Lynn, United States

I sailed with Arch in Spring, 2013, as a staff member of Semester at Sea. I loved being at sea and I loved traveling to a dozen different countries. But what I talk about most from those 108 days is Arch. How lucky we all were to meet him, learn from him, and love him on that voyage. The simple and profound things he gave us changed our lives and will stay with us forever. About a month into the semester, one of our faculty members died from a heart attack, and Arch conducted a memorial service. Hundreds of us crowded into the room, and Arch started off with a joke. Most of the passengers were college students, and many of them had not yet experienced loss. I could almost see their brains doing the calculation: "That was a joke. You laugh at a joke. But this is a memorial service. Death is no laughing matter. But it was a joke, right?" This was typical Arch, using humor to knock us all a little off balance, get our attention, and then sneak in a life lesson. (In this case it was "we all take care of each other.") Arch was love embodied, and he taught us that we could be that, too. That we must be it, in fact. I send my condolences to Arch's family; they have lost a father, grandfather, husband. But Arch lives on in so many of us. In knowing him, we have gained much more than we have lost in his death.

I am attaching a photo of me Arch's statue in Cape Town. I guess the sculptor wanted to show that, even as short as Arch was, he still stood shoulders above the rest of us!