Many SEA Semester alumni are organizing virtual class reunions on Zoom, which we think is great!

Hello from the Steward (cook) onboard, Kylie! A bit of background information on why I’m on the boat right now: I was originally contracted to do Oceans & Climate and happened to be in New Zealand early before the international borders closed.

Alongside Starboard Side to, Queens Wharf, Wellington, New Zealand - When I arrived to the Robert C. Seamans the evening of Saturday March 21st, it was under very different circumstances than a “normal” contract. Some things were very much the same; I was still excited to see my shipmates who I hadn’t seen I left the ship in Auckland six weeks prior.

SEA Semester in the NEWS
Part of the Crew
By Meghan Kita
Muhlenberg College News

One thing Devin Goldsmith ’21, a psychology major and innovation & entrepreneurship minor, appreciates about Muhlenberg is how easy it is to build relationships with professors. She wanted something similar in a study abroad program, and she found it in SEA Semester. The program packs 38 people—students, teachers, crew—onto a 130-foot sailing vessel. (That’s about 43 yards, less than half the length of a football field.)

This is my fourth attempt at writing this blog post. The previous ones have been disrupted by distractions from the news, chaos from traveling home, and, most significantly, writer’s block as I attempt to cram the extent of the past twelve weeks into a mere 500-word summary.

Despite the choppiness of the sea following the last of our gales, we arrived at Wellington Harbor enough ahead of schedule that we hove to for the night in Cook Strait. Even with doing that, we docked off of Queens Wharf around 1130, after only a few hours of navigating our way through the harbor.

A few days ago we found out that we would have to go home early from Wellington because of the COVID-19 virus, and since then we have all been trying to make the most of what time we had left. It’s been hard. Unfortunately, we missed out on the entire last leg of our trip that would take us to Christchurch.

Today has been quite a day. When we arrived in Wellington yesterday, it felt like the world crashed into us. Today felt like two different worlds. As planned, we visited Te Papa, which is Aotearoa New Zealand’s national museum. As such, it tries to present a unified idea of New Zealand that people can support.

Surveys. I think most people actually despise them. So much that sometimes they try to get out of participating. But try as they might to escape my pestering, I tracked down (nearly) everyone onboard for this one.

T’was the night before anchor, when all through the boat, MOST people were sleeping as we were afloat.