Yo ho ho, a pirates life for me. Sea Olympics fall 2006

So, I must say, the Caribbean Sea rocked the Sea Olympics. But what else would you expect from Pirates? Of course we had to come out number one in the end. Although for a while it looked like we might not even place.
First of all for all let me explain the sea Olympics. Each hall on the ship is given a different Sea name. There is the Bering Sea, Caspian Sea, Arabian Sea, Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Yellow Sea, Baltic Sea, Caribbean Sea, and then all the adults and dependents were the Pacific Ocean. For the Sea Olympics you compete for the sea you live in and each sea wears a different color. Our color was black. It worked out perfect because I had a black shirt and capris, and we were the pirates. It would have been kinda awkward to be the pirates with the color pink.
The day started out with all seas gathering in the Union to do our cheers. There was so much energy. Everyone was yelling out chants and of course the typical “We’ve got spirit yes we do,” was uttered quite a few times. I was surprised with how many good chants there were. My favorite was probably the Red Sea. From what I understand they were the communists so their cheer contained lines about Mao Zedong and Hoc Chi Minh. I was really funny. They ended up getting first, the Caspian got second place, and we, the Caribbean Sea got first! WE came in the union grunting and pretending to row a boat then we all gathered in the middle and started our cheer. It went something like this:
“Yo ho ho, A pirates life for me,
We sail our ships across the seven seas,
And winning games, ARRRRRR! We do it easily,
‘cuz it’s yo ho ho, a pirates life for me.
We’ve got troves of gold, and parrots on our shoulders,
I bet you’ll never, ever meet anyone bold
So let me hear your jolly cheer for the pirates of the year,
For it’s Yo ho ho with our hooks high in the air,
ARRRRRRRRR!
Then we walked out of the union cheering walk the plank, walk the plank, over and over again.
The first event after the cheer was tug of war. Nearly everyone was up on the seventh deck watching because there was nothing else to do. Part of me really was really regretting not signing up for it. We sailed through the first couple rounds easily and then it came to the final championship against the Red Sea. I must say, it was difficult. I really thought for a while we might loose, but we didn’t. We came right out on top where we should be.
The whole day ended up really being a competition between us and the Caspian Sea. WE were always just a few points away from each other, then in the afternoon the Mediterranean Sea started to catch up too. We lost ping pong and volleyball but won Synchronized swimming and the wet suit relay. Then we lost the reverse scavenger hunt (which I was in, so disappointing) and the Caspian won in. That was awful. We placed in a few others and didn’t place in more than a few but it all came down to the last two events, the free styling contest and the Talent show.
The free styling contest was incredibly long and they had two older women adult passengers judging who admittedly didn’t know anything about free styling. I think they had someone next to them advising them though. The Arabian sea won the contest. Their guy was good, not amazing, but good. He could do it really fast. I’m really no judge because I couldn’t freestyle if I tried. We came in second, adding 10 more points to our score, and the Pacific Ocean came in third. There was no way the Pacific’s guy should have placed at all. He was really dirty. As an adult he should not have said some of the things he said. The only reason he placed is because the guy from the Mediterranean Sea, who he was in the championship against, rapped in Hebrew and it wasn’t even freestyle, he copied an actual rap.
