Rocky Seas

I’m wrapping up my fifth day traveling on the ship, and it has been a rough ride so far. The captain told us we went 300 miles out of our way to avoid a storm that pummeled the West Coast, but even with this detour we are still experiencing lots of turbulence. The closest analogy I can think of is one of those Pirate Ship rides at Amusement Parks, rocking back and forth. As I mentioned in a previous post, some of the waves have been so powerful to knock people out of their chairs. In one of my classes today, all of unoccupied metal chairs ended up falling, and all of us students decided to sit cross-legged on the floor because it was too much of an effort to keep in our chairs. Last night was particularly bad—our desk chair fell backwards, our drawers opened and slammed every so often, and everything on our nightstand slid off shortly after we put it there. However, we were one of the lucky ones, since our room is located in the middle of the ship. Some people’s nightstands and beds broke away from the wall, where they were supposedly securely attached. Due to the clamor of doors crashing, many people did not sleep well last night, but as usual I slept through it all obliviously (although apparently I now talk about computers in my sleep?...) Fortunately, we have heard that conditions will improve tonight, and we should have smoother sailing to Hawaii. TWO DAYS!!!