Anyway, the video begins at the end of the mooring row at Boothbay Region Boatbard and ends at our dock on Boston Island.  Pretty much perfect weather.

Our property is called Boston Island, and it’s located north of Southport in the Sheepscot River.  It’s a 24 acre island, and our family owns 19 of that (though nobody really cares about property lines, and there are only 3 other families that own land).  I’ve been coming up here all my life, and given that I’m an Army brat it’s one of the few places I can really call “home”.  It’s where I learned my love of the water & boating, and of seafood (especially lobster!).

So keep an eye out for posts throughout the week of stuff from the island, including videos.

Our current plan keeps us on track for arrival at the pier at 0743. We’ll
be transiting the canal twice on Sunday morning, once going Eastbound, and
once going Westbound. We pick up the pilot on the Buzzards Bay end of the
canal around 0400, head East through the canal to Cape Cod Bay, turn
around in the Bay, and then head West to the State Pier. I’ll be on watch
0000-0400 tonight, so I won’t be on the bridge during either canal
transit, but I may find a place to put the SPOT for the trip. Otherwise,
you can track us on www.marinetraffic.com either by searching for the
vessel name, or by monitoring the map in the canal area.

Based on our trackline on the ECDIS, we won’t have cell service much
tonight, so I wouldn’t expect to be able to talk on the phone with your
cadet until tomorrow morning. As a reminder: SeaWave accounts should be
cancelled after cruise is over to avoid paying the $5 monthly minimum fee..
This can easily be done either onboard the ship while we’re still
underway, or at home by going to http://my.seawave.net and logging in with
the username and password from the ship. If your cadet has been using
SeaWave this trip, I’d recommend checking with them to see if they
cancelled their account while on board.

On a personal, and somewhat bragging (at least I admit it) note, I am the
recipient of the Master’s Award for the second year in a row. My room
mate, 3/C Joseph Connor, is also a second year recipient, which is pretty
cool. Congratulations to Joe and all the other Master’s Award cadets.

I’m going to sign off for now (for the last time on cruise), and go pack.
I’ll do a final “summary of cruise” post once I get home and can add some
pictures and other extras. I’ve enjoyed maintaining the blog again this
year (however less frequent than last year the posts were), and hope that
you’ve found it informative and entertaining. See you all in a few short
hours!

The most interesting and hilarious part of rough seas aboard the Kennedy
is being in the mess deck. when we take big rolls, people and food go
flying in all directions – sliding across tables, crashing into each
other, falling over with full trays of food in hand, etc. Last night
there was a freshman who lost his balance right by the end of my table,
fell over the end of the table and started to slide down on his stomach,
dumping his cup of orange soda all over the table!

While I usually find rolling to be helpful when it comes to sleeping, this
is too much rolling to facilitate good sleep, and in fact nobody is
getting much sleep at all. Most people are woken up throughout the night
from rolling into the wall in their rack, or pushing up against the safety
strap on the outside.

I’m enjoying it, despite some of the inconveniences it causes. I find
that one of the strangest feelings associated with this weather is having
to make an effort to climb down a flight of stairs.

Everyone is looking past the rough weather at this point, and focusing on
finishing exams. Today is exam day, the final hurdle in completing
cruise. I have the practical portion of my final at 1400, about an hour
from now. Once I’m finished with that, I’m 100% done with all my cruise
requirements. I’m pretty excited for that, to say the least.

I’m going to sign off for now and go get ready for my practical final. I
have a few guest posters lined up, but they seem to be taking their time
writing their posts, so hopefully I’ll get those tonight or tomorrow.

Now that our next port of call is the State Pier in Buzzards Bay, everyone
is expressing the same sentiment: “Are we there yet?” along with
discussions about when people think it will start getting cold again, when
we will get cell service again, and the first thing they’re are going to
do when they get off the ship.

There are other signs that cruise is drawing to a close in day-to-day life
on board the ship. Ice cream is more regular in the cadet mess cooler as
the foodservice personnel try to use some of it up, which everyone is
enjoying (I’m not eating it though, as I have a superstition about ice
cream from the cadet mess cooler).

The current rotation is the second to last one of cruise. Wednesday will
start the very last rotation, for which I will be on maintenance. After
that, we have final exams, and then we’re done with cruise!

