Why is the Rum Always Gone!?

Mauritius was one of the ports that initially I had no idea what to expect.  Until about a month before the voyage, I had no idea how to even pronounce the island let alone how to locate it on a map.  For those of you who are like me – it is a small island northeast of Madagascar and was used as a refueling station for the British naval fleet on their voyages to India and China.  I don’t know if I can really even count this as a culturally meaningful port stop because we were only allowed to be there for one day.  Because of the “actions of past voyages”, Semester at Sea is actually banned by the Mauritian Government for being there longer than 18 hours.  Why SAS decided to stop there was beyond me- until I got to the island that is. 

With 12 hours and no idea of what to expect, I signed up for a catamaran trip where we would go to an island about 10 miles off the coast, have a barbeque with the locals, go snorkeling, and hang out at the beach.  This sounded like the absolute perfect day trip for me!  The day before we were scheduled to dock, we hear that we will be arriving in port a night early due to a non-life threatening emergency.  Later I found out that one of the life long learners (the retirees who decide that instead of sitting at home with nothing to do, they would rather live on a ship, audit classes, and travel the world with a bunch of college students – I found my retirement plan!) had a detached retina and needed to fly to a hospital for surgery.  We were so excited to hear that we would be there an extra night, but because of the whole little governmental ban issue we had to stay on the ship.  It was torturous to eat dinner while looking out on this magnificent city (that looked much like San Diego at night) and be stuck on the ship!  So when 6:00am rolled around, we were all up and ready to go.  We got breakfast on the ship, got into our groups for the catamaran, and were off on the busses to get to the beach.  As soon as we got to the beach, I felt like I had reached paradise.  White sandy beaches, turquoise water, and blue sky stretched for miles.  It looked just like the island in Pirates of the Caribbean!  After soaking in the beauty for a couple minutes, we hopped on the catamarans and were off.  After being on a boat for a month and a half, you would think that the last thing I would want to do is hop back on another one, but these were little high powered speed boats so we cut through the water and were on the island in no time! 

Gabriel Island was absolute paradise.  There were white sand beaches, clear blue skies, turquoise blue waters, and the most gorgeous surf I have ever seen in my life!  There was a barbeque waiting for us on the beach and we couldn’t have asked for more.  I didn’t go snorkeling because of the whole broken finger thing, but I spent about half an hour just standing in the water looking out at the Indian Ocean taking in the beauty.  We had a great time on the most beautiful beach in the world and after some snorkeling, great food, and some serious relaxation we headed back to the catamaran and back to the ship.  The little time that we spent there was absolutely amazing, and I am now totally geared up and ready to take on India!

The day after we left Mauritius, there was no class because we had… SEA OLYMPICS!  Everyone is divided into 8 “seas” based on our cabins, so as a Deck 2 resident I am in the Aegean Sea.  Early on in the voyage, we had a sea meeting where I was elected one of the three Captains for our Sea.  There wasn’t that much preparation to get ready for the Olympics, but a few days prior I had sign ups for all the different events, complied the final roster, and worked to get everyone mentally psyched for some stiff competition!  Normally, I would stack all the events (which I must admit I did in some occasions…but they all paid off!), but I tried as hard as I could to turn off my brutal competitiveness and let everyone participate in the events that they wanted.  The day began at 9am with Opening Ceremonies where all the Seas were introduced, and then the games began!  The games consisted of a combination of actual sports like Volleyball (I had to stack this one… with college level volleyball players and a 6’7’’ guy on my team, who could blame me), Dodgeball, Tug –o- War, and Crab Soccer (again, stacked because we had some incredible soccer players!) along with “Minute to Win It” style games like food face, chopstick challenge, and a reverse spelling bee.  For the Olympics, I took the lead as Head Captain and didn’t compete in anything  but rather led my team to some pretty epic victories.  After an epic win in the volleyball tourney, a hard fought second place finish in the crab soccer tourney, and an amazing third place finish in the reverse spelling bee (gotta love my English majors!), we were looking decently strong.  There was some tough competition, and while we didn’t come out ahead overall, we all had a great time.  Everyone from my sea had a great time throughout the day, and retrospectively I am glad I toned down my competitiveness when making the roster because everyone was able to compete in what they wanted and enjoy the once in a lifetime events.  I am very proud to say that I made it to every single event, cheered my heart out, and was able to manage my team like a pro!  I guess all the years of sports finally paid off!

It was one of the craziest days I have had thus far on the ship!  Between 9am and 7pm I was running around the ship between events, organizing teams, and rooting for the Aegean Sea at every moment of the day.  In the Olympic Spirit, I had a Gatorade for breakfast, a Red Bull for lunch, and felt like a champion.  At the closing ceremonies, the winners were announces, we took a team photo, and my exhaustion caught up with me.  After an extremely long day in Mauritius and an even longer day at the Olympics (I didn’t sit down for 6 hours straight!) I was ready to take a shower, put on some sweat pants, and sleep.  Normally I don’t loose well, but when my team turned around, thanked me, and gave me the most massive group hug of my life it honestly felt like a victory for me (and you know it isn’t easy for me to say that given my slightly competitive nature).  For the first time that I can remember, I was able to walk away from a loss completely happy with the course of the day.  Everyone from my sea got to participate in everything they wanted, and had an absolutely amazing time doing it.  It was one of the greatest days that I have spent on the ship, and I know that if anything I walked away from a long day with great friends by my side and some wonderful lifelong memories.