Greetings, everyone, from me on this final day on the Explorer. We’re almost home! We will be stunned by how large our home seems, and by how much stuff we have. I will be ready to have a ritual burning of my clothing, and I have already thrown away my shoes that were so beaten up before even leaving home that I couldn’t imagine them lasting as long as they have. The rules for getting off the ship have included us packing our things completely by this morning at 9 am, at which point the bags were dropped off onto pallets on the second deck (where they will be unloaded by crane tomorrow once the ship has docked). We have less stuff now than we did when we came on; all my (rather heavy) photocopied materials for teaching, for example, are long gone. On the other hand, we bought a ton of books for Morgan. Luckily I can send several boxes of my books directly from the dock, which will make our load somewhat lighter. As it turned out, we were able to pack one whole suitcase inside another and we now have five bags instead of six.

Dolphins, dolphins, dolphins. We’ve seen dolphins. You should see them! They’re like … like … dolphins! A dozen at a time! I don’t know how to describe them except to say that the sight of them leaping out the water fills me with exhilaration, especially when they’re not trying to get someplace. You can tell: they have a long “traveling” leap that’s almost like sewing in and out of the water, and another joyful-looking leap (that’s my anthropomorphic version of it, anyway) that goes straight up and dives straight down. For several days people were rushing to the windows and you knew there were dolphins. We’ve also seen beautiful flying fish: they seem to explode from the water in fluttering glitters, flying for several seconds before disappearing beneath the waves again. They’re usually heading straight away from the ship! The question we’d all like to know is: do they close their gills when they’re flying through the air? And I saw a whale today as Cary and I were having wine and cheese at 5 pm. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous, and the movement of the water has been surprisingly gentle. Okay, there were a couple of days of rolling (and one night that included striking a wave hard, causing the ship to shudder), but it’s been fine since then. Not a hurricane in sight, or anywhere on our projected path, for that matter. I never expected the voyage to be so very smooth, especially not after that first week when we were trying to get to Halifax in one piece! It has been just fine, and I’m now entirely used to the idea of being surrounded by water with no sight of land.

The crew put on a talent show last week that was great fun (and often quite funny), including surprisingly good nightclub-lounge-act-type singing, coordinated disco dancing in sailors’ outfits (really funny and worth watching), joke telling, and small group performances. One of the big surprises was when two of the best singers on the crew, Vic and Cris, sang a duet of “Misty” and “The Nearness of You.” Incredibly, it worked to have them singing the songs simultaneously! Everyone loved it! Many members of the crew are from the Philippines, and the same two singers did a gorgeous song in Tagalog with another Filipino crew member: rich harmonies, beautiful blending. Several crew members sang love songs (one such song was something that our late Captain Kritikos had requested, and Vic choked up as he told the story and dedicated the song to the captain; of course it was a very emotional moment). I hope that for the students (some of whom are surely accustomed to having servants at home) that they were able to see the crew as three-dimensional people and not simply as the source of orange juice or coffee.

I had three days of student presentations in my classes, which gave me a much-needed break to get some paper reading finished. It also allowed me to think about the final exam. In the meantime, all kinds of things occurred. For one thing, on Sunday I wandered up to the faculty/staff lounge to read student papers and was shocked to see LAND! In the middle of the Atlantic!! We had come to the Azores islands, a Portuguese territory. You could have knocked me over with a feather. There were houses, tilled fields, and very tall cliffs – we were passing the island of Flores – and a tall and dramatic waterfall that went down to the ocean. It reminded us of Kauai. I didn’t even know there was another island of Flores besides the one in Eastern Indonesia! That’s where we saw the most dolphins. Anyway, we all gathered in the faculty/staff lounge, where the captain joined us to toast the memory of Sir Richard Grenville, who in 1591 sacrificed himself, his warship, and his men by fighting against 53 Spanish galleons… thereby allowing five English ships and their crew to escape. He evidently held them off for twelve hours, and died of his wounds two days later. The surviving crew members were repatriated by the Spanish, and the captain was given a burial at sea with full military honors. I’m guessing that it’s an English custom for English ships to honor his memory; we were all given full glasses of champagne (at noon! Just before my first class!). By the time my class was finished, there was no trace of the islands and we were surrounded by the ocean once more. But I was still feeling celebratory and surprised.

