Sorry for taking some time off from posting, but I’ve been very busy. There really is not much free time on this trip to sit around and think about the journey, there is always something to do, always something to experience. We had a few uneventful days at sea followed by a day at the tiny island of Mauritius. The island itself was very beautiful. I went on a catamaran and snorkeling tour from the island. I was lucky enough to have on my trip a few good friends as well as the dean of the trip, Dr. Reg Garrett. He was very informative telling us about the coral and animals we saw. I also got to sail the catamaran for a little bit, which was quite a lot of fun. They also had this beer on board called Phoenix which was a local beer out of Mauritius and it was really good. I wish they would let me bring some home with me, but alas, it can’t be. Mauritius was fun and for a small family with a lot of money, a vacation there would be very fun, but a day there really isn’t enough time in a day for someone like me to experience the whole island. The night we left was the opening of the SAS Spring ’For those of you who don’t know what the Sea Olympics are, it is where each sea, think dorm/hallway, picks a color, designs a flag, and picks a mascot and competes in different games around the ship. The winner determines who gets off the ship first when we land in Ft. Lauderdale. My sea was the Aegean Sea. We chose the color green and our mascot was GANGreen, think a gangsta with gangrene, the disease. Our mascot was basically a big guy, colored green with green paint and dressed in all green. Everyone in the sea had different events in which they were a part of. During the opening ceremonies they did a parody of the Chinese drum beating from the Olympics opening ceremonies last summer. Each team then did a cheer and paraded their mascot and flag around. We won second place for both our flag and our mascot. The next day was the actual Olympics. I competed in both the Volleyball and Flip Cup competitions. My team and I were able to win the volleyball tournament. I was a starter for our team and we won 4 games to win the championship. We got screwed too, and we still won. We played our first game at 9:30 AM, then had 2 hours off, then had to play 3 straight games with no byes or breaks. The other teams all got a bye or a break. We were still able to pull out the victory. We had a big cheering section cheering “GANGreen, GANGreen!”and many other cheers. The other teams also had big cheering sections. It was very intense and a lot of fun. I haven’t had that kind of competitive outlet in so long I can’t even express how glad I was to be a part of it. I missed that feeling from playing soccer and swimming. The cheer of the crowd, the competitive spirit, and the joy of winning were amazing. Flip Cup, we lost in the first round. Our team ended in second place overall, yet they deducted points for sportsmanship or some other reason and dropped us down to about 5th place. Our team was not happy about this and they didn’t have a good explanation as to why we were deducted points. It was frustrating, but second place doesn’t get anything. Tonight we will be doing a performance with MICE that will take place in the swimming pool on board. It will be very ambient and fun. I’ll update you on that hopefully tomorrow. Love, Steven at Sea
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