MMA Sea Term 2008

It’s our last night in Aruba, and it’s been an awesome port! Yesterday we went on a sailing and snorkeling tour with 4/C Buckley’s and Hindemith’s parents, which was fantastic! We saw tons of fish and and other sea life, and even a WWII-era German freighter, though part of me thought it might be superstitiously wrong to check out a sunken ship as somebody living on one. We’ve spent a lot of time at the pristine white sand beaches here, and today my group got jet skis, which was wicked fun! Since the water is so warm, it’s not a big deal to get completely soaked bouncing over waves and getting hit by the wind-whipped water. This has definitely been the best port for aquatic activities!

One of the other nice aspects of Aruba is that the ship terminals are right downtown. As soon as we walk out the gates (about a 2 minute walk from the ship) we’re right in the heart of Oranjestad. We don’t have to spend money on taxis to get to things to do, and if we decide to go to other parts of the island, the bus system here is reliable and cheap. For me, the fact that Aruba in general is more expensive than Panama and Costa Rica has been offset by the lack of transportation expense. I think that most people have found this to be the case, which was nice since some people are running low on money.

As much as we’ve had a blast on Sea Term, everyone is looking forward to getting home. Today marks the one week point from our arrival back in Buzzards Bay, so people are more excited than ever. There have been tons of discussions about seeing family & friends (particularly girlfriends!), using our own showers, and getting a good night’s sleep in a bed with more space than a coffin, and that doesn’t move! However, we still have a week, and tomorrow it’s back to business as usual which for me means maintenance.

I’m currently standing on the boat deck soaking up the warm air as we’ll only have a few more days of it. It’s going to be a little tough to go back to cold weather after being spoiled with over a month of warmth! Liberty expired at 2200 tonight for 4/C, and expires at 0000 tonight for 1/C. I’ve been watching the sporadic stream of cadets returning to the ship, tired after a good last day in port.

That’s all I have for today. A special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Buckley and Hindemith - it was great to meet you, I had an awesome time with you guys! Hopefully I’ll see you back in Buzzards Bay. To my mom - can’t wait to see you in a week, and thanks for the Valentine’s message, that was an awesome surprise!

I’m sitting on top of One Hold on board the Enterprise looking at to sea at the sun set over the water, enjoying the warm weather and the awesome breeze. The town is busy with tourists looking to have a good time on a Friday night, and the music from the clubs and restaurants downtown can be heard all the way back at the ship.  Division 1 has watch today, so I’ve been on board doing maintenance.  We’ve had the good fortune of having WiFi reception on the ship here, so we can use our down time on our watch day catching up with the rest of the world.

Aruba has so far appeared to be the best port so far in terms of beaches and activities.  It’s definitely more expensive than Panama and Costa Rica, but I think it’s well worth it.  I’ve been here before, so I’m enjoying getting to do and see some of the things I did a few years ago.

I’ll be posting pictures from this port over the next two days, so that you can see them before we get home.  I am going back out tomorrow so I’ll be sure to snap tons of footage (photos and videos) to provide tomorrow evening.  Also, if anybody reading this is a ham radio operator, I have my HT with me and am tuned to the repeater operated by P43W available through EchoLink, so feel free to jump on and hail me (my callsign is KB3MMY).  That’s all for now, I’ll have much more to report tomorrow, I’m sure!

Today is our last day in Golfito. Everyone’s had a good time, but I think we’re ready to be on our way. At the moment, however, most people are focused on the Super Bowl just a few hours away. We’ve been told, as I posted yesterday, that a projector is going to be set up on the helo deck so we can watch the Super Bowl as one big group, which should be a lot of fun! Tonight freshmen have a 2100 curfew, so we’ll all be watching it on board. I’m at the Maritime Bar writing this post, and they have the Super Bowl pre-game show on TV but the audio is all in Spanish, so it adds an unusual twist to the Super Bowl.

Last night was a lot of fun. The majority of Mass Maritime cadets on liberty ended up at the Maritime Bar, so we had another night of partying together. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Alert is in port with us right now, so the crew was at the bar with us. I hung out with them for a lot of the night, which was a blast!

