Friday, November 6, 2015

Atlantic Crossing - Day 3 (the equator)

Day three of our Atlantic crossing is over.  It after midnight and I am up watching the CruiseShow channel on the TV in my cabin.  This is the channel that shows our ship's current location along with weather, sunrise and sunset times, and our longitude and latitude.  For the past few hours, while I have sat here working on homework the latitude has slowly been counting down.  Sometime around 1:00AM (in whatever timezone we are actually in) we will cross the equator.   I will send this post shortly after we do.    

The CruiseShow is not a silent one.  It also broadcasts music which pulls from nearly every genre of the past four decades.  The past three songs have been Stairway to Heaven, Red, Red Wine and Personal Jesus. I am very curious what will be playing when we cross the equator.

While we had not yet crossed The Line, today was Neptune Day on the ship.  I was awoken at 7:30 AM by drums, yelling and banging on doors.   Being on deck three we were the lucky ones to be given the wakeup call first; upper decks received an extra 15 minutes or so of sleep.  I was not in the least bit happy about this and was rather grumpy through breakfast.

However, eventually caffeine took effect and, while I genuinely dislike appearing publicly in a bathing suit, I donned mine and made my way to deck nine where King Neptune, who bore a remarkable resemblance to our ship's captain, was holding court.  Those of us who had not crossed the equator before, students, faculty, staff and lifelong learners, swore our allegiance to all things sea dwelling and one by one had some sort of green goo poured over our heads, swam the saltwater pool, kissed a fish (some kissed two) and the rings of King and Queen Neptune and were then dubbed "shellbacks."  Several folks also had their heads shaved…I did not feel the need.

(I showered and disinfected my lips immediately after)

I admit that initially I gave very serious consideration to hiding in my cabin and sleeping but in the end I'm glad I joined in the fun.  It also turned out today was Taco Day.  I'm not sure if these two momentous occasions usually occur on the same day but if not, it was a nice bonus.

Aaaaaaand we've officially crossed the equator!  The song that was playing was some autotuned thing I didn't recognize followed by The Eagles, Desperado, which I'm going to pretend I didn't hear.  

Good night everyone.  I'll post again later today (or tomorrow depending upon you time zone!)



















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