I look to the sea, reflections in the waves spark my memory

We have been sailing for roughly five days now, and I'm learning an interesting fact: sailing, while occasionally punctuated with sea life and interesting weather phenomena, is rather boring. We have turned more northerly, and we are somewhere in the vicinity of Guinea. For some reason probably having to do with currents and trade winds, the sea is much more choppy. It's kind of fun.


Yesterday I went out to the bow intending to listen to my ipod and relax. Some of my roommates were there, so I went to talk to them. As we talked, we noticed a distinct change in the water in front of us. We were headed into rain. This was good news! We quickly threw our stuff inside and watched it approach. We were soon soaked from head to toe! It was exhilarating! My clothes are still not dry.


Last night I spent the night up on Deck 8, which is the top deck of the ship and is out in the open. I, along with my some of my 4416 friends (Kendall, Chelsea, Bonny Jean, and Emma), dragged my room's sleeping bag up and set it somewhere relatively out of traffic. It made for a surreal night.


When we first went to bed, it was cloudy, and I was fully expecting to get rained on. The wind started to pick up so I got into my bag. The wind eventually got so strong that I was pretending I was on Everest. By some miracle, I fell asleep.


Around 1:30 in the morning, Kendall and Chelsea woke me up. The clouds had cleared from above us. There is a meteor shower going on right now, so we lied there, watching for meteors. We saw a few, including one rather creepy one that stayed a while and was really bright. We noticed flashing, and Chelsea went to look and reported lightning. I got up to see. All around and behind us there were storms. It was incredible. Then Chelsea noticed something. We watched a white shape come up, seemingly out of the water, and fly in an erratic pattern. It appeared to be approaching us. As we stared, we saw strange, flapping movements on the side of the shape. It was a bird! We had no idea what it was doing so far from shore. After being awake for a while, we headed back to bed. It was a moment of overwhelming sensory stimulation: lightning flickering and reflecting off the bulkheads, wind blowing and whistling over my sleeping bag, the hard, cold metal ground underneath me. Wow!


To alleviate the boredom, there are activities, mostly Christmas centered, that are taking place. The second night we were sailing, they had storytelling. There were six or so stations around the ship, and we went in groups to those stations. Crew members had prepared stories and skits, which they performed for us. It was nice. Last night was Winter Wonderland. People set up booths and sold everything from baked goods to popcorn to homemade jewelery and crafts. The talent on this ship is rather impressive, as everything sold was of high quality. One of the photographers on the ship had a photo booth, so we got a picture of our cabin:



The women of cabin 4418 from left to right: Esther, me, Annie, Lindsay, Rachel, Bethany, and Priska



And because I mentioned them, so now you can have a visual, here are the 4416 girls:


Top row: Bonny Jean, Emma, and Chelsea
Bottom row: Kendall, Michelle, and Amie