Elizabeth Abernathy's blog

We're waiting to get off the boat, so I thought I'd post my last floating blog.  Here's some highlights/random thoughts:

1.  If you have ever done anything that might show up on a permanent record, you might want to bring a copy of the paperwork for the Canadian Immigration officers.  I'm just saying...

I've spent a lot of time on this ship knitting.  One of the things I was excited about when I got accepted to School of Rock was that I would be able to knit on a boat, just like a real sailor.  Well, like sailors from Northern Europe used to do--I don't know about other parts of the world, or modern sailors.

Yesterday the pipe got sent down, and the crew tried to get the end of the drill string into the opening in the collar of two CORKS (one at a time).  A camera gets sent down, also, so that the crew can see where the end of the drill string is with regards to where it needs to be.  The live video also goes out on most of the monitors on the ship—talk about reality TV!

Dear Readers,  I think I forgot to mention that I finally felt seasick when we hit big wave on Thursday (or was it Friday?  Days have no meaning here, just the hours of the clock).  So I put on a seasickness patch, but those 4 hours it took for the medicine to start working were AWFUL.  I missed most of the tour of the bridge (where the Captain is) because I had to just

When it was so windy with high waves the last two days, I wanted to make some movies to try to show just how much the ship is moving (although we are perfectly safe).  I hope these two clips give you an idea of why so many people (myself included, now!) are taking medicine for seasickness. 

The waves have died down a little today, but this is what it looked like Friday and Saturday:

And it was pretty windy if you went out on top of the Bridge:

Each day goes by so fast--I never thought I could focus on one thing all day, every day, but none of this seems boring.  Our instructors are amazing, which probably helps.  And we take plenty of time to go outside and look at the water stretching out endlessly in every direction.

So, last night, our first real night at sea (not in harbor), the wall started squeaking.  Luckily, I had brought ear plugs, so I used them, and slept right through my alarm for a total of 9.5 hours of sleep.  Good thing I caught up, because tonight we started hitting real waves, and I mean hitting literally!  From my bunk, I can hear the smack of the water on the bottom of the sh

 It’s our third day, and I’m finally blogging!  I feel like it’s taken me this long to get my bearings—after meeting everyone the first night onshore, I was feeling like “Why was I selected?”  There are such accomplished, amazing teacher participants and faculty I wasn’t sure I would be able to