I’d say the talent show was probably the best and most entertaining part of the day. WE had gotten our act together really late, we had only started practicing the day before because no one had taken leadership over it so finally Jess, Diana, Was, Sakib, Islam and Myself decided to put something together to give us a chance. We sat down and talked about it for an hour but kept going in circles. Finally we decided on a 3 part act with each part getting interrupted by Patrick pretending to be Roane (“The voice” on the intercom). Sakib wanted to do an Indian dance again for the first part. We all thought everyone would be sick of Indian dances since we’d just come from India and they did like 3 of them in pre port. He was stuck on it though. At first all 6 of us were supposed to do the dance but when we saw it us girls backed out. It was a weird 80’s Indian dance, not a really ethnic one, so the boys did the Indian dance and for the second dance us three girls did a Flamenco dance. Diana lives to dance. Being Puerto Rican everything Spanish is in her blood. She actually has a Salsa and Flamenco class on the ship so me and Jess had been learning Flamenco for a few weeks. She took the lead on the dance doing crazy choreography and using castinettes, while me and Jess just did the choreography we had already learned behind her. It’s funny because I was really nervous beforehand but when I got up there, I wasn’t nervous anymore. The last act was my favorite part. Our global studies studies teacher has the saying LOLA for our trip which means something along the line of Listen, Observe, Look, and Act. We decided to go with the idea of Lola and used Barry Manilows song “Copacabana” for our last act. Islam got up to the podium and said “ I think it’s time that we all remember Lola. After all, her name was Lola, and she was a showgirl.” With that everyone knew what was coming and started to cheer. The rest of us, joined by about 6 others from our Sea ran out on stage. We of course had to be showgirls so all of the boys had the dress in drag (except now I look back on the pictures and Sakib was not wearing his skirt). We did a few dance moves to the opening stanzas and when then words started we all split apart and Jonny, dressed in drag came dancing through the middle, he was our Lola. Everyone was laughing, it was great. In the end I thought we did a good job. There were only a few mistakes with the transitions of the music.
A lot of the other acts after us, and even before us (we went 4th) were really good. The trend of the night seemed to be make fun of Roane (because she always messes up on the intercom) and Professor Farkas (because no one likes him). I guess they didn’t realize Professor Farkas was going to be one of the judges. One Seas act was solely a comedy act that made fun of some professors and the two I previously mentioned. A lot of the seas’ acts were really sexual too. I couldn’t believe some of the stuff I saw. My favorite act of the night was by the kids in the Pacific Ocean. They put together an incredible stomp act. Everyone gave them a standing ovation in the end.
When it got to the end they tallied up all of the scores and Dean Viera got up to announce the winners. First the talent show: “third place goes to…. The Pacific Ocean.” This is where I got really confused because I liked them the best, I thought for sure they would get first. “second place goes to… the Mediterranean.” Again I was confused, they had gone right before us and I liked them second best. We couldn’t believe we had to follow their act. “First place goes to……… The Caribbean Sea!” What the heck?!?! Did I just hear that right? Me and Jess looked at each other like we couldn’t understand what he just said, but then confusion led way to excitement and we both jumped into the air and cheered with the rest of our Sea. We had actually won the talent show. I had helped create an act that won. The only way we can figure that we beat some of the other acts out was because our act had actual talent and it was clean. We didn’t have anything sexual and we didn’t really make fun of anyone.
Next came the announcement of the overall winner. “In third place is…. The Mediterranean Sea.” Ok so we still have a chance, first or second, first or second. “ In second place is……. The Caspian Sea.” You know what that means… I looked over at Taren and then at Jess, we knew what was coming. Everyone in the sea had their hands perched on their chairs, ready to jump up. “In first place is…… the Caribbean Sea!” AHHHHHHH!!!!! We all jumped into the air, hugged each other, and yelled. It was a great feeling. You only get one chance to win the SAS Sea Olympics and we did it. Now, we get to get off the ship first in Ft. Lauderdale and we get a Party. Winning really was a great feeling. We ended up with 91 points. The Caspian was right behind us with 84, so if we hadn’t one the talent show, we wouldn’t have gotten first place. I think it was the Aegean Sea that came in last with I believe 15 points (they only have 22 people on their Sea though) and the Yellow sea was just past them with I think 20 points. All the other seas were somewhere in the middle.
So now we’ll continue on our way to Egypt. We must of gone pretty far today (sea Olympics day) because the Captain put on all four engines and we were going 39 knots. The ship actually had a semi rooster tail in the back. Maybe tomorrow we’ll see some more dolphins jumping like this morning. That would be pretty cool.