I think one of the best ways I have heard the pacific crossing described is by my friend Julie on her blog. She asked have you ever tried to sleep on a roller coaster? We have had days, and nights, where we are rocking so hard that our drawers open and close by themselves, we have to be careful when going through a door because it moves on its own; and walking anywhere on the ship is a workout because at any given time you are suddenly climbing a mountain and the next instant racing down the other side. The pacific crossing is known for being the hardest leg of the voyage for several reasons.
1. The waves are usually the roughest here; in fact we went 600 miles out of our way to avoid a storm when leaving Japan.
2. It is our longest stretch at sea; we have 18 sea days between Japan and Costa Rica with only 1 day in Hawaii to get more fuel.
3. We are in our final stretch, only 4 more class days, which means only 2 more of each class before taking our finals.
Because of how fast we moved through Asia many of us were completely exhausted which means weakened immune systems so most of us are battling colds and we seem to just pass it back and forth, never getting 100% well. With just over 2 weeks left of the voyage we are at a bittersweet moment, ready to be home, see our families, and not live in a perpetual daylight savings time. But at the same time seeing our families’ means getting off the ship for the last time, it means our adventures are over.
One a brighter note since we were in Hawaii our phones all worked! I got to talk to everyone from my family so that was really nice, I feel like it has been forever since I have spoken to some of them. I made a Chick-fil-a date with my younger cousin; we shall belatedly celebrate his end of chemo since I had already left when he had his official party. I also got to talk to my 4 year old “boyfriend” who said “I miss you Kafwin, when you come home?” So I told him I would be home before Christmas. I think it was made even better by the fact that we were in Hawaii for thanksgiving so I got to talk to everyone that I normally spend the holiday with.
Hawaii was awesome; I went to a black sand beach as well as a lava rock beach. Of course on the black sand beach we made black sand castles with volcanoes in the background (I mean we gotta get in the spirit here). I admit I had fun telling people back at home that I was swimming in Hawaii and that the temperature was about 80 degrees. Just a note for all you upcoming travelers THE PACIFIC OCEAN IS FREEZING THIS TIME OF YEAR.
So right now we are just all working real hard to finish up school. I am down to one 6 page paper and 4 finals left, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Most of us are crazy excited for Christmas, like go find me the most excited child in the world and most of us can top that child in excitement. I don’t know why it is so exciting this year but my roommate and I have been cranking the Christmas music for a good 2 weeks now. It is funny when I get on facebook for a few minutes and see people back home complaining about Christmas merchandizing and music already started, it seems like such a foreign world right now for us. Although a few of us were talking about how we could smuggle a tree on board in Hawaii and set it up. Yeah don’t think that would have worked.
Oh the Pacific, we are really discovering just how big this ocean is. It takes 18 days for us to cross it. I can only imagine what and journey across the oceans used to be like, considering we have really good stabilizers so the rocking isn’t bad at all. Also we are a very fast ship, apparently fast enough to out sail pirates (which we didn’t see any of making our crossings quite boring). But the pacific can be quite frustrating, at least for us. One reason is the length, we felt like the majority of our class work was compacted into the last 2 ½ weeks; from research papers (ok so right now I am totally procrastinating that assignment) to tests, field papers and many classes without any breaks. We truly feel exhausted, especially since we don’t get weekends on this voyage, our “weekends” are ports which are anything but relaxing (one day in Hawaii does not mean relaxing, instead it means walking 10 miles because we are too cheap to pay for a taxi). So as we gently (or not so gently) rock our way across the pacific we have to make decisions between sleep, school, and social (have I mentioned that of the 18 days crossing 9 of them were 23 hour days because of changing time zones?) times; not always an easy decision but one that has to be made. Usually our meal times are when we get together and have our deep conversations over our pasta and potatoes (getting a wee bit tired of ship food) before finally going to write yet another paper or take a stab at our mountains of reading assignments. Some of us have started counting down to the end, to seeing the family and friends that will greet us in Fort Lauderdale. We are also looking forward to the giant welcome home party that the rest of the world calls Christmas. I mean seriously we couldn’t get home at a better time; all the get-togethers with family and friends welcoming us home and hey why not celebrate Christmas at the same time? Yes I promise I have learned that the world doesn’t revolve around me, but well I am still calling it a giant welcome home party. We are officially done classes and now we are all frantically studying for finals which are cruelly the day after Costa Rica (seriously do they think we are actually studying in port???). There really isn’t much to sea days, we go to classes, do homework, occasionally have a dance (the ambassadors/alumni ball was last night) but pretty much just mundane stuff. We have discovered that contrary to all the nature documentaries you can actually go almost 3 weeks out at sea and not see a single animal. Apparently the ocean is teeming with wildlife making dramatic leaps out of the water for no apparent reason. We stare out the windows hoping to catch a glimpse of anything but all we see are waves. A great joke to play on your friends is to yell our “Whale!” and they will all go and look hard and finally you say “oh sorry, I guess it was just a wave.”
