The Wine Dark Sea

0° 17.89' E by 37° 37.175' N. Course: 55° Speed: 8.4 knots

So I lied. Today we fell out of sight of land and are now in the middle
of the giant salt puddle known as the Mediterranean Sea. Today nothing
really noteworthy happened (we haven’t met any Krakens, Sirens, or seen
the Clashing Rocks yet), but I did happen to have my first official
meeting with the Captain (in the Captain’s Office no less).

Though of course I had an unofficial meeting at about 11am this morning
when I found out that the rooms had cooled off enough where they could
pull the switch and turn the email on the hardwired computers back on.
There was much rejoicing.

So of course, being notified by the Captain’s Secretary that he wants to
see me made me wonder why? So I started ticking off possible reasons why
the Captain might be mad at me and I found that my paranoia knows no
reasonable bounds. What about that time I wore an eye patch and swung
from the upper decks? No that wasn’t me. Was it because I accidentally
tried to go through a restricted door and got chastised by the regiment
office? Hmmm nah, too petty of an incident. Was it because I left some
garbage outside the library that wasn’t particularly sorted? Hmmm.

Oh I know! It must be this blog! I must have written something so
libelously horrible that it got back to the Captain and now I was going to
be made to walk the plank (from whence I shall swim back to Spain).

Much to my own dismay I wasn’t in trouble. My paranoid side was
immediately disappointed. The Captain wanted to talk about some of the
content to put in my port guide for Greece.

I did find out some interesting tidbits about Greece though. There is
apparently going to be a three island tour offered, as well as a tour of
the Acropolis. All surrounding this will be two receptions. One when we
anchor at Andros, and then a huge reception on the ship on the night of
the 6th. Alumni and industry bigwigs will be there. In addition, once we
are in Piraeus we will be offering tours of the ship, etc.

I will formulate my own plans between then and there... I have plenty of
time.

Today, I have also found that the simplest of gestures can make you a
saint. I don’t mean making the sign of the crucifix either – I mean by a
simple magnanimous gesture of allowing a cadet to pick a movie that is
going to be played.

It was perhaps an hour ago that a student came in and asked for the movie
list. I immediately asked “why?” As everybody knows, no cadet is allowed
to ‘rent’ movies (stopping myself before I go on a vicious tangent about
the difference between renting and borrowing). Well, he wanted to make
some ‘suggestions.’ I said, sure… why not? After all, I am a benevolent
and charitable – I made sure to scribble down the cadet’s name just in
case this somehow boomeranged.

So he wanted to know if I had “Crazies.” Now there was probably about 20
various jokes I could have gotten off about that, but I guess being cooped
up in the hold of the ship for several hours at a time dulls your wits, so
I just said no. He finally found one he liked: Fight Club. Perfect. On
the list it goes. I am now officially the “nicest dude at Maritime.”
It’s too bad. I was really striving for the “Baddest Ass” title.

Speaking of dude, there is actually a rather interesting dichotomy of
address here. I’m either “sir” or “Mister” *or* I am “dude,” and “bro.”
I even got one or two calling me by my first name! What cheek! As for
the informal forms of address I am going to take it as flattery since I am
evidently so youthful looking, that I am mistaken for one of the cadets.
To counter this, and to assert my age, I have resolved to limit my shaving
to every *third* day just so I can flaunt my special status as being
immune from demerits. Man I’m such a bad ass…

Fair Winds and Following Seas,
Joe

-----
Special notice: I know many of you are too hip to read the old fashioned
way… but if you have paperbacks or books that you are planning to get rid
of, but you think could make good pleasure reading for our future
mariners, please get in touch with me and donate them. We’ll put them in
the ship’s library, where I can attest they will get used at least as much
as Jane Fonda’s Workout book.