Today at around 1600 we came into Japanese waters and entered the tagasaru(?) straits. Huge mountains and a ton of ships and ferries are seen! There is a distinct smell, maybe just the smell of land but definatley not normal. The air is hazy and yellowish green with pollution. The water is deep green and there is trash everywhere. The channel is 15 miles across so the land is somewhat distant as we are in the dead center of the channel. Dozens of jumping dolphins within yards of our ship were seen as well, welcoming us to the Far East. It is nice to see land again and the ship is loud with excitement. We arrive in Busan, S. Korea on Friday at 0700! It is ~700 miles to Korea from where we are so we will be in a big sea for a few more days. Today was our last classroom day and was spent on more Rules of the Road and then we backboarded some people. In the afternoon we learned how to calculate ETA in different timezones and how to convert to GMT and back into Zone Time. Tomorrow we move into line handling and knots. I wish I could post picture but can't exceed the limit of 200k :( I hope to see more ships and more land and stuff in the coming days and will keep you all updated as often as possible.
V/R,
CDT Jonathan Anderson
Squad Leader, Division 6 MT
Corps of Cadets
California Maritime Academy
Jon, Thank you for sharing the cadet's (student's) perspective of Cruise. Those following your blog can view pictures from the cruise at: http://www.cma-virtualftv.org/2010/
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