Unlike last year, we won’t be anchoring the day before transiting the Cape
Cod Canal en route to Mass Maritime. New regulations prohibit discharging
gray water in Cape Cod Bay, which we have to do prior to arriving at the
pier. As a result, we’ll have to stay outside Cape Cod Bay until we are
preparing to transit the canal. I’m not sure how good the cell coverage
will be for us that day, but I’m sure that we’ll have it enough that the
weather decks will be lined with people on the phone.

I’m going to sign off for now and head to bed, as I have laundry watch
0400-0800/1600-2000 tomorrow. I have a few guest posts lined up to post
this week, now that things are dying down a little around here. Keep an
eye out for those in the next few days.

The past few days have been a blast.  As I mentioned in my last post, I had watch the first day so I didn’t get off the ship.  The second day I went out with a few friends to an area called Isla Verde, and hung out at the beach all afternoon.  We went out in town that evening and had a good time going from place to place.

Tomorrow we leave, after taking on bunkers most of the day.  We’re scheduled to leave San Juan around 1500.  We arrive in St. Thomas on February 12, so we’ll be underway for 9 days between here and the Virgin Islands.  Hopefully my SeaWave account will be working properly again so that I can continue blogging during that leg of the voyage.

I don’t have any pictures to post right now, as I forgot to charge up my camera the entire time we were here (I know, stupid move, but it happens).  I’ll get some from my friends to post once we arrive in St. Thomas, and I’ll make sure I have plenty.  I may even try to throw in a few videos.

I’ve also been looking into adding a few interviews with other cadets on board, so keep an eye out for that.

I’m going to sign off for now, and head to bed to get ready for resuming normal activities tomorrow.  I’ll try to post again tomorrow, SeaWave willing.

We got lucky and had a last-minute berth re-assignment last night which put us at Pier 1 of the passenger terminal, right in the heart of the city!  It’s a much more convenient location, with plenty to do right around the gate, and many transportation options readily available.

My division had watch today, so I didn’t get to leave the ship.  However, I’ll be headed out tomorrow to experience Puerto Rico, especially the beaches!  I haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to do, but part of the day will definitely be spent doing nothing on the beach.  I can’t wait!

That’s all I have for now, I want to get some sleep so I’m ready to go tomorrow.  I’ll get some pictures and stories and post them over the next couple of days.

Tampa has been a pretty mellow port for me so far.  Sunday my grandfather and partner came up from Fort Myers and we spent a few hours together, touring Tampa and going out to lunch, which was really great.  After that, I ended up catching up on sleep for the rest of the day.  Yesterday I had watch, so between watch shifts I hung out watching movies and sleeping.  Today is the first day that I’ve gone out and done stuff with other Maritimers, and tonight I’m planning on going to the MMA-USF rugby game.  A bunch of my friends are going to go too, so it should be a good time.

As you’ve probably already heard, SeaWave/Globe Wireless went down towards the end of last week, which is why I haven’t posted in a few days.  A technician is coming from Globe Wireless tomorrow morning to fix it, so we should be back on the air by the time we’re leaving Tampa.  I look forward to being able to post from sea again.

I’ve gotten a number of good suggestions that I’m going to act upon once we get underway (thank you to everyone who submitted those).  I’ve gotten quite a few requests for me to feature other cadets, which I plan to do starting on the trip from Tampa to San Juan, so keep an eye out.  Who knows, your cadet may be the one quoted on here!

I’m going to sign off for now and head back out into Tampa.  Hopefully next time I post I’ll be doing so from aboard the T.S. Kennedy.

Tomorrow is our Coast Guard-monitored fire/emergency and abandon ship drills.  We have to be approved by the Coast Guard on our response for those drills in order to be legally allowed to sail.  The Coast Guard vessel inspection team has been on board throughout the week going over various parts of the ship to ensure that they are safe and in compliance with regulations.  Tomorrow is the last phase of that.  In the morning we’ll have a series of “dress rehearsal” drills, and then at 1300 we’ll have the actual monitored drills.  Hopefully they go well!

We also received news that all underclass cadets have been waiting for: liberty will be granted this week!  Freshmen will be receiving liberty tomorrow, Friday, from 1800-2300.  Sophomores will be receiving liberty on Saturday from 1600-2200.  If any freshman or sohpomore is scheduled to have watch during that time, they will stand their watch and have their liberty on the other day during the same scheduled time.  For example, if a freshman has watch 2000-0000, they will stand their watch tomorrow, and then have liberty on Saturday from 1800-2300.  Check with your cadet to find out about their liberty situation.

