Our home at sea

We, the voyagers, are amazed at how smoothly everything runs on the 590-foot-long, 25,000-ton MV Explorer. There are 875 passengers, including students, faculty, lifelong learners and some guests who come and go from port to port, as well as 230 crew members. The interior and the exterior is spick-and-span. To avoid outbreaks of contagious diseases, the cleaning crew works around the clock to disinfect handrails, elevator buttons, door knobs, computer keyboards and all public spaces where hand sanitizers are overtly visible.

We have two cafeteria-style dining rooms and a fast-food stand that serves burgers, hot dogs and pizza on the top deck for a nominal fee, as well as a cafe selling lattes, cappuccinos, candy and fruit. A private dining room caters to small groups where diners can enjoy champagne and other drinks and order from a menu of steaks, lobsters and fancy desserts for $29.95. 

To get an idea of how much food is consumed during a 107-day trip, I talked to John Knaggs, the hotel director, as he is called. We eat 150,268 pounds of beef, pork, ham, lamb, bacon, frankfurters, burger patties, poultry and fish and other seafood. For our omelettes, 10,874 dozen (or 130,488) eggs and another 2,265 pounds of frozen eggs are used. Fresh fruits and vegetables weigh in at 66,399 and 86,735 pounds, respectively. At breakfast, we eat 21,134 individual pots of yogurt. The list goes on and on: pasta, oils, nuts, spices, cheese, flour, juices, cereals, coffee, tea and more. The most interesting is peanut butter. Some 2,030 pounds of it, along with 1,124 pounds of strawberry jam, are consumed, mostly by the students and young children.

Loading produce in Hong Kong

The spacious faculty and staff lounge, off-limits to the students, are at the bow of the ship and are conducive for  reading, writing and meditating until 5 p.m. Then it's happy hour. The bartenders mix any kind of cocktail you'd like. In addition to hard liquor, there are 500 cases of beer and 3,060 bottles of wine. The night before we arrive at a port, we enjoy hors d'oeuvres specific to the county we will be visiting.

(Ed Sobey, the oceanography professor just came by to tell me there were flying fish on the port side. I did see several, but they are fast, and from Deck 7, they looked small like birds.) 

The MV Explorer has seven decks, nine classrooms, a student union, fitness center, medical clinic, a spa (including a sauna and steam rooms), beauty salon. 

The view from Deck 7: Lifelong learners and professors gather at the top as our
ship approaches each  harbour, always an exciting sight. Here, we enter Hong Kong.

The big concern on board ship this week is water usage. Apparently we use as much as 90 gallons per person (almost 80 times as much as a Cambodian family uses). Our next port to take fuel and water is Mauritius, so we are reminded to conserve water. 

The ship is capable of desalination, but it is an expensive procedure, requiring a lot of energy. There are 418 cabins, each stocked with plenty of shampoo, hand cream, soap and toilet paper (116 rolls a day, to be precise). Every two days we get clean towels and clean sheets every four via a maid service twice a day.