Coming to you from somewhere in the Caribbean Sea in transit to Dominica. This morning we are passing Puerto Rico off to our right side. We finally departed Friday night from Nassau at 8 p.m. after originally scheduled to leave from the dock at 5 p.m. on Thursday. Several students on the voyage had Visa issues and did not have their passports to leave the country. So we delayed our departure in order for them to make the ship. On Wednesday, the day before we boarded, we found out that we would leave at 11 p.m. Thursday due to the same issue. Then after we came aboard the next day we were delayed until noon on Friday. Then Friday came around and they finally said we could leave the dock but we only went out to sea to stall for time and then returned to Nassau’s port at 5:30 p.m. Finally, right before 8 p.m. our missing passengers arrived and we pushed off from the dock.
I spent four days exploring around Nassau before I boarded the ship. Most of our time was spent going to the beach, checking out the casino at Atlantis, and going to the famous Senor Frogs. That establishment apparently is a Semester at Sea tradition to go to the days before your voyage leaves in Nassau. Senor Frogs is in an easy location next to where all the cruise ships dock and as we departed on Friday night you could hear the loud music, whistles, and shouts of “We’re on vacation!” We also had some very good food at the fish fry. I opted for the grouper. Tourism is the main industry in the Bahamas so the Bahamian people are very friendly especially the taxis drivers looking for fares. You can’t walk more the 100 feet without one asking if you would like a ride. Everything is fairly expensive as well because they import everything from the U.S., which almost doubles the price for most things.
The delayed stay in Nassau made the beginning feel a little weird only seeing Nassau’s dock for almost two days but now it actually feels like we’re going somewhere. They have the ship going at full speed and we’re still supposed to arrive on time in Dominica on tomorrow morning. The ship is rolling along with the waves in probably what will be some of our calmer waters definitely making for a different classroom experience. The first two days have been spent with massive amounts of orientation but yesterday was the first day of classes and I’ll have two more today. Right now, I’m sitting on the back deck looking out at the vast miles of ocean as I write this. It’s a nice place to sit out, read, or pass time. It’s hard to believe that this is actually a college semester and this is where I’ll probably do most of my work. We just moved into our first different time zone tonight so we lost an hour last night. I’m looking forward to getting to Dominica in the morning. The small island is supposed to be a very lush island because its rigid terrain made it impossible to cultivate sugarcane.
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