I’m writing this during a quick break I’m taking from packing my bags.  I’ll be leaving my house early in the morning (0630) to drive from Annapolis, MD up to Buzzards Bay, picking my car up in Connecticut.  I’ll stay with my grandfather tomorrow night, and then Monday morning I will join the 500 other …

I’ve been hearing concerns about how to sign up for SeaWave, mainly regarding credit cards.  In order to sign up for SeaWave, you do need a credit card so that usage can be billed.  This information is necessary during registration to complete the process.  If your cadet will be using the credit card of a …

I received an e-mail from Skid Schermerhorn with a map of the route for this year’s voyage: Hopefully this provides a better sense of both the areas we’ll be transiting, as well as the distance we’ll be covering in just 6 or 7 weeks.  I’m also interested to see how closely our actual path follows …

Merry Christmas to everyone! As we speak, Sea Term 2009 officially begins in 1 week, 3 days and change.  I’ve added a countdown timer on the sidebar right below my picture which currently displays the up-to-the-second count until the official start of Sea Term. I’ll be continuing my pre-Sea Term info posts tomorrow.

I received a Skribit suggestion that I talk about cadets bringing laptops on cruise.  Not only can cadets bring their laptops, but I would highly encourage it. In the evenings on cruise we have plenty of down time, and having a laptop provides plenty of entertainment opportunities.  Almost everyone brings DVDs as well as movies …

One of the biggest issues on cruise last year was communications.  While we’re at sea, we have very limited contact with the rest of the world.  We have an e-mail system that connects a few times a day to send and receive e-mails held in the queue, called SeaWave.  And that’s it.  No Internet, no …

Well, we’re almost halfway through finals week, and only a few weeks away from Sea Term 2009.  In keeping with last year, I’ll be blogging during the voyage about the trip, keeping friends & family of Sea Term cadets up-to-date.  This year, however, I have the benefit of knowledge and experience from last year’s Sea …

This week marks the beginning of the end for fall semester.  Today is the first day of final exams, bringing mixed emotions to campus.  Certainly everyone’s excited that in a mere 5 days we’ll be leaving to go home for the holidays with school totally out of mind (for those of us not going on …

I’ve received a number of e-mails and a Skribit suggestion in response to my SPOT review asking how much it costs.  I decided I’d just make another post to address this, rather than answer all the individual requests.  Here’s how the pricing breaks down: Basic Service: $99.99/year This provides check-in (send “I’m OK” messages to …

I recently received a SPOT Satellite Personal Tracker as part of a contest run on gCaptain.  For those of you unfamiliar with the device, it’s a GPS antenna and commercial satellite transmitter integrated inside of a handheld case, with a few different functions thrown into the mix.  You can use it to track your location …