Seeing the boat for the first time brought together everything we had been working on for the last six weeks. Suddenly, it was real. We met on the dock and had a mini reunion with our fellow students; it was as if we hadn’t seen each other in months, not just a few days. But then it was time to get down, salty, dirty, tough and exhausted.

Ship orientation had begun.

All members of SEA Semester: Global Ocean, class S256, have arrived in good health at the Robert C. Seamans. Their afternoon included meeting the ship’s professional crew, learning to maneuver around the vessel’s many spaces and ladders, practicing line handling, and becoming familiar with critical safety procedures onboard.