What a Joy!

The excitement on the MV Explorer tonight is palpable. Tomorrow we will wake up to see the ship docking in Galway, Ireland. Soon thereafter the Irish immigration officials will board the ship to inspect all our passports. Then, beginning at 7:45, people we will begin leaving the ship for our various excursions. In Galway we have to tender from the ship to the dock in the ship/s lifeboats. Our tender will leave at 8:30 giving us plenty of time to catch our bus at the dock for our excursion to the Cliffs of Moher. Many folks are going overland (by train or bus) to Dublin. But we will reboard the ship tomorrow night to sail around to Dublin. We'll be sailing on Saturday and land in Dublin Saturday night and get to enjoy Sunday and Monday there.

Today was the last day of classes until next Tuesday. We have that day for classes as we sale between Dublin and Southhampton (London).

In the Global Studies class today we heard interesting presentations on the way parliamentary systems work (which all our European stops have) and on the European Union. At the end, there was a short presentation by an SAS alumni who has recently retired from a very successful business he created: Crocs shoes! The highlight in my World Religions classes was a presentation by an Irish woman who is on the ship from Halifax to Galway (her hometown). She spoke about the religious environment in Ireland, describing well the importance of Catholicism to its people, but also the waning loyalty to it among the young because of what she referred to as their "backward' positions on contraception, abortion, and same-sex marriage.

We've told you about the rolling seas we experienced the last two nights. We had been worried about the effect on some of the older people onboard whose strength and balance might not be sufficient to stay upright! Sure enough, a woman we had met in Charlottesville back in July, Joy, fell in her bathroom last night and has been restricted to her bed for a time. We went by to visit her after dinner and what a treat it was. We had not known that her husband had been the Dean of the National Cathedral in Washington, DC when it was finished and head of the Episcopal Divinity School on the west coast. She's going to be okay and is planning to make the trip into Galway tomorrow to visit a niece she hasn't seen since the 1950s!

There is some sadness on the ship tonight because we are saying goodbye tonight to Kathy Thornton, who will be Dean on the Fall 2013 voyage. She gave a wonderful presentation last night on her experience as a Space Shuttle astronaut. We had a nice conversation with her over a meal a couple of days ago and we know she will en excellent, down-to-earth (irony intended) dean. We would love to sail with her next year!

Tonight we will go to sleep listening to the Irishman Van Morrison.