Tomorrow we’ll be under way again, steaming towards the Equator to go through the infamous shellbacking ceremony. There’s been a lot of buzz on the ship about it now that we’re mere days away!

That’s all I have for now. I’m going to go hang out with my shipmates for the last few hours we have in this port.

On a side note: I took the video below the day we left Buzzards Bay. I think it’s a cool way to show parts of the ship to people that would otherwise not be able to see them. I’ve also provided a few pictures of Golfito and the Enterprise.

Just a quick update: SeaWave is currently unavailable on board the ship.  I will post about this again once it’s back online.

I’m writing this post from a place called the Maritime Bar in Golfito, which provides free Wifi. At the moment it’s probably in the 80s with 100% humidity since it’s pouring rain. There’s a gentle breeze coming through this open-air restaurant, which is also rustling the palm trees and other plants around. Bob Marley is being pumped out of the stereo here, and there’s a gorgeous 180 degree view of the bay and the ocean.

Our initial impressions of Golfito were not great, but I think it’s grown on us as a group. There are water taxis which will take you to various beautiful beaches around the area. Yesterday I took one of those with a group of other freshman to a beach about 45 minutes away, which was a blast! The beach was awesome, with some of the finest sand I’ve ever felt in my life. There were fantastic views of the bay and the Pacific, and the mountains around us. After returning from the beach, we went to a restaurant nicknamed the Maritime Bar due to its decor. It’s decorated all over with liferings, photos and other memorabilia from various Coast Guard, Navy, and Maritime ships. Of course, Mass Martitime was obligated to leave their mark here as well!

I am not signed up for any of the shore excursions here, but I’ll try to get some information about them to post here. Perhaps I’ll get a guest post from somebody who did one of the excursions.

Unfortunately, making phone calls in Costa Rica is not nearly as cheap as it was in Panama. The phone cards they sell at the pier are $8 for 20 minutes of talk time. I have a Skype account with SkypeOut minutes, so I was able to call home for only $0.02 a minute using my computer with the Maritime Bar’s free Wifi. The telecom company in Aruba is pretty good, so making phone calls there should be cheaper. They also have Wifi hotspots throughout the island that you can purchase access to for a nominal fee. I don’t know about cell phone service and cost, but I’ve heard that it should be available for Verizon as well as AT&T.

Since tomorrow is the Super Bowl, the plan is to set up a projector on the helo deck so we can all watch it together as a big group. I’ll be sure to take plenty of pictures and post some once we get to Aruba. Right now, though, I’m going go to enjoy the party with the rest of Mass Maritime!

I’ve provided a video showing the Maritime Bar below:

I’ve enabled commenting on posts on this site, but all comments have to be approved by me before appearing.  So, feel free to post comments and I’ll check them when I get to an Internet-connected computer.  More about Golfito coming soon!

Tonight marks the last night we’ll be in Buzzards Bay for the next six weeks. It’s been pretty quiet on board, not much different from any other night we’ve had so far. The holds were filled with the usual crowd of people and computers - watching movies, playing games, listening to music. There is an air of excitement building among the cadets, especially with the freshmen. In every hold you can hear people discussing their expectations for going out to sea, and experiences they hope to have. The YouTube video posted by a cadet from a previous Sea Term has spurred many conversations over the past week. I’m hoping that we encounter similar weather on our trip!

The computer lab is pretty full as I’m writing this. Everyone is getting in their last dose of Facebook, AIM, and personal e-mail for the next six weeks (unless, of course, they find an Internet café in port when we arrive). I find it a little funny that one cadet is using his computer time to play online games. There are last minute sign-ups for SeaWave, and advice flying in all directions on ways to save money using it.

First Division takes the watch tonight, which marks the start of at-sea watches. I have watch 0400-0800 and 1600-2000 in the engine room, so luckily I’ll be able to be on deck when we shove off.

Tomorrow I’ll be writing the day’s post from somewhere off the coast on the way to Norfolk. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to post any pictures of our departure due to the cost of sending pictures through SeaWave, but I’ll be sure to write a detailed description of it, and perhaps add some comments from fellow cadets. Just a little over 12 hours to go!

