Right now, I am sitting on the
observation deck on the 7th floor at the front of the ship. For all
you future SASers out there, take advantage of this place. It is easy to forget
that it exists but don’t! I wish I could record a video and then post it so you
all could get some idea of what it is like out here right now. I am the only
person up here so it is dead silent other than the rumble of the engine and
the waves breaking against the boat. The waters are, for the most part, calm
right now (knock on wood!) and its pretty dark but the moon is full and huge!
It’s shining on the water and illuminating what looks like this perfect little
road from the front tip of the ship to the point where the moon is exactly
above the ocean and the stars are so freakin’ visible out here it is insane!
The light from the moon is highlighting the outline of this patch of clouds
just ahead of us. I wish there were enough words to explain this to you right
now. Anyways…
Today, we went to Mauritius. I say
that statement not discounting the fact that two days ago, I did not think I
would ever say it. Right after we left South Africa, things got a little rough.
Actually, a lot rough. We were chasing a cyclone, which is a hurricane but in
the southern hemisphere (these things seem to follow me). So, for the past six
days, we have been rockin’ ‘n rollin’ our way through the Indian Ocean (not to
mention that I have been popping Dramamine like it is my job and putting on
seasickness patches like they are going out of style). Well, two days ago, our
captain announced that since we had to slow down so much from the rough waters that we would not be able to go to Mauritius. This news sounded like someone
dragging chalk over a chalkboard for maybe two minutes (and that is a long
time. think about it.) to someone like me, who had been battling the forces of
nature for the past six days. Eleven days on a boat in cyclone-y waters is not
cool. Anyways, somehow, by some miracle, Semester at Sea pulled through and
figured out a way for us to have four hours on land.
 |
| the crew. at the summit of our hike in mauritius. |
In my opinion, the fact that we were only there for four hours was a gigantic blessing is disguise. It made today one of the most exciting, remarkable days of this journey yet. A group of five of us had decided last night that we wanted to go for a hike. We had heard there was a hike called Le Pouce, but no one on the boat had any idea how long it was or how far away it was from the ship. We took our chances, met at 7 AM this morning to be some of the first people off of the ship, found a taxi, asked the driver how long it would take us to get there and hike it and, when we agreed that it sounded feasible, were off.
Past SAS voyages have been known to
rent catamarans for the day. They bar-b-que and drink all day off the coast of
Mauritius, which, I have heard, has topography very similar to Hawaii. Those
who had decided to do that this voyage, realized it wouldn’t be reasonable to do in just
four hours and decided to hang out on the beach instead. As relaxing as that
sounded, I was so happy we had decided to do the hike. Afterwards, we had just
enough time to buy a couple of things in town and grab a bite to eat.
Four hours is such a short amount
of time. In a different context, I would hear that I had four hours to do
anything and choose to let it pass by. But, the cool thing about today was that
we had four hours, we took things as they came, but still spent every second to
the fullest. Maybe this is completely obvious to some people, but I hope it’s
not too obvious because I think it is a pretty cool thing that can be easy to forget in our technologically centered lives. If you think about it, our lives are made up of
a bunch of “four hours." That being said, I challenge you to push the limits of what you can do in any given “four hours.”
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