Happy Brazil Day!

What is Brazil Day you ask? I’m not really sure. But I got to sleep in until 11 and have no classes so I can’t complain at all. We are officially on the amazon, which is pretty awesome. It’s crazy to see the hundreds of miles of rainforest that we always hear about in Brazil. The Amazon is massive. My only point of comparison is that of the Mississippi River, which I’ve heard gets up to a mile wide. That is nothing compared to the Amazon. There are points in the Amazon which are a stupid distance apart. There is more fresh water in a mile stretch of this river than in the entire state of Colorado, there has to be.

The cool thing to do lately has been to lay out by the pool and get tan. Or rather for me… to get burnt. I’m pretty fried already, which isn’t really making me too stoked to stay out on the amazon for 2 days, 3 nights. 13 or so of us booked a 3 day 2 night trip where we do everything you’ve ever wanted to do on the Amazon, including piranha fishing!!

Nothing about this trip has been conventional. I mean, right at this very moment, it is 1pm (Denver time, 4pm Brazil Time) on a Monday. Normally I would likely be sitting in class, going to workout after classes, and going home and watching TV or something lame like that. But today, I have no school, and all I have done today is lay out and swim. It’s pretty phenomenal. I’m going to say this a million times through this trip, and I’ve already probably mumbled it a few thousands, but I never in a million years thought I would be right here, right now, but I am.

The food has started to get really old. Everyday its pasta, potatoes, steamed veggies, and some random soup. I’ve eaten more carbs in the past week than I have in the past month or so. I don’t think I’ve gained any weight or anything, but I definitely haven’t kept up on my lifting schedule which is a little disappointing. However, I have started lifting with a kid Matt Saverin who is pretty buff and I think we can stay on a pretty decent schedule.

Tomorrow morning I will be leaving for 3 days and 2 nights on the amazon, and although its going to be hot as hell, I am pretty excited. I’ve started taking meds to combat malaria in the inevitable case that I get bit by a mosquito. As I said earlier, we are doing some awesome stuff, piranha fishing, seeing the meeting of the waters, where 2 rivers meet but stay separated for about a mile before finally mixing, and all the cool stuff like that, which I will undoubtedly mention in the next blog. I think that’s about it. Class is interesting, we move super quick since we only meet 21 times per class, which means my academic semester is already a 7^th over!

It’s a rough life living a bot and sailing the world, but someone has to do it!

-Matt

So Dominica was amazing. Minus the pretty solid sunburn I got, I really really enjoyed my time there. Dominica is a small island nation that quite frankly, until this trip I never knew existed, and I would be surprised how many Americans really knew anything about Dominica. In fact, most people( I and nearly everyone else on the ship included) pronounced it wrong. It is actually pronounced Doe-mon-eee-kah, not like the root of the word Dominican. I’ll break down my time in Dominica here for you.

We pulled into port and a group of us grabbed breakfast then headed off for our field programs, most of my friends were doing an independent trip, but I had signed up for the Whale and Dolphin Safari, cause quite frankly, we don’t have a wild whale or dolphin within a thousand miles of my home. This trip was awesome. Within the first couple minutes of the ride out from dock, we saw one dolphin. This one dolphin swam in front of the ship for a few mins, and I was lucky enough to be able to jump up front of the 60 foot catamaran we were on, and was mere feet from this single dolphin. From here however, many dolphins joined in, and at one point my buddy Bennett and I counted over 16 swimming in front of the ship as we sailed in circles. From there, we went over to another spot and after a dead hour or so, we saw whales, and then more whales, 5 whales in total. I got pictures, a video, everything, it was awesome.

We ended up being 45 mins late to the dock from coming in, and we got more than we paid for I’d say. I was supposed to meet up with people at 12:30 to head into town for lunch, but since I was 45 mins late, I had thought I missed them. Thankfully I didn’t miss them, and we walked for about 2 miles into town. The town was like any you’d expect in the Caribbean, seemed old, run down, but had an island charm about it. We found this pier where we were able to jump off and do flips and swim in the ocean with a bunch of German tourists. 

After a few hours we came back to the ship, changed, ate, and went into town for Kaels 21^st! We had heard of a bar called Krazy cocunuts that was opening just for us that evening, so we decided that instead of running up an $80 bar tab that we would instead run by a store and go have a few drinks by the pier. It was amazing. It was so dark, I’ve never seen stars like that ever before, and hanging out with cool people made it all the sweeter. We went to Krazy Cocunuts and it was an all-out club, music bumping, everything. At midnight the DJ announced that it was Kaels birthday and he got a ton of free shots, which lets just say made the rest of the night rather interesting for me. We got home safe, and I think Kael had a birthday to remember, but I’m still proud of how he held it together to get on the ship with as little of a scene as he did.

