at sea

We are at sea again, rounding the horn of Africa from Morocco to Accra, Ghana. The trip will take about eight days.
I love being at sea. Interesting classes and lots going on--the on ship community is great. No worries about getting sick from the food or water, easy to communicate (everyone speaks English). Being in port takes us into places Rob and have never seen and is exciting--then returning to the ship is like going home again.
We had our first dinner with our extended family--Rob and I have adopted five students as part of an on ship program. Over three hundred students signed up wanting to be adopted. By the time the ship left Halifax we had only 520 students. We figure the bad economy played a role here--the ship can accommodate 750. Our adopted students are terrific. They want to get together more than once a week and all are very enthusiastic. I passed two of them today one at a time and we were all very glad to see each other. A number of other students have became special to us also.
The port of Morocco is large and very industrial looking--lots of cement and huge cranes. Rats running around also. The ropes that tied us to the dock had rat deterrents. a large cup like thing that blocked them from entering and was painted to look just like the open mouth of a huge cat I'd say it works--none of us has ever seen a single rat on board.
I went up by the pool for a while this afternoon. It was too hot to stay long. I did put my feel in the cool pool water. The pool is emptied every time we go into port and then filled with fresh sea water when we head out to sea again. So the water has been very cold so far. Today it had warmed up enough that lots of students were getting in and splashing around.
I love the view of ocean all around us. I saw a tanker from the deck during lunch.