Day 47

Don't worry. I am alive. 

It got rough there for a bit around 1:30 in the morning. Props to my roommate for taking care of me. 

And I did not make it to class, which sucks, but I am no longer violently sick, which made it worth it. 

I finally got up at 10:30 to shower, which felt fantastic. And then I fell back asleep until noon, which gave me a wicked headache. I just couldn’t win. 

Lunch consisted of grapes. Then Molly and I decided to go sit out on the pool deck to kill sometime. And there I got a pizza, which I successfully ate, and it was delicious. 

At 2, when Molly had to go to work, I went to my room and took a nap. 

At 4:30 I got to do the coolest thing ever. I got to take a tour of the bridge. 

They are offering tours for the next few days. Up to 15 people could go at one time. 

We got to the bridge through a door at the back of the union. The same way you go to get to the media lab, but instead of turning left you go straight. 

The bridge was a lot smaller than I expected it to be. And it was still huge. It was a long room, it went the whole length of the ship. Lined in blue carpet, everything in the room was dark wood. 

One of the guys on the bridge conducted the tour, I don't remember his position. He told us what everything was. They have three different navigational systems, as well as charting everything by hand on a map once an hour. There was a wall of cubbies full of flags. Most of them were specific flags used to communicate with other ships in case our communication system went down, and then there were the flags of every country we are going to. They have every single flag of every country on the ship but they don't have them all out because it isn't necessary.

We saw the microphone that the captain uses to make announcements. We saw the system they use to put out the stabilizers, and the GPS. We saw the wheel, which was a lot smaller than expected. No one was steering, it was on autopilot and used the GPS to keep on track. That was a crazy thing to think about. This huge thing was steering itself. I know airplanes do that, which is also crazy to think about. These huge things steer themselves and stay on track successfully. 

There are three people on the bridge at one time and two at night. 

We got to sit in the captains chair and wear his hat. So cool. And in the middle of our tour the captain himself walked in. Captain Jeremy. He's pretty cool. I talked to him a little about Asia and how he likes those countries better. 

The whole thing was really cool. My camera was dead so I am either going to have to take another one or steal someones pictures. 

In the evening I went to game night. I made myself go even though my head was still pounding. We played human knot, which my team lost. Twister, which was interesting on a rocking ship. My team came in third. And I did pretty well. And then we had a lip syncing contest. We played it in our teams. We all went up and then they would play 30 second clips of songs and we would switch off. The first team let each other do their thing. We went with more of a teams support approach. We all danced in the background and sang along with the songs even if we didn’t have the mic. We rocked it, and we didn’t even get the best song selection. 

After all 8 teams went they had a tie and needed to have a sing off. Between team 8 and us! We faced each other on the dance floor and battled it out. We still didn’t get the best songs. Henry was so mad when he got Winter Wonderland. You can't do much with that. 

We lost the battle. And the war. But it's alright, we were still the best. And it was tons of fun. 

I don’t think that should have cured my headache, but it did. 

Game night lasted for a long time and after it I was wide awake. It probably didn’t help that I had taken a nap between the hours of 7 and 8pm. But as soon as I got to my room and put my laundry together, after sitting in the piano lounge with Molly while she ate a sandwich, I was exhausted again. 

I guess I'm still not 100%. 

The good news is that tomorrow is study day. That means no class and not much else. Maybe some homework. 

I do have a meeting about the parents trip. I'm excited to learn more about it. 

6 more days until Ghana! 

OON BRIDGE REPORT FOR TAKORADI, Ghana 9 Oct

Miles Made Good Since Casablanca

546 nautical miles

Average speed of ship 14.4 knots

Sea Depth 35 Meters / 115 Feet

Air Temperature 23°C or 73°F

Water Temperature 23°C or 73°F

Sunset: 19:40      Sunrise: 08:00