Point of Interest – Crossing the Equator!

Greetings from the Sea of Guinea!

Today is May 6th, 2023. At 4:52 AM local time we cross the Equator at the Prime Meridian! That is 0 deg longitude, 0 deg latitude! This is a special place in mariner history, and there is an ocean buoy around here that has the name Null Island! Armed with my binoculars I am on the forward Observation Deck with about 20 other folks hoping to catch a glimpse of Null Island’s light, but we are surrounded on three sides by rain and no flashing light can be found ahead.

Sailors who have never passed this way are known as “pollywogs” and there can be elaborate ceremonies to initiate the pollywogs into “Shellback” status. Wikipedia has some wonderful and scary stories of what sailors had to do or, more correctly, had done to them!

Like the idiot adventurer I am, I sign up to participate in the ship’s ceremony!

Ross Roberts, our Entertainment Director, is the Judge. He points me out to be summoned before Neptune’s Court, while giving us a little “leg”!

Neptune’s Court assembles, with mer-people and pirates, plus ship’s medical staff (in pink) should the ceremony go awry!

The Judge summons us to be paraded before the Court.

We are lined up before King Neptune’s court, with pirates and mermaids keeping us corralled.  The musicians begin playing the theme from “The Pirates of the Caribbean”!

The ship’s Captain is called to join the court.

Captain Karas addresses the venue and takes his place next to King Neptune!

The Judge reads the charges against us. We are accused of eating too much food and placing the ship in peril of not having enough food to complete the voyage. He asks, “How do you plead?” We all cry “Not guilty!” except for one man who shouts, “Guilty!” Everyone gets a chuckle!

The Judge asks Neptune and the Captain, “How say you?” and they both give us a thumbs down.

The Judge sentences us to kiss a fish, be covered with jello and whipped cream, and thrown into the pool!

A pirate brings around a pair of fish – ugly sea bass – for us to kiss. The other pirates and mer-people slap and slather us with handfuls of jello and colored whipped cream. We’re a mess and chunks and blops are falling into the swimming pool!

Pirates determine we aren’t messy enough and more jello flies!

Then the crowd starts chanting, “In the pool! In the pool!” Twenty people are pushed into the water. It felt good for a few minutes and allowed us to wash the jello and whipped cream out of our hair!

Then we watched from the swimming pool as the same ritual was performed on about 20 crew! They are accused of streaming Netflix and using up all of the internet bandwidth, causing grief for the passengers trying to get online. We “booo!” vehemently! Similar results – Guilty! The fish make the rounds, the mess of jello and whipped cream grows, and soon they are with us in the pool!

Then some of the passengers grab the Judge and Neptune and “help” them into the pool with us!

Once the mess is done we leave the pool!

The Captain calls us to get a group photo!

I am now an official Emerald Shellback! That is reserved for US crossers. The UK folk get to be Royal Blue Shellbacks.

I believe I have a similar Shellback certificate from our Galapagos trip in 2014. I need to look for it to see what status I received then. Emerald Shellback is reserved for the Atlantic Prime Meridian crossing. The Pacific has different roles. I’ll modify this posting if I find that information!

The pool is now closed for 48 hours while they clean up the mess!

Thanks for witnessing my inauguration as an Emerald Shellback!