Day 2 we went to these amazing falls where right under the waterfalls is a hot spring. It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. Absolutely Gorgeous. Fun Fact: Pirates of the Caribbean 2&3 was shot all over Dominica, just to give you a glimpse at what I saw. We hung out and swam for 2-3 hours, then we had our cab driver take us back into town, where we walked around and generally were touristy for a few hours, including trying out some local food, which was…. Alright. Then we got back on the ship and are on the way to Manaus Brazil!

I had such an awesome time in Dominica, and its crazy to think its just a beginning!

Much Love,

Matt.

 

So this seems super weird but I keep having these dreams that everything is falling apart and that somehow I am to blame. At first it was a dream that somehow the IT folks decided when people got off the ship which pissed everyone off, and lets be honest, that is totally wrong, and tonight I’m having dreams that for some reason people on decks higher than mine are suffering because I am able to get in and out of my room so easily. I have no clue what is going on, and it is super confusing, but it’s happened twice in the past two nights, and I don’t understand. Maybe my brain is just restless? I wish I could blame it on some kind of medicine, but the only pills I am taking are my Muscle Stack Packs, which are the same vitamins I’ve been taking for a while.

Maybe it is the fact that I’m not taking any preworkout? But I’ve only been off preworkout for a week, and I’ve taken far longer off without losing sleep like I have tonight. I have literally no clue what it could be. So I guess I am going to try to sleep with some kind of light on to avoid going crazy in the insane darkness that fills my cabin all the time.

Today I went on a whale and dolphin safari, and it was awesome. I had way more than my $59 worth on that trip. We saw about 5 whales, and the dolphins swam in front of our catamaran for probably a half hour. Being a kid from Colorado on the ocean, it was amazing. Dominicia is gorgeous and we officially dubbed today as the best Monday we could ever imagine, even though our weekend was filled with classes.  At 11am I am usually suffering through a class at Colorado State, but today I had a fruit punch ( which may or may not have had a hint of rum in it, still not sure), on the ocean, watching whales and dolphins. There are a lot of things us first world citizens can complain about, and today contains 0 of those things.

Life is good. Bad things happen, but we suffer through them for days like today.

-Matt

 

 

So I believe today is day 3. I feel like I’ve been on this boat forever! We passed an island today while I was working out, so that was pretty neat. Working in IT has been pretty rough these last couple of days trying to get everyone set up… I’ve worked at least 2 times as long as I was told I would, and I feel like I’ve missed out on meeting a lot of people at times, but other times I look at some of the people I haven’t met and think I’ve met a lot of good people so far.

Its still pretty surreal, The thing I miss most (minus family, friends, and all that of course) is a decent gym. Everything on board is sooooo dirty! But I guess that’s something I will have to deal with. Tomorrow we get to Dominica, I’m going on a whale and dolphin safari in the morning, but I have the rest of that day and the following day to try and figure out. I guess Dominica is full of awesome waterfalls, so I may try to find one of those with some people, I think a group of us is going to plan on working stuff out and planning tonight at dinner, so that will be nice.

I’ve got a ton to read already, and I personally like to read in a more private place to focus, but I hate being cooped up in my room while I could be out meeting and talking to people, but I guess that’s kinda how school works back home, Homework always sucks, even if you’re doing it in the middle of the ocean while traveling 20 knots. If anyone knows how fast that is in MPH let me know, it feels like we are flying!

That’s the update for now! I probably will toss up a blog after Dominica!

Much Love,

Matt Schnitzler

 

Well today was pretty boring, all we did was orientation stuff. I guess a bunch of students had messed up passports, so we ended up taking off of Nassau at noon only to return at 6ish finally leaving at right around 8 I believe.

The ship is about what I expected, but the rocking back and forth is way more than anticipated. I haven’t really gotten seasick at all, but I have bumped into my fair share of walls. It’s really weird not having internet, but it’s kinda nice at the same time. I’ve met a ton of people, almost an overwhelming amount. I’ve probably met right around 200 kids since I have gotten on board, which is crazy. I have an 8am class tomorrow which is the first time I’ve had one of those in college, but I’ve been up pretty early every day so far so it shouldn’t be too hard at all. Some of these kids are crazy, some are super mellow a little socially awkward, and a lot have their shit together and make me feel inadequate, so that’s kinda interesting.  Its weird going from kind of a big fish in a small pond at CSU to a small fish in a huge pond as far as people go.  2 days down, 103 to go. Email me at Mathew.Schnitzler.S12@semesteratsea.org!

 

Til Later days,

Matt Schnitzler