The waters have been smooth from Casablanca and there have been several days when it was lovely to sit outside and enjoy the sun and look at the beautiful turquoise water. We have seen silver flying fish, their wings shining in the sun (do they travel in flocks or schools?), and dolphins playing in the water. Some people, including John, have seen whales further from the ship. I did enjoy these days on the water so much, spending lots of time on our balcony reading, knitting or just watching the sea.
Unfortunately lots of people got sick in Morocco and were very sick for a few days. At first it appeared that the cause was food poisoning on one of the camel treks, and although that may have been one cause, others who had not been on that trip became ill. In the end there were so many sick our medical staff had to report the outbreak to the CDC, triggering a health classification of the ship which required the staff to do sanitizing at a high level. I think we are still in this situation because we smell bleach wherever we go. A number of people were in quarantine (tricky for student roommates who remained healthy) and the cabin stewards were very busy delivering meal trays and helping to clean up cabins. Our cabin stewards are wonderful and hard-working individuals who care for us as if we were family. Most people have now recovered and have learned not to use local water in some of these places for brushing teeth, not to eat fruits and vegetables that may have been washed in contaminated water, and so on. Everyone had been warned about this, but there is nothing like first hand experience to enhance learning!
Our many days at sea gave us time to get to know some of our shipmates better. I know I have told some of you we are traveling with two former astronauts, one of whom is Academic Dean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_C._Thornton). The other teaches astronomy on the ship (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Nelson_(astronaut)). We also have a couple of Life Long Learners who have had solid academic careers and who have collaborated in both academic and fiction writing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Hatfield, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rapson). Of course we have many talented faculty, staff, and Life Long Learners, and our students are a delight.
We have spent more time with our extended family, and as expected it is fun getting to know these young people. We had a chance to have a more formal dinner in the "special" dining room and it was a fun evening. Cody took some great photos, and if you keep an eye on http://www.semesteratsea.org/voyages/fall-2013/, you should see one of his photos of our family published on the Fall 2013 Voyage Blog in an entry about the extended family program. We have been told the photo will be in the article, but the article is not there as of this writing. There are other very interesting entries in the voyage blog that you might find interesting as well.
We hope all of our Canadian friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
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