lot bigger, as it can toss this baby about pretty easily. So my first discovery was "wow, the ocean is really big."

My second, on our first night out from port (Nassau), was that being seasick is no fun at all. I hurled pretty copiously, took a pill being dispensed right & left by the ship's doctor, and felt better very quickly. More pitching and lurching in the last couple of days, but I feel okay now. Maybe that rough initial period of acclimation really worked. (She said optimistically.)

We get to our first island port tomorrow, St. Bart's. More soon about the colors of the water, wave spray, jellyfish sightings, our fellow travellers, etc  etc.

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