Q&A with Concordia from the week ending December 13, 1996
Where do you get the energy to run your computers in the middle of the ocean? Clyde Brown School, Millis, MA
by Benjamin Dunn , 12/2/96
On board the Concordia we have computers that help us write out all our school work. The computers are IBM compatible that run with 8 megs of RAM. They are slow but efficient. We have three computers that work and in order to run all these computers we have a generator working day and night. It is a very similar situation as at home. The computer pulls electricity out of the plug which in turn draws the power vigorously from the outlet. Connected to this is the generator which produces our energy and that is how we get our power.
On Canadian Thanksgiving we all dressed up in our best clothes and had a really good turkey dinner with excellent pumpkin pie for dessert. On Halloween which was celebrated on November 1st we all dressed up in costumes. There was Fender Boy, Western Samoan Dancers, guys dressed as girls, a baby, Siamese twins and other crazy things. One person stayed in each cabin and everyone else went trick or treating to all the cabin doors. I don't think I'll ever go trick or treating again in the Pacific Ocean so it was a day I think I will always remember. On American Thanksgiving we dressed up in good clothes and had yet another great meal. On this day people thought about their parents at home and wondering what they were doing on Thanksgiving. The weird thing is we celebrated a day before everyone at home because of the crossing of the dateline. Well, Christmas is quickly approaching and although we will not be on board at this time, we will still get in to the Christmas spirit. We are going to have Secret Santa and some people have advent calendars and the odd time if you walk by the bridge at night you might see people singing Christmas carols. Merry Christmas to everyone reading this!
Ocean Challenge / e-mail: ocean@oceanchallenge.com / Class Afloat 1996-97
(c) 1996 Ocean Challenge, Inc.