Every day, there are three scheduled tours of the MV Explorer's bridge, the room from which the ship is commanded. Normally, the tours are standard. However, every once in a while there are special, spontaneous events. One day, a report of an approaching iceberg prompted the captain and his senior crew to remap the ship's route.
Yesterday's 4:30 p.m. bridge tour turned out to be much more eventful than anticipated.
Here is an entry from living learning coordinator Zabrina Andres and what she and her group saw during their tour:
"Shortly after Alfonso Song, the second officer, explained the mechanics, engineering, and steering of the ship, one of the Semester at Sea students spotted a distant spray of white foam directly ahead of us. Her eyes were the sharpest of the group, as the rest of us had to wait, straining our eyes, to see the spray again.
A whale!
Alfonso and another crew member interrupted the tour to take the vessel off auto-pilot and steer slightly starboard to avoid hitting the oncoming whale. We actually got to see the ship's instruments in action. Our group of 15 squealed over the whale sighting and clambered around the compartment to take pictures.
Then, we got another bonus as someone else spotted dolphins heading our way. There were about 20 of them in several groups leaping through the waves toward the ship, seeming to follow the whale. As they got closer, we realized the dolphins were actually teaching their babies to jump, as the distinctly smaller animals jumped in perfect sync next to their mothers.
It was, without a doubt, the best bridge tour ever!"
--Zabrina Andres
Living Learning Coordinator, Health Promotion
Semester at Sea--Summer 2009 Voyage
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