PHOTOS COURTESY OF DOUG LICITRA
Students from the SEA program on the bow of the Corwith as they enter their first port in France. Pictured (above): Doug Licitra, second from left, and Mo Howard, third from left.
Ridgewood college students set sail on a journey to learn
SEPTEMBER 3, 2014 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2014, 4:19 PM
BY BY LIZ WELLINGHORST
STAFF WRITER
They say once a shipmate, always a shipmate.
That proved true for two Ridgewood college students who spent four weeks at sea on a 134-foot sailboat, SSV Corwith Cramer, working on a tall ship as part of a 23-person crew, learning about life on the sea, themselves and visiting remote, exotic ports of call in Western Europe.
“It’s true. Definitely something different about a shipmate,” said Mo Howard, a junior at the University of Rhode Island.
“You live with them in tight quarters, see them at the worst, at their best and when they’re seasick.” Howard said. “I know my shipmates saw me not feeling so great.”
Howard spent a semester at sea this summer with Doug Licitra, a senior at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, and other college students from across the country. The two didn’t know each other before the program started.
Licitra graduated from Ridgewood High School (2011) and Howard graduated from the Hun School in Princeton (2012). On the sea, the two became fast friends.
The two mariners participated in SEA Semester’s Historic Seaports of Western Europe, a study abroad program that combines academics with a voyage on the sea. The journey, which covered approximately 1,800 nautical miles, had port stops and walking tours in Cork, Ireland; Douarnenez, France; Lisbon, Portugal and Cadiz, Spain.
SEA Semester is affiliated with the Sea Education Association, an undergraduate educational-based group on Cape Cod and located in the oceanographic research community of Woods Hole, Mass. Students earned four academic credits for their course, entitled Maritime History and Culture, offered through Boston University.
“It wasn’t your normal study abroad,” Licitra said. “We worked on the boat, stood watch during the middle of the night, did a boat check every hour, learned the sail lines and nautical language, but we also had academic work to fulfill with deadlines. It was exhausting.”
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/towns/ridgewood-college-students-set-sail-on-a-journey-to-learn-1.1080324#sthash.OvN42FYy.dpuf