The MV Explorer made an unscheduled arrival at Portland Harbour
(about 50 miles from her final destination) at 5:30 yesterday afternoon
(April 27).
This former Royal Navy base is one of the largest
man-made harbors in the world and the MV Explorer is sitting at anchor
smack dab in the middle of it (technically, the floating campus is still
at sea).
At some point this evening the MV Explorer will hoist anchor and make
the two-hour jump to Southampton … the students, faculty and staff are
set to disembark at 8:00 AM local time on April 29.
This will
end the MV Explorer’s 11-year service as our floating campus. During
that time she has logged 652,718 nautical miles (give or take) during 35
voyages (11 Summer, 2 Maymester, 11 Fall and 11 Spring).
During her service she made 455 port calls (including embarkation and
debarkation ports), spent 1,643 days at sea and 1,460 in port.
Ports of call were in 60 different countries: Argentina, Bahamas,
Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Canary Islands,
Chile, China, Costa Rica, Crete, Croatia, Cuba, Denmark, Dominica,
Ecuador, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece,
Guatemala, Honduras, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya,
Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia,
Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Peru, Poland, Russia, Scotland, Singapore,
South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand,
Turkey, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela and Vietnam.
(Technically-speaking, Scotland and England are both part of the United
Kingdom; ditto for Crete and Greece and the Canary Islands and Spain …
so for purist, 57 different political units, but who is counting).
The MV Explorer is the only floating campus to visit Diego Garcia
(medical emergency during Spring 2011 voyage) and the only floating
campus to cross the International Dateline in both directions in the
same day (Spring 2005 voyage).
She made five transits of both the Panama Canal and the Kiel Canal and two passages of the Suez Canal.
A sharp turn into the "gas" station and then back on course to
Casablanca ... The MV Explorer bunkering for fuel in the Canary Islands
today (Las Palmas) ...
