Our voyage thus far has been incredible. If you’ve been following along with the blog, you’ve seen a glimpse of the wonder and excitement that comes with each new day. Today, I’d like to showcase a less glamorous but very real part of life aboard the ship: our lack of personal space, or as I like to call it, “community living.”

The Seamans has been hove to since 0900 today as we wait out Force 6 breeze from the SW, preventing us from moving on toward Napier. The forecast is indicating a wind shift to a more favorable direction before morning, which is welcome news for all of us on board. 14+ hours spent sideways in hefty breeze and swell takes its toll. For one, if things were blowing slightly differently we’d have some spectacular sailing to do.

Hello Friends!

Today was filled with sails and science! At 1300 the Cramer, having logged 85.5 nautical miles, was positioned at about 11˚26.8’N x 61˚37.9’W.  Wind and waves came from ESE and wind speeds were about 7-10 knots.  The sky was filled with altocumulus clouds but on deck it was pretty hot with a temperature of 30˚C.

Evening twilight approaches.  We are close-reaching under Main, Main Staysail, Fore Staysail, Jib and Jib Topsail (affectionately known as the JT), steering SSE in the light Force 3 (7 - 10 knots) Easterly Trade Winds. The students are getting their sea-legs on this first day underway, adjusting to the ‘motion in the ocean.’

The weather over the past few days has been either one of two extremes: sunny or stormy. Two days ago was the first time in a while where there was hardly a cloud in the sky and the sun was in full view most of the day. I learned first-hand how powerful the New Zealand sun is, because after being outside for watch and class, sunscreen can only help so much.

Welcome to the SSV Corwith Cramer!  The students of class C283 could not be more excited.  True, they have enjoyed their time in Grenada, but this is what they signed up for.  The opportunity to join the crew of the Cramer and sail through the Caribbean; and all the while, learn about the coral reef ecology of each island we visit.

Today was beautiful and sunny as we sailed away from Raoul Island towards McCauley Island. This morning B watch had “mini class,” which consisted of myself, the four other students in my watch, and Rich (our history professor) sitting on the deck reading aloud from a story by Herman Melville.

If you’ve read all of our posts diligently, you may have noticed that we students have become much more than classmates. We often revel in the miracle of having met, wondering what it would’ve been like if we had chosen a different SEA program, or chosen a different way to spend this semester altogether.

Today we got to loudly proclaim the super sailor-y words ‘land ho!’ as we spotted Raoul off our starboard bow. Raoul marks our turning point for the two-week trek to Napier via the Kermadecs and possibly the only time we’ll see land during that time. The feelings on board can only be described as mixed.

I am writing this blog post right after dawn watch from 0100-0700. As many of my shipmates have already written, our lives are basically just eat, sleep, stand watch. Yesterday one of our professors told us that pretty soon we will get into a rhythm and we should find time to fit in school work when we are feeling good.