High Seas!!!

Last evening, we hosted my Shenandoah University colleague, Spanish Professor Andrea Smith, and her husband Matt in our room. Yes, the room is big enough for four people to sit around and talk.  Matt had a Black IPA from a San Francisco Brewery he'd picked up in Boston he wanted to share with Barry and Barry brought out a bottle of a Nut Brown Ale he'd gotten at the Garrison Brewery in Halifax, just across the street from the dock.   Jayne and Andrea drank some South African wine we picked up in Halifax.   We had a good time sharing our perspective on what we've experienced so far on the ship.   Both Matt and Andrea have recovered nicely from the sea sickness they'd experience earlier.

We haven't seen them today and today has been the roughest one so far.  It was really hard to get from the food line in the cafeteria to the table without spilling food. And on our way out of the cafeteria we were careening from one side of the hall to the other, trying not to knock down the people coming in the opposite directions.  Everyone seems to get a good laugh out of it and I didn't see anyone loosing their lunch!  We heard a crash of dishes behind us from the dining room.   There had been visits schedule to the bridge today but they were canceled because of the high seas.

Everyday we get a Dean's memo that includes the noon bridge report. Today it said we were experiencing rough seas with 16 foot swells.    Here's the rest:

Location of ship Lat.51-22N, Long. 036-43.0W

Miles traveled since from Last port   1175 NM

Miles to next Port 1017 NM (Galway, Ireland)

Avg. speed of ship (since Departure)13.3 Kts

Miles traveled since Yesterday's NOON  304 NM

Avg. speed of ship for this leg 13.3  Kts

Temp. of Air 13 deg. C / 55 deg. F

Temp. of Water 14 deg. C / 57 deg. F

Wind Direction & Speed WNW-32 Kts, 

SUNSET 2016 H   SUNRISE 0611 H

Fresh Water Consumption 184 liters/person

Barry got good news yesterday in the work out room. The first of five really fine "spinning" bicycles have been installed.  They were donated by a family of "life-long learners" who are on board.  The woman, whose husband, children, and father-in-law are also onboard, cycles competitively and wanted there to be nothing but the best for us cyclists onboard.  We will hopefully find a group of road cyclists to ride and challenge each other together.

Barry was absolutely thrilled with his LIberation Theology class with met for the second time today.   The first class he had done a lecture introducing what Liberation Theology is.  He told them to look over the syllabus and the class requirements and come today with questions about it.   They had also been assigned two chapters to read for today, one an introduction to LT and the other an historical account of it in Latin America.  Amazingly, they seemed to have done the reading and most of the class seemed engaged with the material, making intelligent and informed comments or raising important questions.  It was a great discussion.  Let's hope it continues.

Evening activities began tonight.  There was a program called on Irish Culture.  We'll let you know tomorrow if we learn anything of interest there.

Later in the week there will be a presentation by a future SAS Dean, an Aero-space Engineering Professor from UVa, who was an astronaut and made several space shuttle flights. We're looking forward to that.