Today, the day’s agenda has met everyone with a mixture of gated optimism and excitement. Yesterday, our savior, known only to many of us as “Lifeboat Dude”, returned to get working on our broken lifeboat hydraulic system after our replacement part arrived from Norway. Our ship’s crew has worked fervently with “Lifeboat Dude” to ensure that we can safely return to the seas once again. Later today, once the lifeboat hydraulics have been repaired, they must be retested by lowering the lifeboat several times while it is overloaded to 110% of its capacity in case we need to bring ice cream with us on our abandon ship drills. We are all hopeful that “Lifeboat Dude” is the savior we were promised and that he can deliver us to our promised lands (Tenerife, Mallorca, and Portugal!). Right now, we’re taking the fact that that Lifeboat 4 is moored at the town dock as good news and not just because our Captain chose to take it for a joy ride through the Castine Harbor.

Amongst the students, morale is high. The past two days, some have enjoyed a yellow school bus ride to Bangor for a supply run at Walmart—a luxurious travel location! Others spent their liberty on the Backshore, the town beach behind the school, and got to watch a pretty incredible sunset or just took a much-needed nap (and probably got really sunburned too).

Today’s liberty is slated to be just as exciting. The school is putting on a barbeque to give the staff in the Steward’s Department a break. The word on the ship is that they’re going to be bringing in pizza. I don’t know about everyone else, but the one food I’ve missed the most on cruise is a good slice of pizza.

Alas, with our lifeboat to be operational in short order, our Castine adventures will be quickly coming to an end. If all goes well, we’ll be setting sail tomorrow at noon and on our way to New York! But I think at this point, everyone’s ready to say goodbye to Castine.

Post By: 4/C Cooper Parlee, MSE5 Alpha Company