Sailing, sailing!

Our voyage from India to Cape Town is a total of 12 days with a half of a day stop in Mauritius. Thank goodness for Mauritius! Otherwise the near two weeks at sea could be daunting. However, some people on the ship may be thinking they'd never heard of Mauritius...

At the Pre Port meeting the night before we docked, the Executive Dean gave his most solemn and serious warnings to the students about behaving in this port. Too many travesties have occurred in Mauritius and they make up the major reason why SAS does not schedule an overnight stop here. The Dean warned that there would be severe consequences to those who boarded the ship intoxicated or otherwise, the testing would be random and the standard penalties would be tripled. With such severe restrictions in place, even the cleanest of slates could result in expulsion from the ship, program and semester.

The Smiths split up in Mauritius. A gorgeous, lush island first settled by the Portuguese and lastly by the British but it was the French customs and culture that stuck. Chris and Jeremy went to the Tamarina Golf Course and then toured the city of Port Louis by cab. Ben and I hooked up with a group of people and went to Coin du Mire on the north side of the island and went snorkeling for the day. We swam around the base of the huge green island, one of the many that make up Mauritius, where the coral was vibrant and the fish were abundant. The air was just warm enough to feel refreshed as we hit the water which was so nice to finally touch after traveling on top of it for so long. It was such a great time although Ben decided that snorkeling is not for him. The feeling of swimming in an aquarium, that I enjoy so much, is a little overwhelming for Ben and would rather stay in his own habitat above water. At least he tried it.

Afterward, we were taken to a beautiful beach where we dined on a grilled lunch of beef kabobs, fish, chicken and pineapple along with a variety of culinary accompaniments, all you can drink beer, wine and rum punch.

On our return, the boat ran up onto a very populated beach. Upon closer inspection, we realized that most of our friends from the ship were here. Ben did not want to leave, of course, but our bus was waiting and transportation back to the ship was scarce. We got to the city center and did a little souvenir shopping and walked the last mile to the ship. As we neared the port, we collect a few others who were making the trek and heard the rumble of the first field trip bus coming back to the ship behind us. The last thing you want to do is get stuck in the back of the long line of people boarding the ship so we ran the last 200 yards to beat the bus. As we stood in line, we conversed with several students we know very well. It was obvious no matter how they tried to explain their condition, that they were 3 sheets to the wind.

We got through ship security and I was headed up the stairs to my cabin when Ben called me back to the gangway. One of our friends had gotten pulled aside for testing. I'd never seen Ben so worried. As we stood outside the clinic where they were doing the testing, we saw no less that 12 other students get pulled in AND one of the adults we'd just spent the day with!

29 students were thrown into the"observation room" (drunk tank) that day and with the threat of 3 times the penalty points hanging over their heads, the potential of severe consequences are looming. As much as I know they deserve whatever punishment they get, it's still hard to sit back and watch them throw away the privilege of sailing with SAS in a matter of only
a few hours.

The next day was back to school and work as usual for everyone. Chris is also leading a group of students for one of the entrepreneur companies that is sailing with us. It's called One Earth Designs and they have created a solar powered cooker primarily to help the nomads of rural china to give them a cleaner, less expensive way of cooking. It's Catlin's company, who you may remember, is one of the first people we met on the bus from Ensenada. She and her partner are constantly on and off the ship, flying to all different countries to promote their product while we are at sea and students fulfill research and marketing projects while they are away. She disembarked in India and we won't see her again until Cape Town so she has put Chris in charge. I don't particularly like to toot our own horn, but in the case of Chris, I can't help it. I think he still may have a future in teaching. I watch him in these meetings and he is captivating. The students willingly follow his direction and are genuinely interested in every word that comes out of his mouth. He's also made a great impression on the faculty on board who teach the business classes. Just the other day, he was invited to be on a panel for one of the ship wide seminars on the topic of entrepreneurship. Others on the panel included a venture capitalist who has raised billions of dollars for several Asian software products, a marketing professor from Stamford who is the founder of the Design School, the founder of The Unreasonable Institute, a marketing professor and entrepreneur from Stetson and the founder of Damascus Fortune who has created a carbon cylinder as a new source of energy. Chris is keeping some very intellectual company on board ; )

The activities on board during our voyage to Cape Town have increased as well. They've organized this leg of the trip well so that we don't get too crazy realizing we are somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Neptune Day was the start of it which was great fun and yesterday they held the Sea Olympics! Now, THAT was AWESOME!

The ship community is divided into "seas"...Agean, Red, Mediterranean, etc. Our group consist of the staff, faculty, life long learners and their kids. For some reason, we were not given an official sea name and were dubbed the "Luna Sea". Ugh...whatever. The median age of our sea is probably in the range of 35-40. Not huge competition for the 18-21 year olds that made up the rest of the field. But out of the 9 teams, Luna Sea placed 4th overall! We were ecstatic! There were quite a few leveling events that made the day much more competitive. Of the Smith family, we were in quite a few activities including, dodgeball, tank, ninja, ship/wave/captain (like rock/paper/scissors), tug of war, pb&j sandwich feeding, knockout and...SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING! I'll have to ask you to use your imagination when deciding who of us did what. An added bonus to the day was that as we turn the corner around Africa, we enter an area where the Indian, Southern and Atlantic Oceans collide making for some pretty rough waters. That being said, the pool sloshed around enough to almost empty every drop of water so, the synchronized swimming event was held dry in the student union ; ) It was quite a day. Packed with fun, competition and camaraderie. You know you've had a great time when you're in bed by 8pm and your face and sides hurt from laughing all day long.

3 more days until we reach Cape Town!