An Evening Meeting

No GPS Reading. Location, course and speed unknown.

Today we continued our leisurely tour of the Aegean. But, there is no
time for leisure because our future merchant mariners are hard at work.
There is a constant scrubbing, chiseling, and ordering all about in
preparation for our anchoring at Andros. This is in addition to the noise
bomb that goes off every morning above my cabin.

I have found out that we are going to be having a high school invasion at
Andros to the tune of about 500 Greeks. They are going to be touring the
ship to generate more interest in what we do.

In the meantime, cadets will be let off in groups onto the island of
Andros as well as yours truly. With my sources here, I do not have a
great deal of information on this island, but I am gathering what I can
remotely as quickly as I may. It should be a very interesting experience
for all, and especially because we are going to be transported over in
boats!

So tonight I gave a five minute port presentation. Now, some advice if
you ever see me do a presentation. Never go to the first one if I am
doing multiple presentations. The first one is always my warm up. By the
second or third, I get my groove going and I have better jokes (they are
usually obscure historical jokes about Aaron Burr or Boss Tweed). I more
or less described how to get about and generally what was there. I tried
to keep it real by saying that getting from Piraeus to Athens was like
taking the subway from Queens to Manhattan – local references are always
winners.

What is amusing to me is just how these students do not want to ask
questions. I guess it has something to do with how they are trained. In
four sessions with hundreds of students I didn’t have a single question..
Am I that good? Nah, I just think they wanted to get out of there.

My presentation was at the tail end of a meeting in which the Captain gave
an outline of what is going on and the Admiral gave some words of
encouragement as well. Of interest, he announced there will be a third
tour, which will be a half day tour of the Acropolis.

I must admit that the cadets have much respect for the Captain and the
Admiral and were very much paying attention.

The Captain emphasized that at Andros, we are visiting because an old
alumnus, who is from there invited us and there is not going to be any
sort of formal reception. After the day is done, we will be departing
Andros at 2300 and will reach Piraeus early the next morning. I’ll be
taking lots of pictures!

As I write this it is 2200 and I just put on the movie because the
meetings ran late. In keeping with the theme of all things Greek, I am
playing “300” in which our cadets can revel in bare-chested Spartans
fighting Persians!

That’s all for tonight! Man I need to clean my desk up…

Fair Winds and Following Seas,
Joe