Tea Plantation

Solar building under construction

Tea plantation house

Vanilla tea and scones

A Hindu temple near Curepipe

Tea leaves arriving at the factory

A tea field

Lunch near the tea factory

The first day in Mauritius, I toured a tea plantation and sugar factory.  On the way to the tea plantation we passed a new building that is being constructed to run on solar power.  We also went through several small towns and saw some Hindu temples.  The majority of Mauritians are Hindu, with the remainder Christian and Muslim.  We first toured the plantation house and then a tea factory, where we observed the process of the tea leaves being dried, shredded, cleaned and packaged.  After touring the factory we had lunch at a chalet overlooking the tea fields and the ocean, before driving to the sugar factory.

Touring the Bridge

Bridge tour

Cap'n Rick at the helm

Controls at the helm

View from the bridge

On the day before we got to Mauritius, I toured the bridge on the ship, and learned a lot about navigation and safety on board.  The crew showed us several navigation charts, including one indicating areas of pirate activity that we are avoiding (!).....While we were touring the bridge, we saw a pod of dolphins following the ship.

Ship life between ports

Classroom for one section of Environmental Psych

Student studying in the library

A personal space exercise in the Union

Classroom for Sustainable Communities

Conversations in the Piano Lounge

I realized that I have not posted much to the blog about life on board ship when we are between ports.  When we are at sea, we have classes every day, including weekends.  In a typical day I will do class prep in the morning and attend the required Global Studies class, and have one or two classes each afternoon.  Often there are seminars and meetings in the evenings about shipboard life and information about upcoming cultures and ports.  We also started a Sustainability Club that meets every other evening at dinner time when we are at sea.  So far the Sustainability Club has sponsored a water conservation program, an evening "Sustainability Summit" to provide information on the ship's environmental performance, and is raising money to plant trees in Kenya to offset some of the carbon from the voyage.  One of our interport lecturers was Cathy Adams, a VP for IBM who is very involved with global sustainability issues.  She has arranged to have 1000 trees planted in honor of the Fall 2010 voyage, and the Sustainability Club is trying to double that number of trees.  Above are some photos of life on board ship, and I will add more later.

Wetlands Restoration

On our last day in South Africa I took a tour with Rocky Rohwedder, who teaches the other section of Sustainable Communities, and a small group of students to two wetlands restoration projects.  The projects not only restore wetlands, but also provide much needed jobs (the unemployment rate in South Africa is currently about 25%).  The sponsoring group is called Working for Wetlands (http://wetlands.sanbi.org/wfwet/).  It was a great tour and the students asked good questions linking the project to the three aspects of sustainability:  environment, economy and equity.  We sail for Mauritius tonight and will be rounding the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean.  

Two Oceans Aquarium

Two Oceans Aquarium

With the Archbishop on his 79th birthday

Nobel Square on the Cape Town waterfront

Clouds shrouding Table Mountain

Well...... I had planned to take the cable car to the top of Table Mountain today, but the mountain was covered in clouds all day.  So instead I visited the Two Oceans Aquarium... Some interesting displays, and there were a number of Semester at Sea folks there, since it was a good thing to do on a cloudy day.  Also roamed around on the dock.  There is a plaza with statues of the four South African Nobel Prize winners: Albert Luthull, F.W. de Klerk, Nelson Mandela, and Desmond Tutu.  Today is the Archbishop's 79th birthday.  There was a gala birthday party for him on board ship, attended by many South African dignitaries, and he officially retired from public life today (see http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE6960O520101007).