In personal news, our cadet IT department on board the ship (of which I am a member) completed a major goal today.  For the past month, we have been working on a project to place TVs and monitors throughout the ship to display the picture from the ECDIS on the bridge.  ECDIS stands for Electronic Chart Display Information System, and is an integrated system that connects many different electronic navigation systems such as GPS, chartplotting, AIS, and others into a single, easy-to-read picture.  It displays an electronic real-time chart, along with projections of surrounding vessels, and our own position and navigation data.  Today, we connected the penultimate (and in my opinion, most important) of the remote monitors: the one in the cadet mess.  We connected the ones in the crew lounge, the engine room, and the Master’s office yesterday.  However, this is the one that we will get to enjoy.  It’s going to be a very nice tool to have available to us so we can get a better sense of our location and surroundings out at sea, as well as a good teaching device.  So, a personal victory for myself and the rest of the IT department!

We will be departing Buzzards Bay at 0900 on Sunday, 11 January 2009.  The ship will be open for guests and visitors 0600-0730 that morning (I know, it’s really early, but that’s the only time we had available), which is a great chance to see the environment in which your cadet will be living for the next six weeks.  I would highly recommend taking advantage of this opportunity to share the experience with your cadet even more fully.

I have to sign off for now and try to grab a little bit of sleep before I go onto watch at 2330, which I will be standing until 0330.  I’ll check in tomorrow, most likely after the Coast Guard emergency drills.

This morning I got checked in and on board by about 0930, and was working by 0945.  I’m one of 3 cadets handling IT work on board the ship, and there’s a lot to get done this year, particularly this week while we can still get equipment from shore and have Internet access.  I worked about 12 hours today, and I’m sure tomorrow will be more of the same.  I can’t really complain much though, since the other two IT cadets are rates, and have been doing that for the past 5 days.

Being a sophomore this year, arrival day went much more smoothly than last year.  In fact, I got to watch the freshman as they came onto campus this morning and a few hours later started boarding the Kennedy.  Most of them carry a definite sense of excitement, as well as a little bit of nervousness which is pretty evident just looking at them.  Even though they did Mini Cruise as part of Orientation, that was only 3 days and was in calm waters near shore.  Living almost literally on top of each other for nearly two months, out at sea, visiting new places, and learning things very different from anything they’ve likely done before can be daunting, yet thrilling, so mixed emotions are evident, and expected.

Tomorrow will begin the on-load process, which will continue through the end of the week.  During the entire day there will be people on the pier and on the ship carrying all manner of food, equipment, office supplies, and other miscellaneous items ad nauseum.  Let me put in perspective the amount of food that will be brought aboard: during the next three days, palettes stacked as high as a person will be loaded onto the ship, for eight or nine hours each day, with a palette being hoisted aboard about once every 10 minutes.  All of this loading is done almost entirely by the cadets, including managing the process.  I will try to get some pictures and perhaps video of this to post this week.

It’s time for me to sign off for the night, so I can get some sleep for another busy day tomorrow!

I’ve decided to post a few last-minute thoughts regarding packing and arrival.  First off, if anybody doesn’t know yet, cadets arrive in boiler suits on Monday morning.  Since we’ll be starting work almost immediately upon moving on to the ship, we need to be dressed for the job.  Second, try to keep packing down to fitting in one bag, such as your sea bag.  It makes it much easier to carry everything and move in if you only have one bag (plus a backpack or other small “carry on”).  Last year I had two duffel bags, and it made it very interesting trying to fit through some of the narrow doors on the ship.

My mom informed me that there has been much discussion regarding cell phones in port.  As I discussed in an earlier post, cell phones are only a logical option in Tampa, since it’s within the continental U.S.  In our other ports, roaming and international charges will apply, so I would highly suggest not using cell phones at all in these ports.  Instead, buy an international phone card before leaving, or find out about the cost of phone cards locally in the ports.  I would also suggest using Skype as it’s free computer-to-computer, and only 2 cents a minute to call from computer to U.S. phone number, no matter where the computer is in the world.  Cell phones are definitely the worst option, even if you have an international plan since those plans are almost sure to be more expensive than the other options I’ve mentioned.

