The Sea Olympics have long been a tradition aboard Semester At Sea voyages, and while they have morphed over the years, their purpose has rarely changed. Each student’s cabin on the ship is in an individual “Sea”full of about 70-ish kids and a “living learning coordinator”or LLC. There is also the “Oddy-Sea”full of the life long learners, faculty, staff, and their kids.
When we boarded the ship from Mauritius, we grabbed some grub, and then got ready for opening ceremonies. There, Luke “The Voice”Jones was called up to “light”the Olympic torch and officially open the games. Of course, open flames on the ship are forbidden, so red paper was attached to a torch stem to signify the lighting. All of the seas were introduced to much applause, and then presentations of the team’s cheer, mascot and banner were presented to the judges.
The next day, the Olympics, the games were in full swing. You may have a pictionary tournament going in the Union at the same time Tug-of-War happened on the 7th deck. Everything from a massive twister game to mashed potato sculpting, volleyball, dodgeball, limbo and synchronized swimming was fair game. Nate and I had the privilege of hosting the Spelling Bee, which was a lot of fun. We expected it be just the spellers and us in a room, but a good 50 or so people came out. In the end, professor Sergio won the gold medal for the Oddy-Sea, but it wasn’t without a fight.
Some of the odds and ends of the day:
-12 or 13-year old Abby beat out all of the competition and won the wall-sit competition in the workout relay
-Exec. Dean Les McCabe was a common theme of the day. He appeared in a few teams’mashed potato sculptures. One time holding the globe and the other with his favorite word Ubuntu sculpted in front of him.
-I forgot that the pool was salt-water and opened my eyes underwater during the synchronized swimming routine. Needless to say…it hurt.
-The first word to get someone out in our spelling bee was “Celery”
I had a lot of fun all day. With my times and memories on the Blue Team at CTT most of my life, I was busy leading chants and cheers, going crazy and making a fool out of myself for the benefit of the team. We had a lot of good time, but unfortunately that didn’t translate to the scoreboard. See, the Carribbean Sea was always close to getting a medal, but never actually there. And as you all know, close doesn’t get you points. We ended up coming in dead last with 1, that’s right,1 bronze medal. With teams raking in as much as 10 golds, 15 silvers and multiple bronzes…it was kind of embarrassing, haha. In terms of the Olympics, the Carribbean sea was Uzbekistan.
In terms of competition, though, we definitely had the most fun. We became the loveable losers, the Chicago Cubs if you will, of the Olympics by about 2:00 pm, so everything became more fun and less serious. Our dodgeball team was unstoppable, our synchronized swimming team (of which I was on) was hilarious, and overall it was a great time being competitive with friends. Though I won’t be getting off the ship first in Ft. Lauderdale, the day was a welcome break to classes and the other stresses of life-at-sea (there’s not many, but there are some).
The closing ceremonies were a nice finish to the day and one of the fun times the whole ship comes together. We had planned a lot for this day, and it was a lot of fun to see it come to fruition.
Right after the Olympics, it was back to reality…kind of. I needed to punch out a 6-pager for my biomedical ethics class, so I hit the main dining room with chips and caffeine and didn’t get up til it was done.
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