St. John’s

Last night was magnificent. It was warm. You could see every star in the
galaxy. During the night the ship began to pitch and roll. I heard
several large crashes during the night outside my cabin. I obviously
didn't sleep too well. When I got up this morning, we were in a pea soup
fog. We had hit the foggy Grand Banks.

We sailed on in fog all day and finally reached St. John's about 17:00,
right around dinner time. We maneuvered near the mouth of the harbor
which was barely visible through the fog. Two peaks guard the narrow
entrance to the harbor. While we waited for them to get the fast boat
readied to take the cadet ashore, a whale swam around the ship to
entertain us. The cadets were more excited by the fact they had cell
phone service from shore than by the whale. Using their phones when they
have service is their major leisure activity. God help us if satellite
phone service gets cheap enough, they'll be on their phones all cruise.

Finally, the patient made his appearance hobbling along with the aid of
the two corpsmen. They got him into the boat and he, one of the corpsmen,
two of the mates and two cadets were lowered into the water and headed to
St. John's. We are still awaiting their return, and then we'll head
south, past Nova Scotia and New England, to home.

All in all, it was an interesting diversion to a boring week.