I’ll be posting again tomorrow evening once I’m off the road, so if anybody has any last-minute “what should I bring?” questions they’d like to ask me, feel free to contact me or leave a Skribit suggestion.

During the first week of Sea Term (starting on Monday, 05 January and lasting that full week) we will be at the pier in Buzzards Bay, and will have Internet connectivity provided from a shore wire.  You could e-mail the credit card information to your cadet’s regular e-mail address, so that it cannot be misplaced and they’ll have it readily available to them when they sign up.  This is how I did it last year, and it worked quite well.  I would not recommend writing it down on a piece of paper for them, as the chances of it falling into the wrong hands are much higher.

I have heard that SeaWave claims you can provide the name, address and phone number of the person holding the credit card, but omit the actual credit card information, and the credit card holder will be contacted by SeaWave directly for this information.  I cannot attest to this from experience, but what I can say is that my experience with SeaWave tells me that making it as simple and uncomplicated as possible is the best option.  I would suggest having the credit card information at the time of sign up rather than relying on SeaWave to call the card holder, in case they dismiss the sign up request as an incomplete submission and don’t follow through, resulting in no SeaWave service.

Hopefully everyone is getting excited for Sea Term, since it’s only 2 days away!

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 the projected path on this map (thanks to the SPOT).

Thanks, Skid, for providing me with this!

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 stored on their computers directly, so having a computer on board allows you to watch all the movies available (Note: Chartwells also rents movies to cadets very cheaply and they have a large selection).

The ship has a wireless network that covers most areas, which allows access to a number of things, some of which will be new this year.  First off, the SeaWave e-mail system I discussed in my last post is accessible over the wireless.  There is also a movie server that allows you to stream movies over the network to your laptop, and has a fairly large selection.  This year, we’re adding a shipboard portal which will contain the Plan of the Day, general announcements, and other useful information that can be decided on later.  Having a laptop will make getting to this information much easier.

There is a computer lab on board, but there are only 14 or 15 computers to serve over 500 people.  Plus, this year more than ever before, it’s going to be used heavily for classes at sea.  Therefore, it’s almost a necessity to have a computer as part of your personal equipment.

It may sound like a problem, but in reality it’s all we really need.  Most of the time, we’re too busy to need much more than that.  However, you may remember that we had some problems with SeaWave last year.  This year, we have two new SeaWave units on board the ship, which should prevent us from having the same problems we did last year.

One of the issues that most people seem to be concerned with, and that the school stresses to freshmen, is the cost of SeaWave.  It’s important to make sure that only text is sent and received over the system, and not pictures or other attachments.  SeaWave charges the user based on the number of seconds a message takes to be sent or received, not just on the size of the message.  This is an important distinction, because in rare instances of poor satellite reception a simple two or three sentence text-only e-mail can end up costing a lot.  I say this not to scare people away from SeaWave or make people worried about their bill.  However, if your son or daughter’s account suddenly has a $3 or $4 e-mail, don’t just assume that they were sending a picture of their time in St. Thomas, it may be a fluke.  As I said though, this is very rare and only happened to a few people last year while we were down around the Equator, so it shouldn’t be much of a concern this time.

In general, SeaWave is very affordable.  I did a lot more e-mailing than most people last year due to my blog, and my bill was still less than $30 for the whole cruise.  This included my blog posts, e-mails with friends and family, as well as e-mailing done with people contacting me through my blog.  A typical full page printed e-mail usually cost me about 10 cents.  A paragraph or two is about 4 or 5 cents.

Of course, there’s no requirement to use SeaWave.  There are plenty of opportunities to make contact with home when we get into port.  This is especially true this year, since one of our ports is in the U.S. so cell phones will work without paying roaming or international charges.  In other ports, phone cards are available.  I would recommend, however, that you pick up an AT&T or similar international calling card before cruise.  Phone cards in port, especially in more touristy ports, tend to be expensive (Costa Rica’s phone cards cost $7 for 12 minutes of talk time, 2 of which were charged simply for connecting the call).

Another option to consider is Skype.  This is free software that allows you to make calls over the Internet.  The calls are completely free from anywhere in the world if you call computer-to-computer, and only cost 2 cents a minute to call from the computer to a U.S. phone number.  Since the laptops purchased through the school store all have microphones built in (and most other laptops on the market do as well), this would be a very feasible option.  My family and I stayed in contact this way last year, and we were able to talk for hours completely free once I got on WiFi.

