Going For Gold

Each RD has a different collateral area to work on with specific expectations and responsibilities. My collateral area is Recreational Sports, with the largest responsibility being the coordinator of the Sea Olympics. At the beginning of the voyage, each sea selected two members to be on the Sea Olympic Committee. These individuals would be the Sea Captains and be responsible for relaying information to the individuals in their sea. This committee met on a regular basis, selected the events for the competition, wrote out the rules, and organized everything for their sea. 

 Sea Olympics Committee

The Sea Olympics are a tradition on each Semester at Sea voyage. This is a fun-filled day that helps to promote SAS spirit and continue building a positive community in both a student’s individual sea as well as amongst the entire shipboard community. That being said…it is also a day of fierce competition between the different “seas” on the ship.  The ship is broken up into different “seas” based on where a person’s cabin is located. There are 8 seas for students with 1 Resident Director (RD; my position) on each sea. In addition, there is a Faculty/Staff/Lifelong Learning “Sea” as well as a Dependent Children “Sea”. Each “Sea” also has a specific color and some even had mascots. The ten seas competing in the Sea Olympics were:

Adriatic Sea

Aegean Sea

Baltic Sea (My Sea!)

Bering Sea

Caribbean Sea

Dead Sea Seals (Dependent Children Sea)

Diploma Sea (Faculty/Staff Sea - My Sea Too!)

Mediterranean Sea

Red Sea

Yellow Sea

The Sea Olympics kicked off on the evening of November 3^rd with the Opening Ceremonies. After all the seas were seated, the ceremony started with the RDs carrying the Olympic Flag into the Union to NBC's Olympic theme song (Bugler's Dream) and hanging it. I gave a little speech before calling in the Sea Captains for the Parade of Banners/Flags. Each Sea was called forward and brought their Banner/Flag into the Union and had 30-seconds to explain it to the judges. Next, each Sea was called to perform a Sea Cheer/Chant, which were also scored by the judges. The Opening Ceremonies ended with Captain Jeremy making a short speech and then officially opening the games of the 114th Sea Olympiads.

Captain Jeremy Opening the Games

Baltic Sea Banner - Gold Medal

Yellow Sea Banner - Silver Medal

Bering Sea Banner - Bronze Medal

Following the Opening Ceremonies was an Olympic Village Dance Party on Deck 7.

The next morning, I met with my Sea Olympic Committee, who would be the ones running all the events. I gave them their materials, timesheets, scorecards, etc. Side story: The night of the Opening Ceremonies was the first day of another competition on the ship called, Assassins. Everyone playing gets a “target”, who they must then find a way to mark with a pen/marker when no one else is around, thus successfully assassinating them and eliminating them from the game. After distributing all materials and final instructions to my Sea Olympic Committee members, they all took off, except for Ally on the Yellow Sea (see picture above). I assumed she just had a question about the event she was running, and was caught completely unaware when she came up and slashed my arm with a black marker. I was emphatically eliminated and my assassination mark was clear for all to see during the entire Sea Olympics day.

The 27 Olympic events started at 9:30am and went till 5pm. The events showcased a wide variety of athletic, intellectual, artistic, as well as ridiculous abilities. There were usually 5-6 competitions going on each hour, except towards the end of the day. The only event at 3pm was Synchronized Swimming and the only one at 4pm was Lip Sync. The competitors took things seriously too. Within the first five minutes of events starting, I was called to the Hula Hoop Competition, to take care of a dispute between the timekeepers and the participants. Really? 5 minutes in? Things like this happened all throughout the day and usually ended with me explaining these competitions are for fun, to not take it too seriously, and to not yell at my committee members or other event volunteers.

My responsibility during the day was mainly to make sure everything was running smoothly, to troubleshoot any issues, and to answer any questions. In addition, whenever an event finished, I was given the final score sheet and quickly put the info into the overall spreadsheet. Throughout the day, I was continuously updating the overall standings, which were then shown on the televisions throughout the ship. The Standings definitely made the day more fun for everyone. As I was running between events, I constantly heard people talking about the current standings and had many people get my attention to complain (wrongly, mind you) about an incorrect scoring.

Hula Hoop Group Competition 

The hula hoop had to go around a circle of 20 people as quickly as possible.

6v6 Dodgeball

Balloon Smash

Two participants from each sea were tied together with a balloon on each outer foot. The team then had to go and pop the other teams' balloons.

Knockout/Lightening

Wet T-Shirt Relay

Participants had to put on a Team Shirt and swim a lap in the pool. They then had to wring out the shirt in a bucket before passing the T-shirt to the next teammate. The winning team was the team who filled up the bucket the fastest.

Ships & Sailors

A more advanced version of Simon Says with various commands and motions.

Ping Pong Doubles

The Baltic Sea's Tommy & Tyler took 4th, but the story of the day was the Dead Sea Seas John Henry (age 14) and Oliver (age 8) winning the Gold!

Cup Stacking

(so much more intense than you would ever think)

Baltic Sea getting pumped for Tug of War - finished 4th overall

Red Sea tugging towards a Silver Medal

It was a close competition all day and going into the final event, Lip Sync, 7 Seas were within 10 points of the leading Sea.

 Lip Syncing with the Baltic Sea (only event I participated in-4th place)

Ice Ice Baby- "to the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal"

A Mediterranean Sea student, Ryan, rocking out to Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing

When Lip Sync finished, the ship photographer took pictures of each Sea, while I frantically tallied up the final scores and input everything into a PowerPoint presentation. I then came back in front of the entire shipboard community to reveal the winners. I did a recap, showing the final standings for each event, before running down the final standings. First place to sixth place was separated by 10 points, so people were eager to see their place in the final standings...here they are:

My sea, the Baltic Sea Bandits, tied for the bronze medal. The two Sea Captains, Julie & Carl did an awesome job with everything and everyone was pumped to finish third. Especially since halfway through the day, the Baltic Bandits were in dead last. However, we won 4 of the final 6 events to finish on the medal stand! They tied for the most Gold Medals with 5 and won the following competitions: Sea Flag, Limbo (incredible), Pull Ups, Relay Race, and Synchronized Swimming (which was event everyone really wanted to win). Later, I mentioned to my sea that had we tallied the final score for a medal count like the true Olympics do (only Gold, Silver, and Bronze places), we would have finished first (see chart).

Baltic Sea Synchronize Swimming - Gold Medal

Bering Sea - Silver Medal

Genevieve (age 6) got the Silver Medal in Limbo

Hannah, from the Baltic Sea, won the gold! 

This was crazy and I love the reactions from everyone in the picture/room!

Medal Standings (if only calculating Gold, Silver, & Bronze)

Baltic Sea Bandits

After revealing the final standings, the RDs closed the games by taking down the Olympic Flag and parading it out of the Union. The Mediterranean Sea was asked to stay behind for their prize. The Sea was then given the option to get of the ship first or last in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on December 16^th. The sea chose (almost unanimously) to get off first. I've heard in past voyages, the winning sea always chooses to get off first and then regrets it come disembarkation, because they are shuffled off while everyone is still saying their goodbyes. We’ll have to wait one more month to see if this frame of mind repeats itself.

Dean Eddie & the 8 RDs at the end of the Sea Olympics!

Overall, the Sea Olympics were tremendously successful. It was awesome seeing so much spirit throughout the ship as everyone had a blast and really got into everything throughout the day. In addition, it was great seeing so much color on the ship, as everyone dressed in their sea’s color. My collateral area isn't completely done, but the final month will be much easier now that this huge event is in the books! 

"Joy multiplies when it is shared among friends and grief diminishes with every division. That is life."