Brest & Dublin, Oct 22-26th

Brest, October 22-23rd

The weather has held – sunny days (cool in the wind), clear cold nights.

Final exams will be held on our voyage to Dublin in my two first-term courses:
Busi 2713, Introduction to Business and Econ 1013, Microeconomics. Our second term commences upon our departure from Dublin for La Coruna, Spain next Monday. The two new courses will be Macroeconomics and Environmental Economics. I am having a special 'last class' today for review. Some of the students have been quite industrious, others slack. It will 'all come out in the wash' and 'wash day' is tomorrow (the 24th) and the next! It has been ever thus.

Shortly after 9:00 PM on the 23rd we departed Brest for Dublin. Our eighth port (and seventh language) was less interesting than some. Still, there were attractive sights and the people were pleasant and generally helpful. I've had enough crépes for a while!

Brest to Dublin, October 23-26

This morning (October 24th) we were, for a time, making 12 knots with a combination of engine and sail. The wind has now fallen off somewhat but we're still making good time. Little shore birds (no land in sight), dolphins at the bow, and the occasional whale sighting have punctuated an otherwise uneventful day. 'My' students wrote their business exam this morning, which will be mailed to Don Bureaux (the correspondence instructor for this course) when we arrive in Ireland. My economics students write tomorrow and I will have their exams corrected within the day.

It is now 'tomorrow'. The exam went well. We are to dock in Dublin within the hour (10:00AM).

Miscellaneous comments: I sometimes yearn for more adult company. The students are emerging adults of course, but their preoccupations and silliness wear on me in such confined space. The other teachers are good company by in large, though some of them have largely adolescent agendas too. The in-port adventures are welcome of course; foreign language constraints understandably limit the conversational opportunities. There is plenty of good reading material on board. The difficulty here is that the majority of days at sea have us experiencing sailing conditions which court sea sickness, and reading makes stomach matters worse.

It is a common place to take issue with the food. Still, with allowances for the inevitable ship-board constraints, the lunch and dinner fare is unimaginative at best, unappetizing at worst. Breakfast is more or less tamper proof: dry cereal with a piece of fruit. Scrambled eggs make an appearance about once a sail. While we are in port those wishing to eat lunch or dinner on board put their names on a sigh-up list. The offerings on those occasions are generally less attractive than the at-sea ones.

The Economist pocket guide states that Ireland has 11,000 pubs (smoke free since 2004) for a population of 4 million, so I predict that a plow-man's lunch with a beverage is in my immediate future!