emme.at.sea

bit of a turnaround

Things aboard the ship have been relatively normal (well, as normal as can be in our abnormal environment), though we are now turning back to sail west for almost the entire rest of the trip. This is exciting because it means that we are gaining sleep tonight (and several other nights) instead of losing it! However, despite having gained some sleep already, I am still tired all the time… I think the constant changes just disorient me in general.

We had logistical preport tonight for Poland, which was a bit more exciting than usual, partly because we got to meet our new captain. Captain Jeremy just joined us a few days ago in the place of Captain Kritikos, and seems like a really friendly (and British) captain. He introduced himself – it seems like he has done just about everything there is to do in the nautical world – and encouraged everyone to introduce themselves to him, eat with him, etc. Apparently, he was just wrapping up a voyage on our sister ship, the Voyager, when he got the call requesting that he join us. He came straight to join us on the Explorer, and his family soon followed.

We also have a really wonderful interport student, Anna, from Poland who spoke at preport. She was able to run down a lot of logistical things with us (public transport, tri-city sights to see) but also offered us a funny glimpse of the nature of Polish people. The way she described them was rather unlike Americans, who are always chipper (often superficially) when greeting one another. She said Polish people, instead will respond to “How are you?” with something more like “Ehh... the weather is bad… my wife doesn’t love me… “ which was a pretty funny comparison (and dramatization to a degree, I’m sure).

Well, I’m off to get some work done and sleep… I need to rest more, even with this newfound wonder of gaining an hour of sleep every night!

posted by Emme @ 21:48