In the middle of the sea somewhere & Mauritius

As we traveled from country to country our ‘studious’ days at sea are broken up by a few days of fun. The biggest of which are Sea Olympics and Neptune Day. Semester at Sea is very similar to camp in the sense that there is always a bit of friendly competition.

Sea Olympics
I think I may have mentioned this before, but in case I haven’t, our hallways are divided into 8 seas. The competition between seas begins the first day you step on the ship, and sea olympics is the day in which one sea gets to claim themselves the best. It seems stupid, but imagine high school or camp pep rally and college greek week combined into one massive day of fun. There are tons of events including synchronized swimming, lip sync battle, musical chairs, tug of war, trivia etc. My sea the ~BALTIC~ is of course the smallest and of course has the fewest boys. Where some teams were close to 80 or 90 people with mostly boys, we were a team of 46 with 4 boys… good… so naturally, Meryl and I stepped up to play tug-of-war. We thought it was funny and didn’t really think much of it until it came time to compete. Round 1: On one side stands baltic- 4 boys collectively under 500 lbs, me, and 5’3 Meryl. On the other side stands the Arabian Sea- 6 HUGE guys each about 150+ lbs. Meryl and I just looked at each other and laughed. This competition turned out to be not-so friendly as we were quickly ripped straight onto our butts. Although we were told the gender inequality wouldn’t be a disadvantage, I definitely think it was considering how my team, of course, came in last place. We may not have won the party in the fritz bar with free beverage service (the fritz bar is usually ONLY for faculty), but we won in spirit! (except not really- we came 3rd in spirit). There are few times in college where you are able to act like a kid again, so it was fun to run around the ship painting faces and chanting. YAY FOR SEA OLYMPICS

Neptune Day
TIME TO BECOME A SHELLBACK. If you have ever crossed the equator by sea, you have probably heard of King Neptune’s Day. For those of you who haven’t, this day is a ceremony to celebrate our transformation from pollywogs (whatever that means) into shellbacks (yeah idk what that means either). This “ceremony” begins with an 8am wake up call to banging pots and pans. Once on the pool deck everyone must complete the “ritual” of getting covered in “fish guts” (green goo), swimming through the pool, kissing a fish, and kissing a big ring on our dean’s finger. All of the faculty were dressed up, painted green, and wearing makeup and wigs. If you haven’t ever pictured your executive dean shirtless, green, and wearing lipstick- I advise you to do so. (I have attached a picture of ours so you can understand how confusing/disturbing this was for us). After becoming a shellback you are given the opportunity to shave your head! THE MOMENT I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!! Lol. Kidding. I’m not sure why so many people did this… but over 20 girls shaved there heads and a ton of boys did too. This event ended around noon and occurred two days after we actually crossed the equator. So although fun in concept, a bit disappointing. Either way, it was a day off school so yay! And again, very much like camp.

As we sail from Asia to Africa, the atmosphere is a bit bittersweet. I have been waiting all semester to be in Africa, but leaving Asia means there are only 4 countries left. It is starting to feel like the beginning of the end and finals aren’t far away. But hey! At least I’m a shellback right?! Anyway, shortly after Neptune Day our ship of shellbacks arrived in Mauritius.

Mauritius is a teeny tiny island just East of Madagascar. The beautiful, tropical island is well known for its 7 star resorts (not quite sure how a hotel gets more than 5 stars but WOW). We were only here for the day, as it is just a fueling port on our way to South Africa, but we definitely made the most of it! Immediately after getting off the ship, we got on buses and headed to the waters edge where we met two large catamarans. Our group split up and headed out on a relaxing ride into the middle of the blue water where we were able to snorkel in the worlds third largest coral reef that completely surrounds the island. After snorkeling we had a bbq on board and then took dingy boats into the island. The water was so clear and shallow. We relaxed on the beach and sipped pina coladas out of coconuts. A few locals came down and played guitar so we all circled around and sang along. It was so fun and relaxing.

Okay so some fun facts:
1. The dodo bird is from Mauritius! It is extinct now, but the cute little bird was on everything
2. Mauritius has completely free education and health care – interesting
3. Even the “sea” of faculty (we liked to call them the sea-niles) beat my sea sooo there’s that
4. There are a lot of social stigma’s with being bald. A lot of individuals on our trip got some interesting looks in country

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