...and we're off!

This ship has sailed, folks! (I apologize in advance for all the nautical puns in future posts...I notice them much more frequently now that I'm actually on a ship.) We left Nassau, Bahamas at 1700 hours yesterday (5:00pm for you landlocked time tellers). I've been on the ship for faculty/staff training since Saturday, January 19, but I feel like I've been here for a month. The ship has already become my home. I'm obsessed with the shower. The water pressure is fantastic. And there's nothing like the feeling of actual floatation when you're showering, which is how it feels here since this ship rocks a lot. Let me tell you a little bit about this vessel called the MV Explorer. This girl can BOOK. She's the fastest passenger vessel in the world. And she's pretty small (relative to the monstrous cruise ships most people are used to), so it has taken some getting used to. Lots of kids were seasick last night (their first night on board). I took some meds as a preventative measure, and I've been fine.


There is a full-service crew onboard who are AMAZING. They spoil the hell out of us. My cabin steward, Edwin, comes to my cabin every day and cleans my room, makes my bed, and changes my towels when needed. He'll also do my laundry on designated days. The crew members are international (most are Filipino), and they are incredibly nice and friendly. They make a true effort to learn our names and even our schedules to make sure they enter our rooms when we're not there. They operate on a militaristic philosophy and they have a strict non-fraternization policy, so we're not to socialize with them any further beyond their job duties. It gets hard because we'll see them out in port, but if they are caught in any compromising situation they WILL be sent home. And most of them are earning money for their families and sending it back to their home country, so one misstep could upend their entire livelihood.

Training went well, mostly attributed to the fantastic team of faculty and staff we have on board. The people I work with are amazing: many have lived/worked in various countries around the world and bring lots of experience to their positions. As a resident director (RD), I'm one of nine staff members who are assigned to a "sea" of students (my part of the ship is the Arabian Sea). We deal with the basic collegiate residential issues: emotional welfare, alcohol abuse, academic support...help them develop good decision-making skills. This can be a bit of a task when the result of a poor decision is never more than 600 feet away from you. And sorry, but at this university you can't always get "off campus."

The students boarded yesterday, and they've been in orientation/introductory sessions most of the day. In their free time, they'll lounge around the ship or lay out by the pool. It's completely surreal. I look around sometimes and am like, "Am I really here?" Disembarking from Nassau was completely bizarre. There were lots of parents on the dock to see us off. It was one of those rare experiences that I felt like I was experiencing from outside myself. I've spoken with some people on gchat, and that is really odd too - imagine, chatting with someone real-time in the middle of the ocean!

We had our first lifeboat drill yesterday also, and I was in charge of making sure everyone in my muster station was present. I was really freaked out because the crew is ALL BUSINESS and I had no idea what I was doing. But as the security captain, Alex from Norway, walked by me he smiled and said "good job," and the other crew members acted like that was a really big deal. So I felt cool.