There are plenty of accessible and affordable ways to stay in touch during cruise.  If you know of any other methods I didn’t cover, or would like to know more about something I discussed, please feel free to leave a comment below.

If you have any questions or suggestions of things you’d like me to address about Sea Term, please leave an entry in the Skribit box on the right side of the page.  Thanks!

For those of us going on Sea Term, we’re also starting to give serious thought to this journey.  I’m sure the freshmen are especially preoccupied by this, as I was last year.

Good luck to everyone on finals, and especially to those cadets whose finals will be deciding their ability to go on Sea Term!

Basic Service: $99.99/year
This provides check-in (send “I’m OK” messages to people you pre-select along with your location), help requests (non emergency) and 911 requests.  You get unlimited usage of these services for this fee.  In order to use SPOT at all, you have to at least purchase Basic Service.

Tracking: $49.99/year
This is an additional feature on top of Basic Service.  This allows you to keep a “breadcrumb trail” as I discussed in my review.  In Tracking mode, the device will send a position update to the SPOT system every 10 minutes, which you can go back later and look at in your account control panel.  This also provides public Shared pages, which allow you to share your tracking with other people on publicly viewable pages.  Each page has a 500 views-per-day limit as of this writing, but don’t worry: you can create multiple public pages, and even password protect a page if you want.  I make use of this by having a general public page at spot.cconover.com, but I also have a password-protected page for my family so that they’ll always have a page they can see, without having to worry about exceeding the view count.

Search & Rescue: $7.95/year up front, $150/year each subsequent year
The pricing on this one may seem a little confusing.  Basically, you have the option to purchase this service when you first activate your SPOT.  If you do this, then you’ll only pay $7.95 for this for the first year.  Every year after that, it will be $150 per year.  So what does this buy you?  SPOT has partnered with GEOS, who provide private search & rescue services worldwide.  For this yearly fee, you’ll receive up to $100,000 of search & rescue services when you hit that 911 button.  This will cover not only the cost of the private SAR services from GEOS, but fees incurred from any public/official SAR agency for which you may be responsible.  It’s also nice if you spend a lot of time in places where public SAR agencies may be poor or non-existant.  I would think that this wouldn’t be as important for mariners who transit the waters of developed nations where public SAR services are very good, such as the Coast Guard.  However, in areas that don’t have such organizations, this may prove to be vital.

SPOT has a page on their web site that covers pricing if you want to see it there.

What services would/do you use if you got/have a SPOT?

First Impressions
The first thing you’ll notice about the SPOT is the box it comes in.  That may sound a little obvious and stupid, but take a look at it and you’ll see what I mean:

The box is heavy on bright orange and photographs of dangerous situations.  The company’s slogan, “Live to tell about it” is emblazoned all over the box.  It’s certainly eye-catching, and immediately gives the consumer the impression that the company wants: this device is crucial to saving your life.

Once you open the box, it’s more of the same: flashy catch phrases and bright colors, all pointing to the same concept.  This was my favorite phrase on the box:

It’s not my favorite because of the unpleasant image it conveys, or because it’s sort of cleverly worded, but because of its bluntness: use the SPOT, and you probably won’t die.  I actually find it a little funny.

Once you finally get inside the box, you find the SPOT.  It’s about the size of a regular point-and-shoot digital camera, and about twice as thick.  When you take it out of the box, the first thing you notice is the rugged case.  This this is obviously meant to take a beating.  It’s made out of hard plastic, with a big rubber surround and grip.

As you can see from the pictures, my unit has already gotten a few bumps and scratches.  I’ve dropped it on concrete, left it out in the rain, and it doesn’t even seem to notice.  It is definitely a solidly built product, capable of going where it’s intended.

The unit sits well in your hand as well (not that it spends much time there, since there isn’t a screen).  The rubber grips on the sides do a good job of making sure it won’t slip out of your hand.  If it does slip and fall overboard however, you don’t need to worry too much since it floats:

Unfortunately, it seems that it doesn’t like to stay upright for very long.  So, if you happen to be sending a distress call and it falls in the water, it may not be able to keep sending that signal until you recover it and aim it back toward the sky.

