Six Days and Seven Nights

Our six days at sea were peppered with activities to make the journey a bit more palatable. The kids program divided up to different cabins and watched movies while eating popcorn one afternoon. One morning they received a presentation on banana plantations. Ana and Elsa brought two mornings worth of great craft projects to them and on our last day one of the Chilean interport lecturers gave the kids a presentation on Chile and its customs. On our second morning out, the Watki toured the bridge with a group of seven others. I’ll post a picture of Wade and Emma in the Captain’s chair. No classes were held on the fourth day at sea. Instead, everyone joined in the Sea Olympics. The ship is divided into six seas: Caribbean, Arabian, Bering, Yellow, Mediterranean, and ours, the Si Sea (senior). While our sea won the opening ceremonies and iron chef and took second in the trivia contest, we couldn’t pull out enough points in other areas to win a medal. Other events included an obstacle course, the flip cup, orange panty hose, dodgeball, limbo, taboo/pictionary, basketball shoot out, synchronized swimming, tug of war, balloon pop, twister, jelly bean hunt and lip synch. Emma was in the lip synch event along with the other ship kids (see photo). Saturday she got together with the other ship kids to watch Cars, while Wade and I attended the ‘Dean David May Be in Paris, but We’re Eating Quiche Right Here on the Ship” reception in the faculty/staff lounge. Dean David is the Academic Dean for this voyage, but he’d already committed to giving a presentation in Paris so while we sailed for six days he flew to Europe, back to the States, and will join us again in Chile. We loaded our tiny plates with shrimp, chips & salsa, meatballs & quiche and enjoyed the company of Zoe and Ricardo Padron, from Charlottesville, VA. Ricardo has served as acting Academic Dean in David’s absence. Originally from Ecuador, Ricardo moved to the US at age six and he and his technology savvy (we’re talking Nationally Certified) teacher wife, Zoe, have been traveling with eight year old Santiago (who is fluent in Spanish) since he was 7 months old, just as we’ve been with Emma Caroline. Last night we attended an on-board worship service. They’d had one before, but it didn’t start until 9:00pm. One of Wade’s work-study students is on the committee and when Wade told her we’d go to an earlier service she worked to make that happen. So, at 7:00pm last night we joined thirty other voyagers in Classroom One for a nondenominational service led by Lifelong Learner John Goodenberger, a retired Presbyterian minister who attended Park College as an undergraduate (how ‘bout that Grandma!) We sang “How Great Thou Art” and “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” as traditional hymns and “How Great is Our God” for the contemporary song. John preached an interesting sermon looking at the similarities and differences between the stories of Absalom in the Old Testament and the Prodigal Son in the New Testament. It was a nice service and others are planned for each of the Sunday evenings remaining at sea (I believe there are three for Emma and me and four for Wade).