Friday Nov 14,08
Had a great night last night (Thursday) no watch 
When I got up I discovered that we were surrounded by cruise ships!
This huge ship is docked right beside us. It’ amazing that these things actually sail. They have WiFi on board but you have to give them a room number and pin number of some sort… blah
I spent the day varnishing the mizzen topmast, the one they took down on Tuesday. We also did a bunch of training on lines and procedures.
Late in the day we unloaded a huge pile of fresh food and stored it away in preparation for the trip.
Our watch is off for the next two days (Saturday and Sunday) so
hopefully I’ll be be able to get a chamce to wander around and see some of the city and get a connection somewhere.
We are officially supposed to sail on the 18th which is Tuesday. I’m
looking forward to that with a mixture of fear and excitement a you can
imagine.
November 19th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Like you, my first (admittedly hugely illogical) thought when I got on a passenger ship as an adult (I have no memory of what I was thinking when we got on the SS United States when I was 7) was “How the hell does anything that big float?”.
The really amazing thing is that they typically draw only about 25′. so the metacentric heights tend to be pretty scary, and they don’t handle rough seas too well.
As to sailing date: more excitement, less fear!
…There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me —
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices.
Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars……
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
From Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson