Date Line Pacific

21 Degrees 17.5 Minutes North
177 Degrees 12.8 Minutes West

We are now three days out from Hawaii and conditions have been wonderful. Our Captain's decision to delay our departure from Honolulu and stay south out of the storm-driven swells paid off handsomely. We've been enjoying very mild temperatures and a slow two meter swell from the north west. The storm we were most concerned about is long past us and things look pretty good ahead. At some point we are going to have to turn northward to get to Yokahama, but I expect we'll do that when we are closer to Asia with not quite so much fetch. Japan is supposed to be quite cold and I suspect the sunbathing students will probably disappear from their lounge chairs on deck seven. Soon enough though, we will turn south and the weather will warm up again. I'm glad to have the change of "seasons" along the way.

We are traveling towards the International Date Line and will cross it at some point early tomorrow morning. It is Sunday night right now. When I wake up it will be Tuesday morning. For the rest of my life, I'll have a below average number of Mondays compared to all the other days of the week. I'm ok with that.

The ship has settled into a nice rhythm and a lot of classes are starting to have exams and papers due. This will have been our longest stretch of uninterrupted class days, so we are all trying to take advantage and get a lot of academic work in. Once we get to Japan, we will have a long stretch of a couple of class days and then another port. Lather, rinse, repeat. I'm very excited for all the port calls, but it will make keeping coherent class dialogs difficult.

Two days ago I received a note from our Dean's office. I had been assigned (gifted?) four students to be in my "At Sea Family". Students who are interested sign up to join faculty and staff as little family units. I wasn't going to sign up, as I am traveling as a single person and I thought students would want a "real" family unit - you know a couple, maybe a couple of children… However, the ship has a lot of students on this cruise and they got so many students signing up for the program, that they were desperate for adults to participate. Frankly, I was reluctant to do it, since I was afraid that the students would be bummed that they got the "single guy" for their family. I discussed this with several of the other single-adults and we decided to pair up. One of the ship's two librarians, Olivia who had traveled with our group up to the Volcano and I joined forces. She had three "kids" and I had four, so we became our own little Brady Bunch and built a virtual family of nine. Perhaps Utah is beginning to wear off on me...

Last night we had dinner with our group and had a great time. It's a nice group of students, five women and two men, with one woman from Germany and one guy from China. The other guy is Naval ROTC headed for SEAL school. One of the other women in the group has already graduated from art school and is a fiddler who plays celtic music. Quite the eclectic group. None of them knew each other even though two of the girls go to the same college. We had a nice dinner, with lots of laughter and stories about our homes. We are meeting again next week to celebrate the birthday of one of my new "daughters". Olivia and I are starting to brainstorm some ideas to do some evening activities a couple of times as we go. Should be fun.

Tomorrow is a study day for the students, so there is no class. There are few of these spread along the trip and I think psychologically they are a great idea. With no weekends, this long period of classes is starting to wear some of the students a bit. I won't mind the break in the schedule either.

We are using the "free day" tomorrow to have a short meeting with all of the scientists on the cruise. Two of the instructors (the Professor who is teaching Oceanography and the Nutrition Professor) are both returning faculty, having taught on board several times before. They are interested in putting a lab on board and potentially making measurements on future trips that could contribute to classes. When they discovered my SEA connection and years of doing science with college students, they thought I might have something to contribute to that discussion. While it's not a bad idea in theory, I somehow don't think that they will be doing any midnight neuston tows from seven stories above the ocean surface anytime soon. :)