Fellow travelers

We've been traveling about four days, day and night, with nothing around us but blue, blue ocean.  Every day we get a noon report from the captain.  It tells us our position, the depth of the ocean, the temperature of the water and air, how fast we're going and how far we've come.  It also tells us how far we are from the nearest land.  In the last 24 hours, we've passed the half-way point:  we are now closer to Hawaii than to North America.  In two more days, we'll land in Hilo.

Closer, of course, is a relative thing.  We're a good 800 miles away, moving along at 16 or 17 knots average speed.  For now, we're in the middle of the ocean, with water and sky and not much else to see.  It's been cloudy for days, so we haven't even seen the stars.  I did see a bird while I was up on the bridge Friday.  We're skating on the edge of the great Pacific garbage patch, so we've been promised the occasional styrofoam cup.

It's soothing, with the gentle rocking of the ship and the throbbing of the engines.  I've been sleeping like a baby.  The seas are pretty gentle right now, but we're still lurching around, pulling ourselves uphill and racing downhill.  The officer on our bridge tour said the swells are 10 meters, and the ship has its stabilizing fins out to minimize the rocking.  There are still some people who aren't eating, but I am enjoying three full meals a day.

Last night, we had an unexpected visitor.  I stepped out onto the deck and found a bird had come on board.  It was very still at first, then it tried to walk and fly.  It stumbled around in circles and bumped into the ship a few times.  There was a student out on deck, too, and he went over to the reception desk to get a crew member.  The crew member had no solutions, so I went in search of one of the many science professors we have on board.  The first ones I saw were a couple from Hawaii who are vulcanologists, but I had just heard them speak about the flora and fauna of Hawaii, and any port in a storm, right?

This morning we got an update on the bird.  Our oceanologist identified it as a storm petrel, a bird which spends all of its life at sea except to mate.  He is one of the privileged few who has a stateroom with a private balcony, so he took the bird up there to recuperate in private.  This morning, it was gone.

Semester at Sea has a reputation for changing lives.  In this case, it may have bought some extra time for a wind-tossed bird.