The Pacific - pre Hawaii

Hey everyone its day 5!
 
Position Update:
LAT 19° 13.8 min North of the equator
LON 137 ° 10.6 min west of prime meridian
COURSE: 267°
SPEED: 11.2 knots
 
This info is from one of a few channels we get on our TV’s! 

At night they show some educational movies on one channel, older movie like "Angels in the Outfield" on another, and they have children’s movies on the last.

We are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean right now! It’s great outside. Warm, sunny, with a very nice breeze! I just finished my classes for the day and am sitting out on deck just relaxing. I have a Leadership meeting tonight, which is pretty much Student Government stuff. The last two days have been just classes and trying to get used to studying on a ship. I read some 30 pages in my Communications book while out on the deck (in the shade). It's certainly weird looking out the window of a classroom and seeing the rolling waves of the ocean, but don't get me wrong - its pretty cool! I also love sprawling out on deck at night just looking up at the vastness of the Universe. I hear that one night they are going to turn off all the ship lights so that we can see the stars and planets. 


Global Studies class today was interesting. our teacher loves statistics and he has some crazy ones: More money was spent on lawn care in the U.S. last year than on health care in all of India. 97% of people in Tanzania are living on less than 2$ a day. By 2050 Asia is going to have 5.5 of the 8.1 billion people in the world. In Russia the life expectancy for men is 61 and for women its 74 years…. the difference is mainly because of excessive vodka consumption. Just a few of the interesting facts I learned that I wanted to share with you all. I am keeping a log on my computer of all this kind of stuff. 

We are now learning about Hawaii (all 134 islands of it). An Interport Lecturer is onboard from Hawaii,  he is teaching us about the geography, culture, demographics etc. For every port of call they have an “expert” from that country come on board to give us the info. 

I have to give a SHOUT-OUT to my man Hector!  He's our cabin attendant and Hector takes great care of Eli and myself. Little side note I was very surprised with how soft the toilet paper is, unusual for a “cruise ship”. In my experience the t-paper is usually not that great.

But anyway, lunch today was great! I had caesar salad and fedichini alfredo with this really good chicken and rice. I have been extremely pleased with the food, their doing a great job so far! 

The Pacific is still really rough, we are cruising along at only 11 knots night now, and have been that slow for the last 2 days. That causes us to get thrown around a lot by the waves. We were going 19-21 knots the first couple days trying to out run all the storms that are now hitting California. So now we're going really slow in order to time our arrival in Hilo, Hawaii properly.

Other than that, all is well. Just getting adjusted, not in a routine yet, but getting there.       Hawaii on Monday!



Nicholas Alan Tomkins