Naked in the Shower
Trip Start
Jan 13, 2005
1
9
23
Trip End
Apr 28, 2005
At Sea,
United States
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Back and forth; crash! I hear my dresser drawer slide open, pause, then slam! This is nothing new mind you. Since setting sail, we have grown accustomed to the unpredictable launching of some piece of furniture. At any moment in the night, our drawers will slide all the way to the other side of the room. Our books will fall and clothes come off hangers. It has been so consistent that we have long since ceased from putting them away. The room is a torrent. My roommate and I, land-lubbers that we are, shrug it off. 'I guess this is the life of a sailor', we say, then both of us dive onto our beds as the two dressers come rolling back to us. We scotch-tape the drawers shut, flick the light off and go back to bed.
Early the next morning we were awakened by an unusual battering. It woke both of us, and we heard the girls in the cabin next to us scream. I shake myself out of my sleep, grow immediately alert and reach for the light switch. WHAM! I fell to the floor. Where there was once a wall with a light switch there is now a void! I clamber across the floor to the light switch, switch it on and realize that even our beds had slid to the other side of the room. That must have been a huge wave. Brennan and I stand alert for a short period of time and wait to see if everything is all right. Three days of this can not be normal, yet there are no alerts, no more screams, and the rocking does not seem that bad relative to the last jolting. He replaces his bed and goes back to sleep. I am awake, so I hop in the shower, which is how I got here trying to catch the soap.
The boat tilts and the soap lands right in my hand. Got it! The shower curtain brushes me as it leans further in than I had expected. I paused and waited for the boat to return from its last roll toward the portside. Yet, oddly, it didn't return. We kept leaning. My feet lost their balance and I tumble onto the port wall of the shower stall, which is looking more and more like the floor than anything. The water runs out over the stall into the rest of the bathroom and the drain tumbles out of position. Shampoo bottles and caps fall around me. I become somewhat disoriented and feel like I am in an M.C. Escher drawing. Fear crept up my wet spine, and I said aloud 'this can not be normal.'
Just when I thought we might roll completely over, the boat paused and creaked. I feel grateful for a moment, but remember that what goes up, must come down; or, more accurately, what goes too far left will go too far right. Like an elephant lumbering, the boat rolled back the other way. Several more rough tossings and the boat finally settled back to its normal rocking.
I rinse off quickly, not knowing what to expect. My mind is racing.
'Is this normal?'
'How come nobody is concerned?'
'Who in the WORLD would want to do Semester-At-Sea? What was I thinking?! What did I expect when they said it was at sea? I didn't even think of the sea-sickness thing. Why on earth didn't I think of the whole wave thing?!'
Then, I chuckle to myself. 'This is funny. I am naked in a shower stall with a bar of soap in my hand... I can't believe that I still have this bar of soap in my hand.' I laughed at myself at how worried I had allowed myself to get with no reason. 'This must just be normal.'
BWAAAAAmp! I could not believe what I was hearing.
BWAAAAAmp! I froze. 'Is this for real?'
BWAAAAAmp! THAT, my friend, is the alarm. It has just scared the sh!t out of me, continues to freak the sh!t out of me. Please don't let it sound again,..
BWAAAAAmp! 7 times means that something is very wrong. Woah, gotta dodge the dresser again.
One after another, the alarm sounds 7 times. In a panicked tone, the "voice", Dean Ken, comes on the horn and gives us the words that he has never wanted to give us.
"Uh... please,... please put on your life jackets. This is not a drill. Put on your life jackets and warm clothing. Wait outside your cabin."
I rinsed off as quickly as possible and hopped out of the shower. Grabbing my jeans, I run out and threw on my sweater.
My roommate and I stared wide-eyed at each other. I broke the frozen moment.
"This is really happening." We both scramble to put our life jackets on and our shoes. Forgetting my socks and undershirt and still wet from the shower, I rush out the door.
My mind is racing back and forth like the rocking of the ship.
'Can I swim out of here if we flipped right now?'
'How long can I hold my breath in water this cold?'
'Where are the people I feel responsible for?
'Why doesn't our hall manager have any leadership ability?'
BWAAAAAAmp! "Decks 2-4, please make your way to deck 5." It was a stampede.
No organization. Chaos.
The door is flying open and shut.
The temperature jumped between the hot steamy air of fear inside and the cold, almost-welcoming, freezing air from outside.
I glance outside as I make my way to the 5th deck. The surface of the water is rushing at the ship, and then flings back away. As waves sporadically hit the ship, which I notice is not moving, white water 30 feet high sprays everywhere.
They move us all into the hallway in the center of the ship. "We need everyone to the center of the ship! This will keep us balanced as we are now not moving forward to keep the stabilizers in the water..."
'Ok, this is freaky.' People are crying everywhere. Girls are shaking. I look to the right and see a girl calling her mother on a satellite phone; weeping and reeking of fear. Who knows what her family is thinking. Opposite of them are those that are cracking jokes loudly. Overall, we are now the Ark under dire circumstances and the cattle are cackling.
"Men to the back of the group. Women to front." Some of the girls shrieked. Many of the men laughed nervously as if to ask 'are you kidding.'
The fear was thick like wading through a steamy wardrobe full of suits. The fear was everywhere. It was sweating off people's foreheads. As we made our way to the back of the ship I almost panicked.
'I made it up to the deck with a door! I was concerned that I would be trapped down on the second deck. There is NO WAY I am going to the farthest reaches of this hallway and not be able to get out. Wait, wait, wait. Wait. I must keep order. The right thing will happen.' So, I made my way to the back of the hallway.
Then, we waited.
We waited for the word for us to abandon ship. We waited for them to tell us to go back to our rooms. We waited to feel the engines start up again. We waited for people to stop crying. We waited for the boat to flip at any moment and to jump into the ocean.
'Pass a bag down. This girl is gonna get sick! Does someone have a BAG!'
'Oooooooo! Awe, sick! Blech!'
I sat and listened to all of this. After praying with one group, I found my spot and, sitting, made my stand.
"What will happen to us?"
"The captain will make the best decision possible."
"There is no way I am getting off of this ship and into that cold water!"
"You probably won't have to."
"How could they have let this happen?! There is no way we should be in the north Pacific in the winter!"
"They do this every other semester. I am sure that they have all the necessary information to make the best decision possible. They would not put us in harm's way on purpose."
I was frightened. I was truly scared. Worse than my fear, though, was the perpetual pessimism about our fate. So, at the height of my fear, I put my money on optimism and lifted all up.
Time passed. Minutes then hours. They passed out food. Our legs grew cramped, packed into a small hallway as we were. We grew used to the sweaty smell. The engines started up again at some point. Finally, hours and years later, they told us that we could go back to the rooms.
It had been a solid 12 hours of complete and total instability. We were dead and waiting to realize it, but found ourselves alive. Security felt unusual, and we needed to adjust to it. People didn't know what to do.
Some went back to their rooms. Some took a nap. Some helped clean.
I just sat there.
I couldn't move. My heart was raging, and all I could do was sit.
I was over come. I did not want to do or think about anything.
As the adrenaline slowly seeped out of my body like electric molasses, the world blurred. My vision grew distorted and my knees grew numb.
The fear left and my attention went to the ether of relief. 'This must be where people go after battle. You win, but you can't even remember your own name.'
As the world picked up speed around me and swirled, I drifted through the next 8 hours awake but not.
