Location: Antigua
Its a weird thing we do here at Seamester; we sell trips based on the places and things we do, but our programs and experiences onboard are so much more than that. We bring this mashup of people together with their respective cultures, backgrounds, experiences, thoughts, opinions, and so much more, and create a bond that no one else except those on board could ever truly understand. It is a very cool thing in those first few days on board to hear the excitement everyone has for crossing an ocean or going to some remote island, but then to hear at that final squeeze at the end of the semester that everyones favorite thing about the trip was the people.
It is always the people.
And for good reason.
Think right now of joining a boat in a place that you maybe have not been to, full of people you have only stalked on Facebook. Now think of those people as becoming your second family; the types of people that after spending 24/7 with the past 60 some odd days that you physically cannot make yourself stop crying to say goodbye to. That is exactly what just happened to us. As all of us sit back and take a sigh and reflect on the past 90 days, we realize the enormity of it all. We forget about all the times down below was referred to as downstairs or how everyone insisted that we cook in a kitchen instead of a galley, or how the line was STILL after 60 some days referred to as ropeok maybe we dont forget these things happened. Still, instead of looking back at them begrudgingly, we laugh about the stupidity of it all. We laugh about the night watches, bow watches, the time we had to boot and rally during class, the wakeups, the dolphins, the dishy pits, the dance parties, the squeezes, and the memories we made with people we can consider best friends. The ones we pick to sit on the bow for an hour with, the ones we show our weird skills to (like thigh clapping and pinky wiggling), the ones we look forward to being with for 4 hours straight (even in the middle of the night), the ones we trust to cook us couscous, the ones we can cry in front of, the ones that make us laugh so hard we cant breathe, and the ones that will completely and truly 100% understand the past 90 days of our collective lives like no one else.
So even though we enjoyed the penguins in Cape Town, crossing the prime meridian, swimming with whale sharks in St Helena, a beach tour in Brazil, crossing the equator, diving in Barbados, and video conferencing our final squeezes from our homes, ask anyone on board and theyll say the same thing. It is an experience that can never be recreated the same way twice, and though it was cut short, one that we wont soon forget.