Montauk Bound or I Don’t Know where the Foozeball Ball is.

-73° 13.589' W by 41° 2.124' N. Course: 87° Speed: 14.0 knots

So last night I met my roommate just as I was falling to sleep. He seems

like a rather interesting person whose Kristopher Kringle-like appearance

belies a wealth of sea stories that I am probably going to hear from here

to Greece. We haven’t talked about the weather yet, but rather a Russian

novel that he is reading.

Speaking of Greece, the rumor is we might not be going there but rather

divert to Croatia instead. I will keep you posted on these details.

Items of interest… First, the cabin. I never before thought that air

conditioning could be an unpleasant thing either to physical sensitivity

or to the ear. The air conditioning here is an attack on both of these

highly important senses. Not only was it as cold as ice, but the noise

from the machinery of the ship would have given me brain damage had I not

at hand my ear plugs. These saved me from this malicious auditory

assault. As a side note, please understand that as a librarian, I am

genetically wired to be sensitive to all levels of noise. At sea,

however, I cannot simply ‘shhhh’ the engines.

The departure went well, and I’ve been “wired” since coming aboard

–incidentally I drank another cup of coffee this morning. Goodbyes were

said as Michelle, my mother, my mother’s boyfriend and my aunt came to

visit. My aunt upon walking into the library immediately said, “Oh Joe

this is *so* you.” I am not totally sure where I have created this

impression that Forts and Castles are an integral part of my personality,

but I suppose I prefer having these things associated with me over Care

Bears and rainbows.

Michelle brought breakfast. Brioche with a stick of butter in it per bun,

bomboloni which I believe are basically like taking said stick of butter,

and frying it…. Mmmmm. (Michelle's Notations: Bomboloni doesn't have as much butter as brioche and are basically donuts)

We ate this in the library as I sat there

like Jesus in the “Last Supper.” It was interesting.

After breakfast we proceeded to the pier where after multiple goodbyes

I boarded, climbed to the cabin deck, and then hung around outside as I

waved to the little people ashore.

The wind was blowing really hard and

it was almost as cold as my cabin (just to give you an idea of the

relative scales of coolness).

Tug boats came in, pulled us off the pier,

and now we are cruising along the Long Island Sound heading toward

Montauk. At Montauk, the cadets and crew will be performing one more

quality check before we make the crossing.

The crossing itself should take about 10 days or so with the ship going at

an optimal speed to conserve fuel. I can’t imagine how they used to make

these crossings in sailboats just relying on wind power – it must have

been so much quieter!

I am keeping the library closed today as I want to take the next several

hours to organize it. However, I will be showing two movies: “Men of

Honor” and “Sin City.” I let two cadets who happened to be standing

around the library who were looking for a foozeball to the foozeball table

(alas I do not have a foozeball) and were apparently on their first cruise

looking rather nervous. These two students were part of a large

contingent of Turkish students that we have at the school. According to

them, they were not particularly interested in seeing “new stuff” mostly

because “most everybody had just seen it.” They picked out “Men of

Honor.”

Anyway, time to get back to my organizational work!

Fair Winds and Following Seas,

Joe