A few minutes ago (it’s 10:45 AM here which my computer is telling me is Hawaiian-Aleutian Standard Time) we crossed the Equator. I looked and there was no line to be seen like the lines that show up on football fields during televised NFL games. King Neptune is supposed to give permission for the folks who’ve never crossed this line by sea (they’re called Pollywogs). He’s late in arriving though so the ceremony will have to wait until this afternoon. I’ll try to get some photos then because it’s always a lot of fun watching people being inducted into the Society of Shellbacks (I’m one of those!).
This is day four of our transit to Bora Bora. I’ve been to several lectures by the retired general who speaks about world affairs. Yesterday he had a particularly interesting talk on the growth of NATO and the consequences of that expansion. Unfortunately, neither he nor any of the other learned speakers on the ship have any solutions to the problems of the world. (They wouldn’t be here if they did I suppose.)
As I have mentioned our captain is providing us with a little education at noon. Yesterday he told us about the various bands of latitudes that go around the Earth. The one in which we are currently sailing is the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone, commonly called the Doldrums. This is an area about 5 degrees north and 5 degrees south of the Equator. During the time of sailing ships that was the place where vessels could frequently become becalmed. That isn’t our problem, but rocking is. Our leg muscles have been getting good workouts keeping all of us passengers upright as we walk along the passageways. Two nights ago we had a dance party on deck which got rained out just as it started. It adjourned to the Club where it was dry but the dance floor was heaving. I made a couple of attempts at dancing but after getting bumped into a couple of times by a particularly exuberant man (he might have had a little too much to drink and in fairness there was a lot of rolling going on too), I decided it was better to watch than lurch. The crowd on the dance floor looked like one of those flocks of birds which changes direction in unison. Actually, it was pretty miraculous that no one lost his balance and knocked everyone over like so many dominoes.
It’s later and King Neptune and his beautiful queen finally arrived at the pool deck to decide if the Pollywogs could enter his realm or if we had to turn around and take them back to Hawaii, or maybe Palmyra Atoll. He came riding in a dirty laundry cart with his court of mermaids accompanying him and the queen. I’ve never seen this many newbies before! The pirates guarding them had their hands full, including the Staff Captain’s 8-year-old daughter who was playing her pirate role to the hilt. After judgment had been passed (they were all guilty) and after each had kissed the enormous fish presented to them, the Pollywogs were smeared with colored goop and had to jump in the pool. I know it sounds silly, but it’s really a lot of fun and it’s a traditional rite of passage on a cruise ship.
If you watch this little video you can see King Neptune, his beautiful queen 😏 and lovely mermaid attendants.
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| The littlest pirate |
You can see the nice big fish waiting to be kissed. Hopefully it won't be dinner tonight.
I forgot to mention that this Christmas tree appeared in my cabin two days ago. The cabin attendants are wonderful and very creative.
And that’s the big event of the day. Oh, we had a wonderful day at Trivia! We were the only team to get the right answer on one of the thirty-point questions so we got double points which pushed us ahead. See if you know the answer. What kind of Caribbean creature is known as a Mountain chicken?
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