A Quick Note on Comments

I just realized that I never set up forwarding on the email that all my blog comments get sent to. And going to my blog uses up my internet minutes (I already used 47 minutes out of my 120 trying to set it up yesterday, woohoo). So feel free to comment, but I will not be able to read them until I have free internet access. Instead you can email me unlimitedly at alexa.lister.s12@semesteratsea.org. And thanks to everyone who has already written me! It's great to hear from everyone.

Some Facts

Location: MV Explorer, 4.78N 20.41W

Today was embarkation day for everyone else who wasn't work study. As such it was a long exhausting day filled with registration and orientation and nothing particularly thrilling to write about.

So instead here are some facts about our voyage that you may or may not find interesting, depending on what you consider to be interesting.

About the ship:

Tonnage: 25,000 tons
Length: 590 ft. (180 m)
Beam: 84 ft. (26 m)
Draft: 24 ft. (7 m)
Maximum Cruising Speed: 28 knots
Passenger Decks: 6
Classrooms: 9
Passenger Capacity (double basis): 836

About our Community:

Students: 570
Schools represented: 247
Lifelong learners: 79
Faculty: 38
Staff: 32
Faculty/staff family members: 59
Partial voyagers: 21

Countries Represented:

Austria
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
China
Colombia
Denmark
France
Guatemala
Hong Kong
Italy
India
Mexico
Netherlands
Sweden
Turkey
US Vietnam

Also, a quick update, due to the Brazil visa issue, our departure has again been delayed to tomorrow at noon. We have been assured though that we will still arrive in Dominica on Monday as scheduled.

Embarkation Day

Location: MV Explorer, 4.78N 20.41W

Our little ship is simply beautiful. I went on a Carnival cruise once and it was all neon and plastic and the cheesiest thing you've ever seen. It gave me a bad taste for ships. The city of Nassau is a port town and therefore bustling with tourists during the day. They are all old and overweight and rich and obviously completely culturally unaware, as the only part of the city they ever actually see is the port area that has been completely stripped of anything authentic and paved with gift shops. I'm sorry; I don't mean to stereotype cruise-goers, I know there are some lovely people amongst you lot, completely the opposite of what I just described. But all the tourists I've seen in the past few days, being herded along onto tour busses (minivans) that merely slow down in front of Bahamian cultural landmarks as a driver says a few words, gave me all the more distaste for cruises in general.

The Explorer is different in every way though. As she should be, after all we keep being reminded that this is not a cruise, but a voyage. She is about a quarter of the size of all these other ships that tower in the background. She is also a state of the art academic campus. And as I said before, she is beautiful! Everything just looks very classy; none of the gaudy neon frills that Carnival boasted. I can't believe I'm actually even comparing the Explorer to that cruise, but that's the only point of reference I have as far as ships go. But this is essentially, a very beautiful, miniature, floating campus, and my home for the next four months.

So this morning I helped myself to the continental toast for the last time and headed to the beach with my roommates. I really need to be more careful in the sun, I was out for merely an hour and am already completely burnt. The Caribbean never fails to be worth every bit of burn though.

For lunch we went to this little local takeout place I discovered last night that serves four-dollar conch burgers. That's another cool thing about the Bahamas: the local cuisine consists of conch and rum cakes. I've been to many a Caribbean island but I've never seen conch on the menu. It's actually really good. I think I'm going to miss it.

From there we headed back to the hotel and checked out. I was glad to get out of there; it was a very charming little hotel and everyone was super nice except for one of the front desk ladies who insisted on calling me over every time she saw me to have a fit about how we had way too many people in our room and would have to pay. That woman had the eyes of a hawk "I saw those other two girls go back into your room and you know you have to pay extra for them right?" This was a daily occurrence. The truth is I made the reservation for as many people as we originally planned, and the other two girls were a last minute addition. Not that it wasn't a blast, the front desk lady just made me super uncomfortable.

Lizzie and I decided to walk to the ship despite all of our luggage since it's only a few blocks away. Somehow we made it, checked in, attended the supervisor meeting, ate dinner out on the deck overlooking Nassau, and now here I am in my room, all unpacked and right at home. Mostly everyone is going back ashore for one last night in Nassau but I am exhausted and looking forward to a good night's sleep.

Tomorrow we leave for Dominica. Our departure has been delayed though due to a mishap with several students' Brazil visas. They never received them and so were flown out to Florida to pick them up. So due to a good twenty or thirty of our classmates still being stuck in Florida dealing with visa problems, departure has been delayed until the last plane tomorrow night arrives in Nassau.

Also, a small note: since the internet on board is extremely limited, I am typing all of my posts in word document and it may be a while before I actually have the chance to post them online. The dates and times marked are those when I originally wrote them however.

Shark Attack!

Location: Nassau, Bahamas

Sorry, that was a bad joke. I am alive and in one piece.

