Neptune Day

Today is Neptune Day, the day we sail across the equator. I have had such a relaxing day. The crew woke everyone up at 8:15. They were walking through the halls in these white robes with painted faces, banging drums, banging on doors, and basically waking up the whole ship. It was so funny when I stuck my head outside my door to see everyone else in the hall, wearing their pajamas, also sticking their heads outside the door.

We then went up to the top deck at 9, where there was a ceremony transforming us from Polywogs to Shellbacks. You are a Shellback if you have crossed the equator. We (all the students) were in our swimsuits and we had this goofy ceremony where we first had to stand in the shallow part of the pool where the crew poured green gunk on our heads. Then we had to kiss a fish on the lips (yes, it was a real fish) and kiss the ring of the “king” (the captain, I think), a man painted lime green and wearing a white robe and a crown. After that we had to jump in the pool. My friend Liz and I jumped in at the same time and it was freezing. We got out and were knighted with a plastic sword and we had to kiss another dead fish. After the ceremony, I am now a Shellback. Many of the kids continued to the head shaving station. Probably 50 guys, and maybe 20 girls shaved their heads. Don’t worry, my hair is still intact.

They had a DJ and I just spent most of the day laying out. There is a barbecue on the deck tonight. I can’t complain. The water is really beautiful- its completely still, like lake water near the equator. I guess gravity isn’t pulling the current too much in any particular direction. It’s super hot and so we laid out on the front of the ship to catch some breeze. I am going to work out in a bit. We have four more days of sailing until we reach Walvis Bay, Namibia. I am going on a three day safari in Walvis Bay in Etosha National Park. Since I am really an animal lover, the Safari is one of the adventures I have been most excited about on Semester at Sea.

I have a test coming up a few days in Sacred Sites which I think is kind of dumb. We have spent every class so far learning about prehistoric cave paintings. For the test we have to be able to identify cave paintings, date them, and then write about them. Not that identifying cave paintings is bad in itself, I was just hoping that we would learn about cathedrals, mosques, temples—places that we are going to see on SAS. But hopefully we will move on to those after the cave painting test.