At Sea, Approaching The Equator...

Thursday, March 23. Cloudy skies, some rain showers. 27 C, with ocean temperature of 30 C! Day 79.

Tomorrow around 11:00 am, the ship will be at a very interesting place in this South Atlantic Ocean. We will be exactly where the Equator, and The Prime Meridian cross. 0' degrees Latitude, and 0’ degrees Longitude. It is a place, highly important to the Geographical Lord High Muckety Mucks. They have given it a name: NULL ISLAND. Yup, look it up in Google. In the Gulf of Guinea.

Apparently there is a weather buoy floating on the exact spot, firmly attached to the ocean floor 16,210 feet down,  more than three miles. That is a heck of a lot of chain, cable or whatever holds it there, it's a wonder it doesn't sink with that heavy a tether??? 

The ship has had to go off its ‘Shortest distance course’, to the next port in Ghana so we all can 'See’ this imaginary island, and no doubt they will have a certificate on our bed tomorrow night stating that fact. The Captain said he would cruise by slowly! Fun.

*******

The Norovirus case load is apparently going in the right direction, according to the Captain’s report at noon today, However three of the ladies at Fellette’s choir practice reported that their husbands were down with it, that is quite a hit when the choir only has about 13 members. Closer to home, Jim advised us around 1:00 pm today that he now has it as well. 

It is worth talking about how this ‘Big old hunk of iron, called a ship' just keeps on plowing along, come what may with weather, illnesses or other things that happen. The main objective is: 'Keep on schedule'. If we are delayed, we just increase the speed to make it up. If we miss a port, due to weather or whatever, we just turn the speed down and crawl to the next port to arrive on schedule.

It was a nothing day basically. I did my gym routine again, Fellette had choir practice. The day was  overcast with showers so we spent time going over our ports ahead and are quite happy to spend time in the cabin keeping away from others who may be not as careful with hygiene as we think we are until this Norovirus settles down, as it will.

King Neptune will grace us with an appearance tomorrow morning at 10:00.