Crossing Through the Indian Ocean

Oh. Hello, potential imaginary reader. And Mom and Dad. Hello Apologies for not posting in a long, long time—I wish I had an exciting excuse that involved amazing adventures while traveling in some exotic location, but really I just got lazy and overwhelmed with work. It’s Midterm Season around these parts, and since I haven’t had more than one midterm at a time since high school, I sort of fell off the radar. I don’t really mean that in the nautical sense, but we can pretend.

After we left South Africa, we entered a new ocean—the Indian. I began to feel far away from my world in Colorado, much like Neptune Day and the Equator crossing. I suppose I fell into a world of self-reflection and trying to understand my life from a distance, which probably added to my lack of writing. It’s strange because I was feeling inspired, especially after South Africa, but I couldn’t bring myself to write anything. I’ve only recently gotten back to it. I certainly came to some conclusions, but they’ll probably not be applicable after India and the rest of Asia.

During our long crossing across the Indian Ocean, we did have two days off, one of which was spent on land—Mauritius! Ever heard of it? It’s a tiny island nation in the middle of the ocean with an extremely dense population of 1.3 million. It’s a pretty newly inhabited land, so much so that we were told it’s colonial history is its history. My day there was spent on a catamaran floating around in the water with my friends and drinking delicious beer and swimming and getting horribly cut up by the coral and getting sun burnt and generally being a collegiate hooligan. To say I learned anything about myself in this country would be a bold faced lie, an utter fabrication of reality. You can’t really learn a whole lot in less than a day in a country that was utilized for having some drunken fun. That being said, it was a wonderful day in the sun with my friends. Here’s a little ditty I wrote:

Delicious Mauritius

(Sounds almost fictitious)

Was controlled by the British.

My rhyme scheme is repetitious,

But certainly not salacious.

In delicious Mauritius

I played with the fish

And made a deep wish

To one day bring a Polish

Back to delicious Mauritius.

You dig it? I bet you do, poet. Anyway, that was Mauritius in a beer-coated nutshell.

Many students were hoping for a day off to just rest after the inebriated whirlwind of Mauritius. Instead, we had the Sea Olympics! Divided into seas by where we lived on the ship, there were 12 different competing teams—nine student teams, one faculty and staff team, one Lifelong Learner team, and one dependent children team. I live in the Caribbean Sea and our color was purple. Make a “but where has the rum gone?” joke and I’ll kick you in the shins. We don’t have a Jack Sparrow (or a Zach Luna—I hope he reads this), so it’s hard to really make that joke, despite our mascot being the pirates (again, Zach Luna, I hope you are reading this—you’d be right at home in my sea). Anyway, the events were quite varied, ranging from a reverse spelling bee and trivia, to a popcorn eating contest, to synchronized swimming in the pool. In the end, the Baltic Sea on the other side of the deck from us was victorious, but us Pirates came in a solid fifth. Whattup! In all seriousness, though, we are the best looking sea, so we really won in the end.

Tomorrow marks our arrival into Chennai, India. Unlike many of my friends, I will not be venturing north to the Taj and all the “touristy” sites. Instead, I will be heading west to Kerala, a rural state on the Arabian Sea with many attractions and beautiful landscapes. I’ll be venturing around with no real set plans—just me, a few friends, and my backpack. Yes, I’m nervous, but I know I’ll be reaping incredible benefits from traveling in a small group of people with a level of spontaneity I have yet to explore while on SAS. It’ll be a reminder of London and Spain, but with even less structure. Until next week, namaste, dear India!