A few weeks before leaving in early January on Semester at Sea Spring 2010, I happened to find in my office one of the few mementoes that I’d not discarded when we moved in 1998 from Lanntair Farm to Blue Notes, our home in Lakemoor Hills. It was an old Peterman catalog from the early 90s featuring a deck chair that I later bought. I liked what it had to say about Life at Sea so much that I kept it, not knowing that I’d ever have the chance of a lifetime to go around the world by ship. Like all Peterman catalog copy, it does go on but it also never fails to draw you in:

“There is no better life than the life at sea.

But, like rich food, it’s best in correct dosages. 3 days is too little. 80 days is too much. Around the world? It could ruin a person.

At sea you make your best plans for your return to earth … all the things you are going to do this time. “