Embarkation

I always wondered about the origin of embark.  The American Heritage Dictionary says it probably came from "barca" which means boat.  Well, we did a final breakfast in San Diego at the Mission Restaurant.  It was just into the residential area of downtown and was delicious.  We noticed that they had sign on the table for nikawater/ which donates its profits to poverty alleviation. Since the voyage theme is sustainabililty, I found this interesting. They claim to be the "only carbon neutral bottled water in the world". They substantiate this through recycling efforts and the planting of trees. I'm still not sure I understand everything about carbon credits or that I think it's a good idea. I'll be investigating that during this voyage.


We did finally find some of those folding chairs that come in a bag and got a couple to take on the ship. We had been advised that the students quickly grab the deck chairs available, so take your own if you want to sit on the 7th deck.

Then we embarked--that is got a cab, navigated the labyrinth of security at the cruise ship terminal, waited for the gangplank to be assembled and got on the ship. We are in room 5001 which is on the starboard side and seems to be the librarian cabin. Starboard is the right side and port is the left. A mnemonic device is that both port and left have 4 letters. And, we are forward (or toward the front of the ship). We got unpacked, and I headed to the library to see what the situation was. It was great news. All 17 of the boxes of books and videos that we shipped had arrived. I couldn't wait to get them unloaded, so I went ahead. Then I broke the boxes down and hid them under our bed for use at the end of the voyage.

I got to meet a number of the faculty who walked by the library and were happy to see their reserve books on board the ship.

Mr. Poe helped me unload the boxes.

Meetings, reception, dinner, and lifeboat drill followed, so we were pretty busy. Some of the Semester at Sea staff were on board to help get us off.

"Now here this" just came over the ship's intercom announcing that we might have some swells as we move off at 2300 hours (or 11 pm for you land lubbers). Sea sick pills were recommended for the queasy members of our party.  Mr. Poe declined.