MMA Cruise

MMA Underway!
By Jon Offredo
joffredo@capecodonline.com
January 09, 2012

BUZZARDS BAY — Lorraine O'Shaughnessy has seen and heard it all before.

The massive ship. The cadets waving from the deck. The silence among parents as their children set out to sea, some leaving port and home for longer than ever before.

"When it started to go, there wasn't one word being said by a parent," said O'Shaughnessy, of Yarmouthport. "I think you start saying to yourself, 'Oh, it's really going.' There were a lot of tears being shed."

This isn't the first time she's watched one of her children set off. Her son did it before. But watching her 19-year-old daughter, the baby of the family, leave — well, that was different.

"She's never been away for that long, she's a freshman and this is her first time out. ... It's totally different sending a girl," she said. "I know she's perfectly safe and sound and that she will have a wonderful experience," but the number of boys onboard far outweighs that of the girls.

Sunday morning, Massachusetts Maritime Academy cadets' 2012 sea term began.
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Of all the Coulda-Woulda-Shouldas in my life, not going to MMA is the biggest self-kick-in-the-ass I have.
I'd be better than the Six-Pack Captain / Cabin Boy I am today.