The Buzz

After nine weeks aboard SEA's SSV Corwith Cramer, twenty-one Proctor students returned to campus transformed from novice sailors into capable young mariners and scientists. Welcome home, Ocean Classroom 2024! We hope you enjoy this last collection of ship's logs.

During their second week at sea, Ocean Classroom participants sailed the SSV Corwith Cramer from Long Island Sound to Baltimore, facing their biggest challenge yet: 36 hours of strong winds and ten-foot swells south of Long Island.

Proctor’s 31st Ocean Classroom program set sail aboard the SSV Corwith Cramer on Friday, October 4th, and students are quickly adapting to life aboard the ship, learning vessel operations, conducting scientific research, and bonding over shared experiences like overnight anchor watches and witnessing breaching whales.

After weeks of intensive preparation at Sea Education Association's campus in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, Proctor's Ocean Classroom 2024 students are set to embark on their maritime adventure aboard the SSV Corwith Cramer.

Seeing those from Ocean Classroom visiting Mystic Seaport during the second weekend of the program, I was struck by the extraordinary energy, adaptability, and resourcefulness of this group of students and the SEA staff who accompanied us.

The Ocean Classroom 2024 journey begins with a three-week orientation in Woods Hole, building a foundation of knowledge for their upcoming voyage aboard the Corwith Cramer. They will spend the first three weeks getting oriented to oceanography, marine science, and human interactions with the sea and its margins.

Proximate learning does not occur without risk, but it is in those moments when students are living their education alongside the issues they are studying that worldviews are transformed.

As students presented their research projects, shared about their voyage, and beamed with pride to their families, we sat in awe of what they were able to accomplish. Teenagers are capable of so much more than we think; we/schools just need to give them a chance to show us. 

The past two weeks at sea since leaving Lunenberg, Nova Scotia have proven harrowing as they navigated high seas, arrived in Bermuda for 24 hours before casting lines and getting back on the water in order to beat another potential hurricane.