days at sea...before Mynamar Sunday

I must say, it is a necessity to have at least 3-4 days between ports to stay sane around here and fortunately we have had 6 this time around...it actually gives you time to decompress from your travels and experiences in the previous country, enough time to get everyone aligned again on the ship and then a little time to prepare for the next port and travel!
We have the new Captain-Captain Kingston aboard between here and India-they did the "switch" in Sinapore while we fueled up at 0100...the reasons are not public information so surely I cannot put it on the world wide web, but suffice to say that I have fallen in love with Captain Roman and his style and look forward to having him back...but, check this out~we obtain fuel by these big ships coming alongside in the middle of the ocean who fuel us up-it is an amazing process to watch-I only did for a little while being it was in the middle of the night.
And then, I just found out that we will lose a couple of our senior officers who I work with daily-Mats Nelson who is the Staff Captain and Petar who is the chief engineer...here is a shot of Mats at our party yesterday evening-sweetheart of a guy-lives in a remote part of Thailand and will go home for 3 months of rest. They are now going to have the Captain and Hotel Director sail the entire voyage and have the staff captain and chief engineer trade-off halfway through the voyage. Again, I so much enjoy the liaison part of my job with the crew and makes the rest of it bearable...mentioning the party, Bob decided it was time to throw a gathering for all of the staff, faculty and adult passengers...everyone came out of the woodwork-of course for free drinks and food, you would too...but, it was nice timing as we work on day 41 of the 100 day voyage...so here is a pic of the famous trio from the gathering... tim, abby and theresa...
Unfortunately, something that is necessary on all voyages is to do random drug testing...and unfortunately the day was yesterday~partly due to problems that we hear from the community but also an SAS policy that this random testing happen at least once during the voyage. Quite a few folks came up positive, so we are in the process of talking with them and making decisions based on the results and conversations...it is just another sad day in the reality of life and the choices people make...as someone said to me, this truly can be a turning point, but that this will be forever in their "past" as a marker for the rest of their lives...so I just am sad for them.

Other than that, life does move on on the ship~off to "Inle Lake with light trekking", which is suppose to be a beautiful natural place-again, I am realizing that this is an important component for me on these trips~to not only be able to experience the "tourist" parts, but also be in natural beauty...surely what I have experienced so far on the "pre-planned" SAS trips! Having the Ro's watch tomorrow night-we get in tomorrow afternoon, but the ship will not clear until the next morning. I will only have one day really in Yangon when we get back, but that is fine with me...seems like a difficult country to travel in on your own~we are learning a great deal in Global Studies on the mixed views of the political and economic blocks the government has put on tourism...should be interesting to actually "experience" it! Stay tuned...off to workout!
love, ro