And it starts...

So begins my dream job…my once-in-a-lifetime adventure that I have long pondered, hoped for, waited for… and am finally getting to experience. It begins in Bremerhaven, Germany, where we are acquainted with the Sorlandet, our home for the year, at a tall ship festival. We are to spend a few days as a staff getting to know each other, and experience a team-building sail to Norway, where we will eventually meet our students. The Sorlandet is beautiful. At first, I am surprised at how big she is… not sure what I was expecting, but this Norwegian beauty surpasses my expectations.. first few days are spent meeting fellow faculty members (all seem awesome, hurray!), jet-lag correcting, orientating and provisioning (translation: stocking food on board for the year).

Then… seasickness. Our venture on the North Sea terrifies me, and makes me wonder if I am really cut out for this. How will I teach when I can hardly get out of bed? Brushing my teeth or taking a shower seems like a monumental task (neither of which I manage to accomplish during our 3 day journey… gross). Seasickness cripples me, and I spend 36 + hours cuddling with the wall next to my bunk, trying to convince my brain that I’m not being tossed around by the biggest waves the crew says they’ve seen all summer. By the end of day 2, I manage to surface to the deck of the ship, and eat a chicken breast. In my sea sickened state, the sense of accomplishment I feel for having completed this task is equal to the sense of pride one must feel after running a marathon, or finding a solution for world peace. I feel amazing. Seeing land the next morning was just as wonderful. The Norwegian coastline is lovely, and I am happy… mostly because I know we are on land for 12 days.

The next week is spent preparing for the students’ arrival and orientation. In rare spare moments, we check out Kristiansand, and look for reasonably priced goods. One nearby pub sells pints of draft beer for about 9$ Canadian (or, 48 kroner) – not bad, considering the Coke I had with my meal the night before was 12$. Norway is beautiful… but pricey. The kind of place I’m happy I get to see through work, because I would have to save up for a lifetime to afford this place on my own dime.

Finally, the kids arrive, and they are lovely. After some sail training, and eventually, tearful goodbyes to Mom and Dad, we set sail for Saint Malo, France…by this time, I have managed to convince myself that “seasickness, shmeachmickness” is my motto… that the state of uselessness I experienced on the sail from Bremerhaven was all in my head… nope.

Shortly after we set sail from Kristiansand, the curry coconut rice dish I had for dinner soon becomes the last I’ll enjoy of the sort. I broke the sacred rule of “never eating a food you love before setting sail”, and now… simply typing the words makes me gag. Seasickness returns with a vengeance. Jerk.

In my defense, the cards are against me. The room I share at the bow of the ship with Jenn, a fellow teacher, is not-so-affectionately referred to by the crew as “The Space Shuttle”, or “The Vomit Comet”. It defies gravity. If I manage to sort of fall asleep, I am quickly awakened by being thrown into the air and crashing back onto my cot. Our room goes up and down with the movement of the waves, and so do I. And when the waves are several meters high, it’s a bit too much for me, and my non-sea-leggedness to handle. The next morning, I move in with Christina, the medical officer, at the other end of the ship. I love her. Not only does she let me bunk with her in a room that doesn’t turn me into an astronaut, but she also has impressive stocks of pretzels and cookies – pretty much the only 2 foods I manage to digest over the next few days.

Our first night as sea roomies is rough. The weather is changing, and we wake up to the contents of her room being tossed around, and to the sound of water rushing in through the sides of the door. Awesome. We’ve hit a storm. Perfect.

The North Sea is crazy. The weather is unpredictable, and the waves… huge. We go through one of the worst storms our captain (who looks like Sawyer from Lost, go look at the pics) and crew have weathered in their long careers. Winds are at 80k, and the waves hit 12 meters. Terrifying..but the crew handles it well, and I feel as though we are in good hands, even though the ship is being tossed from side to side.

Life on the ship comes to a standstill, and the SS Sorlandet quickly becomes the SS Depression, as Rob, another faculty member, points out. The first storm casualty happens when of our students is caught off guard by the sharp keeling of the ship, falls and cracks his head open. (He’s fine… but walks around with bandages around his head a-la-Frankenstein for the next few days.. hilarious). Classes are cancelled for the day, and we are ordered to literally do nothing, as moving about is too dangerous… not that I could do much moving even if I wanted to… stupid seasickness.

Although the storm passes, and the seas are calmer the next couple days, they are still nasty. The staff is secretly trying to change Class Afloat’s program to Class Afly, Class Abus, Class Arail, or Class-Afloat-for-just-a-couple-days-and-then-stay-in-port-for-a-lot-of-days.

But THEN… we hit the English Channel… all is well again. Water is calm, we see LAND! France and England (the white cliffs of Dover.. pretty) make everyone on the ship smile. Morale is way up. Grilled cheese for lunch with homemade bread, and a green bean salad feels like the most amazing thing I’ve ever eaten (even more amazing than the piece of fresh bread that Christina stole from the Captain’s dining room the night before). Life on a ship makes you appreciate things you normally might not even acknowledge on dry land. The good little things become phenomenally good big things, which is how it always should be, I think. As I am writing this, we are one day away from Saint-Malo….my belt loop has already been tightened by one notch, thanks to the involuntary sea diet I’ve managed in the past week… it will surely move back to its rightful place after I eat my weight in ‘pain au chocolats’ crepes and croissants in the next few days. So excited.

In one week at sea, I have lived through more highs and lows than I have in the past year. Have I questioned whether or not this is really something I want to do? Absolutely. Did I ever regret signing up for this? Absolutely not. Kate, my co-worker who was also a Class Afloat teacher last year, reminds me that this will both the best and worst year of my life…I know what she means now. And though it will be challenging at times… I know that this experience will also be everything I could hope for it to be. Especially now that I have my sea legs ☺.