The Baltic Sea

Last night, our ship, the MV Explorer, anchored overnight.  We're not sure why, but the speculation is that we made such good time in the Kiel Canal that we are ahead of schedule. We did pick up a couple of student passengers at the end of the Kiel Canal. Our original course was to use the Kiel Canal only for our return trip, but that route did save time and fuel and let us pick up some folks.  But, we anchored because we don't really have a berth in St. Petersburg until our scheduled arrival.  There were a few students who didn't get to the ship on time for a variety of reasons.  One poor young woman had her passport stolen in London and is currently in Paris getting it replaced and will join up with us soon. It is likely that another passport will get stolen along the way as people let their guard down.

So, we anchored and slept a very peaceful sleep on calm seas. In the morning we started up again and cruised at a leisurely 12+ knots.

    

Speaking of morning, we have all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  It's not hard to have a good breakfast on the ship IF you get up in time. The choices start out with fruits, yogurt, eggs cooked several ways, always potatoes, cereal and for me, grits. If you get there early, there is some kid of pastry with chocolate (but other kinds as well). For us carnivores, there is also at least one choice of meat--usually BACON.  With more and more people having dietary restrictions, the food is all well marked for various things like gluten.  At another station, there is cereal and a huge toaster with a rotating rack. Bagels, bread and English muffins are available along with peanut butter and jellies.  Juices and coffee/tea make up the beverage choices.  The coffee is available 24 hrs if you bring your on cup.  A coffee mug was the first thing I bought in the ship store.  I would rate the coffee good.  It's not as strong as some people like, but it's not terrible either.  It is easy to sleep through breakfast if you don't have a clock.  Some of the students seem to be relying on their smart phones which don't always know what the correct time is.  Tonight, we set our clocks ahead an hour, so some people will surely miss breakfast.

The Baltic has enough traffic to be interesting and we can see one coast in many places.  For example, this afternoon Denmark was in view on the port side of the ship.We've also seen more than a thousand wind turbines, some on land and some at sea.  I don't find them offensive at all--more like giant moving sculptures.

  Wind power helped Germany set a record on a Sunday in May with 74 percent of the electricity used that day created from renewable sources.  Wind power led the way among the renewable sources.  In 2013, renewable sources satisfied 27 percent of electricity needs in Germany, compared to 13 percent in the U.S. Most of agreed that the wind mills were pretty cool looking.

Tonight was trivia night in the Union.  There is always some kind of evening programming. There is a conscious effort to not over program so that the students have time to study.  At the same time, the building of community is one of the important values of the ship. I watched from the back so I could be on call for the library as our students assistants were just starting to fly solo. One of the final trivia questions was "For one point, name the ship librarian".  What an honor. And most of the groups got the point.