At Sea, finally

Yesterday, the MV Explorer cast off  and headed out the English Channel to start our adventures at sea.  It's always exciting time leaving the port and watching the other vessels and the machinations of getting the ship underway

The students crowded the decks to watch, and the Captain gave the horn three blasts (which scared the crap out of the students on the 7th deck).

Tommy Tugboat pulled us away from the dock, and we were off with the wind, or into it.

On Sunday night, students had an activities fair, and formed clubs like the "Harry Potter Club" to an investment club.  Given the high sound level in the library, I have to say that there was a high interest.  One of our student assistants is leading the Salsa Club and promised me that he would teach Nancy and me to dance.  I've heard that before, and it didn't work

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This morning started out with the loss of an hour of sleep overnight, so a lot of the excitement of last night had morphed into bleariness and student sought out their classrooms. I spent a lot of the morning playing traffic cop to get students to the right classroom.

The other big event of the morning was the opening of the ship store at 8am.  There was a line ahead of time, because certain clothing items tend to sell out.  I bought a cap and a long sleeved voyage t-shirt (a best seller).  For some reason they didn't have coffee mugs with a cover them.  I would have brought mine if I had known.

Kids seem to like their classes.  I heard some excitement about them as they came into the library.  I'm hoping it stays as busy as it was today.  Time flies.  Faculty still need some hand holding with technology and adapting to not having a ready copy machine, but "flexibility" is our watchword.  I did have my first smoothie on the ship--not the best one because they were out of vanilla ice cream, so they used chocolate.

I will have to say that the "You Are Here" monitor, running on Google Earth and set up by Kelly Johnston several voyages ago, is a library magnet.  Everyone loves it, and it has settled several bets and taught some geography lessons.  Overheard: "I didn't know Ireland was there".

I stayed in the library tonight to show our student how to close at 11pm.  A long day.