But I went diving again today and it was hands down, the best experience of my life. If you ever get to the Bahamas, the #1 thing you absolutely must do is go to Stuart Cove's, and go on their Adventure Shark dive. At first I thought the first dive was the most incredible experience of my life; we dove down to yet another wreck and there were reef sharks swimming everywhere. A few got close, but not in an I-want-to-eat-you way. It was move of an excuse-me-you're-right-in-my-direct-line-of-path kind of way. Imagine shipwrecks and sharks all in one dive. It was something so majestic and unreal I can't even begin to describe. And so I'll just leave you with that.

And then as impossible as it seems, the second dive we went on topped it times ten. We dropped down into the water, and there were twice as many sharks as before. The dive masters arranged us in a giant circle on the sand floor and the sharks just circled menacingly around us; waiting for the bait they knew was coming. And then our shark feeder dropped down into the midst of us with a cage of fresh bait. The frenzy that ensued was insane! Forty, even fifty sharks were all rushing in for fresh meat, in and out of our circle without even noticing us. And man were they everywhere! They were quite literally brushing up against us repeatedly in their attempts to beat everyone else to the bait. For nearly an hour I sat there, mesmerized as these gorgeous creatures got right up in my face, staring me down and threatening to swim straight into me. One of the sharks had battle scars; half of her lower jaw was missing, showing off her rows and rows of teeth and her white tongue. She was my favorite.

I feel like I've already experienced the thrills of a lifetime; I can't believe I'm looking at an entire semester of this. Tomorrow we board the MV Explorer.

Parrots and Facebook Celebrities

This is my new friend Max. Max's favorite word is hello, but he only talks to people he likes ( he thinks he's people too, and very important people at that). Max got very angry at me yesterday for eating a granola bar without sharing. We made up though. I think Max has a hangover this morning; he keeps wrapping his foot around his head.

About half of our fellow SASers arrived yesterday and we all took over Señor Frog's. It's so great to finally meet all these people that I have spent the last year stalking on Facebook. That would normally be a very creepy thing to say but we've all been doing it. This guy came up to me all excited and was like "You're Lexi Lister!" And I replied "You're so-and-so!" (replacing so-and-so with his name of course). Ok, I take it back, it is kind of weird. But I was amazed at just how many people knew exactly who I was; I didn't realize I'd made a memorable impression. It's a little terrifying.

A Day in the Life of a Dive Bum

Location: Nassau, Bahamas

(And a note to my mother: you should probably skip the first paragraph)

I woke up at 6:30 this morning to make sure I had time to figure out breakfast and find the bus stop to get to the opposite side of the island for diving. Breakfast consisted of a couple slices of bread because that's what the hotel's continental breakfast had and I needed a free meal (I've come to the sad realization that 90% of my money will likely be spent on food and tips). The bus was to pick me up by the Government Building, which is conveniently half a block away. There is no bus stop there. There is a busy street with minivans (The Bahamians' version of busses) rushing by driving people to work. There is also a two-square-foot patch of sidewalk in front of the gate leading up to the government building. The rest of the building is surrounded by wall followed immediately by crazy island traffic. So I wedged myself on the two-square-foot patch of sidewalk and wondered what was supposed to happen. I watched in terror as minivans slowed down just enough for the people on them to jump off and hurry on to their daily business. And then the Stuart's Cove bus (minivan) rounded the corner and I waved at it and it slowed down and I jumped on and thank goodness they had been expecting me because I felt like such a sketch person jumping onto a minivan that hadn't even come to a complete stop for me.

The lines on the roads here are zig-zags quite literally. I have yet to see straight road lines. The driving is just as chaotic. They drive on the opposite side of the road and there are no speed limits or traffic lights and if someone if front of you is going slower than your driver's liking, they swerve into incoming traffic to go around. This is how we drove around the entire coast to the opposite side of the island.

As I was standing in line to check in for my dive, the girl behind me tugged on the yellow bandana tied to my bag and asked if I was also with Semester at Sea. I replied excitedly that I was and she introduced herself and another girl. Once on the dive boat I found that there was a fourth SAS girl with us as well.

I was all set to go diving save for a strap for my underwater camera. The gift shop was no help but there was a camera center for tourists wishing to purchase pictures of themselves on their grand adventures. I walked in and the boy working the front desk was kind enough to dig up a lanyard for me. Everyone here is so friendly and helpful. And it's not just in hopes of making some sort of profit off of naïve tourists either. I tried to tip the guy for his help and he refused to accept it.

The boat driver, photographer, instructor, dive master, and everyone else were all gorgeous Australian dive bums. Perfect bodies. Heartbreaking accents. Carefree personalities. I want to be a dive bum when I grow up.

Our first site was the Pumpkin Patch. The Pumpkin Patch is a wall. There is a reef that drops thousands of feet to the depths of the ocean floors. Completely spectacular. The only thing I remember about it though is the shark. Swimming along, out past the wall, was a reef shark, minding his own business and refusing to come say hello. To everyone who told me I was going to get eaten by a shark, you were sorely mistaken. I apparently am not very tempting bait. The shark didn't even notice us but just kept swimming along, out beyond the wall.

