Day 60: A Final Family Dinner

Most of the dense fog that surrounded us the past few days has lifted so we now have a nice view of wide open ocean.  Day three at sea went well and was pretty uneventful.  Our water consumption has decreased dramatically compared to the past two days.  The night of departure from Morocco and first day at sea saw us using about 101 gallons of water per person; an absurdly high number (average at sea is about 50-60 gallons per person).  I think that's a good indicator of how dirty Morocco was.  There were some longer showers just to get the grime off (it was probably our hottest and most sweat producing port also) and some people were coming back from the 4 day showerless trek around the rural Berber villages.  It's interesting to see that the water use correlates.

Classes are going smoothly and professors are trying to cram everything into the last few days.  Students are busy now and will be the next few days with papers and finals but the real challenge is for teachers who have to get everything graded before disembarking.  This evening we had our final official "extended family" dinner.  It was again good to talk and there was a lot of heavy reflection on the voyage; we were in the dinning room for over two hours.  Jim and Leslie treated us to an ice cream cake, which was very nice (I think that's the largest slice of cake I've ever eaten...).  I really hope I'm able to keep in touch with my "parents" and "sisters" after we disembark.  This voyage has been the first time that I've had so many meals in the "European style" where we just sit, eat, and talk for hours.  It's very refreshing and a shame that it won't work very well with the time constraints of reality (i.e. on land).

Last night's meteor shower was very cool but a little anemic.  We were out there for a little over 2 hours and saw about 3 "fireballs."  With all the ship's exterior lights off the night sky is absolutely stunning and the meteors we did see were pretty awesome.  Apparently the tail end of the shower is tonight so I might venture out a little later on.  RA training officially started back at Cal Lu today.  It's weird not being there with the staff but I'm going try to keep via email.  The transition home and back to school is going to be rather quick but given what I've accomplished this Summer it's a small price to pay.  That's all for now, I have to take advantage of late night snack while it's still around.