Cary and I and some of the faculty and staff were invited to “dine with the captain” on Sunday night, and it was fun (and delicious). There were several tables, and we were actually seated at a table for seven, with the chief engineer (Neil, from near Liverpool) at the head of the table. We were dressed formally, and the food was of much better quality than the usual. There were a couple of other tables (one of which actually did include the captain), and I got the impression that our table was the most gregarious (or talkative, anyway). We were all different from one another in our worldviews and opinions, so there was plenty to say to each other. We were certainly polite enough that we ended up laughing a lot. And there was a LOT of wine; the white wine was from a winery only about a hundred miles from where we live in Olympia. The menu was a “starter of smoked salmon rosette presented on salad leaves and traditional garnished with horseradish dressing (traditional what?); French onion soup; mixed green salad; seared chicken breast marinated in herb and garlic with creamy mushroom sauce presented with roast sliced potato, and Grand Marnier soufflé for dessert.” That’s right off the menu, which was decoratively rolled up and tied with ribbon at our places (and there were name cards – fun!).

Right after dinner I had to participate in a “career night” panel and (I hope) managed to stay coherent in spite of all the wine. Then we went to a rehearsal for the Hard to Fathom Boys and worked on “Homeward Bound.” I got the distinct impression that if we ever rehearsed more than half an hour for a single performance, we might actually be worth listening to. We blend pretty well, the playing is okay, we have a good sense of humor…and we’re quite under-rehearsed. Our performance of it in Global Perspectives course the next day (with words cleverly rewritten by our Academic Dean, Ron Linden) was not nearly as good as even our first run-through! Dang! The annoying part for me was that almost none of the students had heard either of the song or even of Simon and Garfunkel! Sheesh! I must be getting old!

I turned 46 on the 17th, and it was a fun surprise to have such a big deal made of me. I got more well wishes, congratulations, and fuss than in the last 35 years put together! I felt like I was turning twelve or something. Cary paid for a deep tissue massage for me at the ship’s spa (an hour); the biggest surprise of it was that for the first time on the ship I felt connected to my body again. Hey! I’ve got feet! Hey! I’ve got arms! It was a dramatic change. Also, the moms on the ship decided to go to the spa steam room, which none of us had done on the entire voyage. It was five dollars to use the sauna and steam room (and luxurious showers and fluffy bath towels and all the attendant pampering that seems to come with that experience). As we sat there in the sauna we were kicking ourselves for not having made it a weekly event. So we went again, two days later, and it was even better the second time. All day people were saying kind things to me and wishing me a happy birthday, and that night in the faculty lounge there was champagne to celebrate the end of the Global Perspectives course, and Mike Maniates (the coordinator of the course) offered a toast to celebrate my birthday and my music contributions to the course. People gave me cards and little gifts all day! And even the next day, people were still making a fuss. It was fun and flattering and way over the top.

I decided to give my students take-home exams for their final. I didn’t want to read a bunch of scribbled garbage that has been written in a hurry; it wouldn’t show their thought processes off well. And luckily, since it required them to speak directly from experience and what they learned in the class, they couldn’t plagiarize or cheat. They could think, talk with their friends, etc. but it wasn’t easy. In fact, I would have had a hard time with it myself if I’d had just an hour and fifteen minutes to write it in. They cheered when I told them it was going to be take-home, and I gave them 48 hours to finish it (no questions and absolutely no late exams). It felt GREAT to walk out of the room, just as it always does. Free at last! And then I saw the giant pile of their papers and knew I still had plenty of work to do before it was over. But now it IS over and I’ve turned in my grades. Whew. And even after I told the students that I was going to be absolutely rigid about deadlines for turning in their exams, one student showed up at the appointed time, saying that he planned to turn his in at around 6 pm. I said no, I’ve got to have it now. He gave me a half-completed exam and got half credit for it. Another student asked to turn in a paper on the day that grades were due! Uh, sorry, dude. No.

Eddie the Navigator has placed a map on the wall near the purser’s desk with a tiny ship on it (us), moving it each day. After the surprise of the Azores, I thought we were done with land until Florida, but then I saw that we were directly in line to pass Bermuda too! Cool! I told my students that we were heading into the Bermuda Triangle, and several of them had wide eyes… Within the day, a magnet of a giant squid (the size of the little ship) had been placed on top of the magnet of the ship on the wall, with internet printout about both the Bermuda Triangle and legendary giant squids (squid? squids?). We never did see any squids, giant or otherwise; I’m assuming they’re deep underwater, keeping “clam.”