The second sight was that of the two wrecks used to film the James Bond movies. The first, an artificial airplane built to look like a wreck, was used in Thunderball, and the second, a shipwreck, was used in Never Say Never Again. There's something really haunting about wrecks; I swore I could here some eerie music playing in the background, but when I stopped to listen, the only thing there was the sound of my own breathing. Inhale. Exhale.

Mostly people only do two-tank dives and so we headed back to the shop to drop everyone off and switch out boats. I had 45 minutes to grab lunch and then found my way onto the next boat. On this trip there were no Semester at Sea people. In fact it was all guys. In fact two girls passing by the boat stopped to tell me how brave I was for going scuba diving… My third site of the day was the plane wreck and ship wreck Hollywood sunk to film the movie Into The Blue. (I actually watched this before leaving and it was pretty stupid. But I do recommend seeing it purely for the sake of seeing how spectacular the Bahamian waters really are).

Our last dive site was supposed to be another shipwreck. Apparently the buoy marking the site disappeared though and we accidentally ended up at some unknown reef instead. It was a beautiful find though. I literally saw fish of every color of the rainbow and then some.

I borrowed my uncle's dive camera before leaving and everyone I ran into, staff and visitors, kept commenting on what a cool camera it was. Everything is digital these days, and people who have dive cameras really just have dive cases for their digital cameras. Not that there is anything wrong with this. But everyone seemed enthralled by the concept of film and thought this was the coolest camera ever. By the end of the day everyone was calling me photographer. I never used the thing before this morning and would not be surprised if the pictures all come out black (due to my photographer skills, not because of the camera). It was still fun though.

Aruba, Jamaica, Oooh I Wanna Take Ya to Bermuda, BAHAMAS!!!

Location: Nassau, Bahamas

Lizzie and I arrived safely in the Bahamas; no luggage was lost but we did almost miss our connecting flight from Miami to Nassau (we were sitting there at the gate for two hours and suddenly heard "last boarding call for Lister and Szoke" ...don't know how we missed that one), saw the MV Explorer! She is here, but leaving for Florida to pick up our professors, then returning for us later this week. Made our way to Senor Frog's where all the Semester at Sea alumni were celebrating their reunion voyage. Partied with them. Flirted with the bouncer for free tickets to the night club on Tuesday night. Tomorrow is scuba diving day. More updates to come!

Dear World,

I'm all packed and ready to go!

Five Days to Go

...and yet this still doesn't seem real. At all in fact. I can comprehend entirely that I am going to the Bahamas and get to bum around on the beach for a few days, do some scuba diving, hopefully visit the shipwrecks that Hollywood sunk for the James Bond movies, swim with the sharks,... And I am completely ecstatic with even just a few days of sand and sun. Everything from boarding the ship onward though seems like some insane dream, far too outrageous to be true. Surely this is all just some made-up fantasy in my head. Right?

My Life Stuffed Into Two Suitcases

When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money. ~Unknown

As marvelous as that advice is, being stranded in the middle of the ocean requires much more packing than just clothes, and unfortunately I'm already bringing every penny I have. So I seem to be doing just the opposite.

The past weeks, yes weeks, have been spent compiling lists of everything I could possibly need in a semester, clothing, shoes, toiletries, school supplies, vitamins, money, documents, books, electronics, etc, etc, etc, and then trying in vain to cut out as much as possible so as to squish everything into the two suitcases I am allowed. Or one suitcase and my backpacking pack to be precise. If I get desperate I will count my backpack as the carry-on that is actually is and bring a second suitcase, but I have learned that too much luggage is nothing but a major pain.

He who would travel happily must travel light. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

This sounds easy at first, throw some clothes, money, and my passport into a backpack and be done with it.

Not quite. I guess there's a slight difference between packing to live on a boat, and packing to travel in port. This is school, believe it or not, so I do have to lug around school supplies and textbooks. Thank goodness for the invention of ebooks. I can bring one iPad instead of the 15+ textbooks I need for all of my classes.

And there's also toiletries to think about. The campus store is apparently way overpriced and who knows what's available in the countries where I am going. Ok, I'm sure I could find mostly everything I need, but living in this country, I have been brainwashed into believing that I need a very certain brand of razor blades. It's silly, yes, but would you really want to trust being able to find normal toothpaste in the middle of Africa? Actually I just looked it up and Ghana, surprisingly, has the highest per capita consumption of toothpaste, but I'd rather not spend my precious hours in port searching around for toiletries.

Then there's also medicine and vitamins. I hear that the food aboard the M.V. Explorer consists mostly of potatoes and pasta, so multi-vitamins are a must, as well as protein powder. I care way to much about my health to live on a completely carb diet for an entire semester.

And of course these considerations go on and on but I won't bore you any more. For the benefit of anyone planning on living on a ship for four months though, I wrote my complete packing list on a separate page. I know everyone who posted their packing lists on Facebook in the past weeks was a huge help.