December 20, 2012 – December 26, 2012
December 20th was departure day from Fernando
and we sailed off of anchor, which is something pretty special. The sail to
Natal was a quick one and we arrived on the 22nd. Our first full day
in Natal was port program day; dune buggying!
We took the bus out to the sand dunes that surround the
city of Natal where we hopped into dune buggies, four people per buggy plus the
driver. We ripped through the white sand that stretched out in all directions,
looking around to see nothing but our convoy of dune buggies (there were so
many of us) flying over the dunes. We stopped at a few beautiful view points on
the way. We speeded down a couple of steep hills, laughing the entire way,
until we arrived at a nice lake to swim. At the lake they had an activity
called aerobunda; it’s basically a zip line into the lake. Some of us did it,
and it was great fun! You harness into the line and jump off a platform,
soaring over the lake and eventually splashing into the water.
After stopping at the lake we continued on the dune
buggies, this time headed for a beach. Once we reached the beach the buggy
cruised along through the shallow water, waves splashing around us, before
stopping for us to get off and swim. We spent the rest of the day relaxing in
the sun, cooling off in the water and eating refreshing popsicles from the cart
that goes along the beach. What an amazing day!
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| Dune buggying! |
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| Taking a raft across a river |
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| Our buggy :) |
The following day was Christmas Eve! Everyone got dressed
up (a rarity on the ship!) for a nice Christmas dinner with a holiday coffee
house afterwards. At the end of the coffee house the teachers made an
announcement: a sleep in day!!!! We hadn’t been able to sleep past 7:30 since
we went on the overnight trip in Morocco, but on Christmas morning we were
allowed to sleep in until 11!
I was on gangway Christmas morning, so after watch and
wishing everyone else who was up a merry Christmas in the middle of the night,
I went down to the banjer to go to bed and saw the teachers hurrying around
with bags of candy. We had all left out socks (clean ones, hopefully!) as
stockings, and they put some candies next to everyone’s socks!
In the morning, I thought I would have forgotten how to
sleep in, but none of us had any problems; we were all so tired! We got up at
11 to the nice surprise of candy in our socks. What’s Christmas without eating
chocolate before breakfast? Breakfast, or rather brunch, was absolutely
amazing! We had crepes with real maple syrup! What a treat!
After a day of shore
leave and talking with our families, we all returned to the ship where we
listened to the Vinyl Café Dave cooks the
turkey, a Class Afloat tradition. Then it was time for supper; a barbeque! I
love BBQs on the ship; everyone eats out on the main deck and up on the boat
deck, and it’s so much fun! When supper was over, one of the other students’
dad came aboard, dressed as Santa, and handed out the secret Santa gifts we had
made for each other. Each person had drawn a name and had to make a gift for that
person. The only rule is that the gift must be homemade! It was a great time,
and some of the things that people made were incredible! Then, he brought out
packages that had been mailed from home, which was an amazing end to the day,
our last day before departing on the final sail of the semester! Merry
Christmas! |
| Happy Holidays! |
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