    I have set up my SeaWave e-mail account on board the Enterprise, and thought I would test it to make sure I was able to post blog entries with it. It also seemed like a logical time to post a few of the key points that we’ve been continuously reminded of over the past few weeks regarding e-mail.
The e-mail system charges by how much data the e-mail account sends AND receives. Therefore, things like pictures, music, and any other attachments will significantly increase the total cost of the e-mail system. DON’T SEND ATTACHMENTS OF ANY KIND UNLESS YOU WANT TO PAY A LOT OF MONEY TO SEAWAVE.
E-mail on board the ship is not instant. The system connects via satellite to the shore-side e-mail server, and only connects a couple of times a day. Therefore, it may be many hours until you get a reply from your cadet. It’s not that he or she is ignoring you, there’s simply an inherent delay in the system.
E-mail service availability is at the discretion of the ship’s officers. If it is deemed a logistics or security problem, they may turn off the e-mail server for cadets on board the ship. Again, if it’s a day or two since you’ve received an e-mail from your cadet, it’s not necessarily because they’re ignoring you.
I’m sure that most of this information has found its way to parents, but I thought I’d reiterate it anyway. Less than 24 hours to go!

This morning at 0900 we had the official Coast Guard-inspected fire & emergency and abandon ship drills.  It took about 90 minutes, and appeared to run smoothly, so we now have the official seal of approval to ship out!  We have less than 24 hours until we depart, though you might not know it from the atmosphere on board.  Everyone is continuing to go about business as usual, and I think it’s a testament to the planning and execution of pre-departure tasks that nobody seems to be feeling rushed or pressed for time.  In fact, the fourth class cadets have another shoreside meeting in Admirals’ Hall this afternoon, and then the rest of the afternoon is free!

The weather here is pretty poor today; it rained for most of the boat drills.  Right now it’s incredibly windy and the rain is still coming down in fits.  Luckily, the forecast for tomorrow is good, calling for sun with some breeze.  We’ll be manning the rails tomorrow morning when we depart, so it’s especially nice that we won’t be soaked!

I will try to post some more pictures later on tonight while we still have Internet on board the ship.  Right now, I have to head to our last meeting on campus until we come back from Sea Term!

The past three days we’ve done emergency drills every day. We have practiced fire & emergency and abandon ship drills each day, usually taking a total of about one and a half to two hours. Tomorrow we’ll be doing the official drills required by the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard inspectors will be on board to ensure that we know exactly how to respond to the different emergency situations. Hopefully things go as well tomorrow as they did before the Orientation Mini Cruise, when the Coast Guard didn’t require us to do more than one of the drills since we executed the first one so perfectly.

The fourth class cadets have also spent the past two days in lectures in Admirals’ Hall. Most of them have been overviews about the different majors available at Mass Maritime, and a couple of them have been specifically related to Sea Term. We’ve received information about Marine Safety & Environmental Protection, Emergency Management, and International Maritime Business. We also received a lecture about engine room safety during cruise, which included a slide show of gruesome, but fascinating, shipboard injuries (none of them have occurred at Mass Maritime) to drive home the point of why proper safety procedures are so crucial. This morning we had a briefing with Capt. Rozak and Cdr. Kelleher about proper security procedures in port, and a briefing from the medical staff about proper hygiene and how to go about receiving medical care on board. Freshmen have not had maintenance for the past two days due to these meetings and drills, which has actually been a nice break in the middle of the week.

Q & A
As I have noted on my Contact page, I am happy to answer any questions you may have, or cover any topics you might like to know more about. I received a question from a parent that said the following:

What time can parents of cadets visit ship on the 12th before departure?

On Saturday, there will be an opportunity for parents to tour the ship. Tours can be done between 0800 and 1000 on Saturday morning. Visitors must be escorted by their cadet, and certain spaces are off-limits to visitors. These spaces are the bridge, the engine room, and the berthing areas. At 1000, all cadets must be on board the ship and all visitors must be back on shore. We will depart at 1150 Saturday morning.

If you have a question or suggestion, feel free to send it to me using the Contact page. I will be continuing to post updates to the blog throughout Sea Term, at least every other day.

We’re less than 48 hours from departure. It’s really starting to feel real!