Rockin' and Rollin'

(Bob:) Day 3: A little bit about our home away from home: Imagine living your whole day on top of a water bed. It’s not quite that bad because the ship does have devices called stabilizers (like outriggers) that are usually deployed to cut roll. They do not eliminate it. The very first day we were dodging Pacific storms so the ship was in high winds, and you could feel it as you lurched from chair to chair in the dining room and wall to wall in the hallways -- oops, I mean passageways. The barf bags also came out, although I didn’t see anyone use one, but a lot of people were wearing motion-sickness patches.

We went 300 miles out of our way on the first day to avoid directly going through the storm, so first we were going about 20 knots (23 mph), now we’re doing about 12, so we might cover anything from about 550 miles in a day to somewhat more than half that. The ship can go as fast as 29 knots, which makes it the fastest passenger liner afloat. At the slower speed we occasionally roll more than at fast speeds -- we just picked up several items off our bathroom floor that weren’t “secured.” Nothing broke. Any typinb errory are caused by the rolling of the ship.

Weather has been windy on occasion, but no rain. I spent an hour on the deck this morning reading a book. It was very pleasant and sunny. Outside temperature is in the high 60s as we sail southwest toward Hawaii.

Sailing west has one nice advantage. Every couple of days we cross a time zone and gain an extra hour of sleep. By the time we get home we will have gained 24 hours of sleep. Great idea for everyday life

The students spent most of their first full day at sea receiving introductory lectures, many of them dealing with the dangers of binge drinking while ashore. I was sitting in on many of them and finally had to leave to get a gin and tonic. The one bar on board is restricted to faculty, staff and old coots. The bartenders are quite friendly. We’re hoping alcohol makes it easier to navigate on a moving ship.

For both of us, one of the chief highlights has been sitting on deck watching the world go by -- very relaxing. The biggest frustration has been trying to be compatible with the ship’s computer/e-mail system. We are working it out slowly.