Finally making some progress on the multiple fronts of shipboard library, field trips, computer accounts, music projects, liaison with the Hot Springs Elementary School students back home, and getting to know students on board.  But the big story is the rough seas.  We rock and roll all day and all night long for days.  People lurch from hand rail to hand rail.  At its worst, everything in the cabins tumbles from shelves and desks.  Warner and I finally decide to almost completely rearrange the desk area to accommodate reserve books in the lower counters so they won’t hurt library staff as they fall off the shelves.  The captain has gone 300 miles out of his way to avoid a huge low pressure area that is causing massive storms on the California coast but even with that the swells are enormous.

This is no fun.  But, at the same time, we learn in Global Studies (everyone aboard attends this daily “integrative” class) about Polynesian settlers of Hawaii who traveled over 2,400 miles of the Pacific in canoes hundreds of years ago to reach their destination.  At least we are not in canoes.  I can only marvel at the courage, perseverance and ingenuity of those sailors.

The food is very good, much better than I expected.  The ship is very well built and the captain runs a tight ship.  We have the first of what will be several lifeboat drills and the crew is no nonsense.  Most students are real troopers.  We all just hope that the several-days adventure of relentless, very rough, high seas will soon be behind us.