The “Ambassadors’ Ball” fundraiser was the other night; it’s a dress-up night with menus and lots of photographs being taken, and a late night dessert/champagne toast, and an even later-night dance. Dinner was quiet and friendly and elegant, with good food and pleasant conversation. After a couple of hours in which we read, watched the sun set, and talked after dinner, we came upstairs for the dessert and champagne. Well. All four hundred students were pushing and shoving and crowding in to get their hands on as much chocolate as they could. Many were so drunk that they were weaving and swaying. Many were being crude. We nearly left, but Morgan was so looking forward to it that we stayed. In fact, the presentation of the desserts was lovely, and what we had was delicious. By the time we were done, it was 11 o’clock and even though Morgan had looked forward to dancing, she was exhausted and went straight to bed. Cary and I went up on deck to enjoy the warmth and the full moon over the calm water. We went to watch the moon the next night as well. The moon was reflecting so strongly off the tall thunderheads that they themselves were reflected in the water. It was (relatively) quiet and warm and beautiful all evening, and I felt very much that I didn’t want to leave that aspect of the trip: watching a full moon reflected in the ocean on a calm evening, surrounded on all sides by water. I have tried to imagine what it must have been like on the tall ships on nights like that, and that image is probably one that will stay with me always, of all the sights I’ve seen on this voyage.

Last night we had our last cultural and logistical pre-port meeting, which was great fun. Laura Gelfand, my colleague in art history, did a completely deadpan presentation on “Art in Florida” that had us rolling on the floor with laughter. She had done one earlier in the week on the “unusual aesthetic” of the ship’s artwork that was similarly hilarious. I haven’t said anything about the ship’s artwork, but it’s odd and generally in very poor taste. In both presentations I was wiping away tears of laughter; somehow she managed to find photographs of bad, unusual, and strange art (including postcards, bizarre sculpture, maps, and the Disney castle), all of which was intended to “compare and contrast” our upcoming experience with what we had experienced in Europe. It was priceless. And some of the meeting was intended to reintroduce us to America, including our system of government and how Florida’s system of government had managed to have an impact on the national election; again, all very deadpan, with Powerpoint presentation photos of Jeb Bush and the Bush “dynasty.” It was great! The handful of Republican students (and “senior adult” passengers) were surely terribly offended.

And now we’ve reached the last full day on the ship; tonight we had convocation, complete with speeches, graduation by a couple dozen students, and a beautifully moving slide show with music, very well constructed by Patrick Brown, the ship’s photographer. I was thrilled to have supplied him with two thirds of the music selections. In a few hours we’re supposed to come in sight of the Bahamas – well, it’s nighttime, so we won’t really be “in sight” – and be in Ft. Lauderdale by tomorrow morning at 7 am. We’ll be spending the night there at a hotel and flying back home on Monday. Here are some of the things I will be happy to remember: swimming in the Bahamas, the storm on the way to Halifax, a special dinner of garlic butter mussels in Halifax, the Blue Lagoon hot springs (and massive waterfalls and glaciers) in Iceland, the funicular ride and short hike on one of the mountains above Bergen in Norway, seeing the Hermitage and the ballet and having the marvelous Georgian dinner (with singing) in Russia, going way out of town to the folkloric performance and dinner with “buffalo grass” vodka in rural Poland, buying and eating mussels, fries, and especially chocolates in Belgium, going to the beaches of Normandy in France, visiting the Wicklow mountains in Ireland, and spending precious time with my brother Guy and his soon-to-be-spouse Antonio (and Antonio’s dear family) in Spain. On the ship, I’ll remember the Hard to Fathom Boys, the kind-hearted staff in the dining rooms, the many announcements over the loudspeakers from the assistant dean, the gregarious and voluble Captain Kritikos, some of my favorite students, and some of my favorite “senior adult” passengers. My teaching colleagues have been smart, funny, caring, delightful people. I’d work with them all again anytime. I won’t miss our tiny cabin, the industrial smells on the ship, the drunken students, or the constant low level of the ship’s engines. It’s been a great voyage from start to finish, even with its (rare) difficulties, and not once did any of the three of us think “I’ve gotta get off this ship and get home NOW.” It was genuinely fun, interesting, lively, and a Good Thing to Do for all three of us. And I would certainly do this again.
Thanks for listening!