Once I got it assembled and activated it on the SPOT web site, it was time to test it out.

Using SPOT
The unit is incredibly simple to use.  To turn it on, just press the “On/Off” button so that the LED blinks.  You have to let it sit for a few seconds after you turn it on before you can use other functions.  Once it’s ready, just press a function button (there are only 3) based on what you want it to do.  The manual explains the specifics on how to do it, so I don’t feel like I need to go into them here.

Put it in a place where it will have a clear view of the sky, and then just let it go to work.  I usually use it in tracking mode.  When this feature is on, it sends a GPS position to the SPOT system via satellite every 10 minutes.  You can then go back and look at your “breadcrumb trail” later in your account control panel, or if you have Shared pages, other people can see it in real time.  I have this feature enabled for mine.  You can find my public page by going to spot.cconover.com, or by clicking on the SPOT logo on the right sidebar on my blog.

The GPS appears to be very accurate, often pinpointing you down to the parking space or dock slip you’re in. Sometimes the data is a few meters off, which you really only notice when you have it tracking while you’re in one spot for an extended period of time as you’ll have a number of points in a cluster around the spot where you actually are.  That said, for the most part it’s right on target.

The SPOT satellite network is very reliable as well.  When in tracking mode, the unit will transmit your position every 10 minutes.  Even when traveling in urban areas it manages to successfully send the data almost every time.  This is particularly handy for me, since I have an 8 hour drive between school and my house, traveling through many urban areas.  It’s very nice for my parents to be able to hop online and see where I am at any point during my trip instead of having to call me.

The worldwide coverage of the SPOT network is very good as well.  This will be especially nice for Sea Term this year so that friends and family will be able to track us throughout the trip and see exactly where we are.  For individual use it’s good for the recreational boater who may not have an EPIRB, or can’t get a cell phone or VHF signal.

Battery life on the SPOT is very good as well.  The manual says that it can send up to 1900 messages on a set of batteries, which if you ran the tracking feature continuously 24/7 would give you about 2 weeks of tracking.  The device does require Lithium batteries, and they make sure you know that by writing it everywhere they can find on the back of the device.  Lithium batteries are non-rechargeable (unlike their lithium-ion counterparts in cell phones and digital cameras), and are more expensive than regular alkaline batteries.   However, they’re not that much more expensive, and last significantly longer, as well as being more resistant to damage from harsh climates.  I’ve used mine almost every time I drive anywhere and it’s still running strong on the original set of batteries.

So far I’ve been impressed with the SPOT’s performance.  I’m eager to see how it does out at sea in a couple of months, and until then I’m going to keep using it in various conditions to see how it does.

Have you used a SPOT, and if so what’s been your experience?  If not, would you consider getting one?

There hasn’t been much discussion among cadets about the name change, to be honest.  We heard a little bit about it at the beginning of the year, and were asked to express our opinions via e-mail about a possible name change.  A few weeks later we were informed that the change was going to take place.  Since the announcement, there have been some passing comments made, but nobody’s discussing it too much since the decision’s already been made.

As far as the comments that are being made: certainly there are jokes and such being made about naming a ship after a man who had an accident involving the water, and other jokes related to that.  However, there have also been positive comments about the fact that it may help bring the school some more publicity.

I haven’t really tried to get involved in such discussions since I really don’t know much about Ted Kennedy.  However, I do know that he’s been a public servant for many, many years and that, despite personal opinions of his mistakes or policies, his time in office is a reflection of patriotism in itself, so I don’t see any reason we shouldn’t honor that.  Just my 2 cents.

What do you think of the name change?  Please post your thoughts in the comments area below.

Since Sea Term is such a large undertaking, as soon as we return from one the planning begins for the next one.  One of the biggest decisions that has to be made is what ports of call we will make.  Fortunately, the cadets get to have some input on this decision.  A few weeks ago, there was an open meeting for all cadets going on Sea Term 2009 to vote on the choices the Sea Term planners had narrowed down.  The decisions then had to be finalized, and we now know which ports we will be stopping in:

1. Nassau, Bahamas
2. Tampa, FL
3. St. Thomas, USVI

Due to the price of fuel, we can’t go as far afield as was possible in previous years, which is why we’re not too far into the Caribbean, let alone South America or Europe.

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!

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!

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.

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: