Friday, March 24. cloudy day, calm seas. 28 C. Day 80.
The day was filled with silliness. But first we had to get through breakfast which we usually have in the Neptune lounge as it is more private. Due to the contagion of Norovirus they have an attendant in there that will get for us what we request. It seems insane and ridiculous but I have no alternative to suggest. The same for the upstairs Lido buffet that can seat hundreds and is about 1/4 the length of the ship. Of course the Lido has a far superior selection of almost anything you can think of. We still prefer the Neptune in spite of the limited selection. We will not starve, far to the contrary.
After breakfast was over I went to the gym and did my upper arm strengthening exercises, taking it easy on my leg exercises as I overdid it last time. Fellette went to choir practice and by then it was time for King Neptune to make his appearance on the top deck with a big swimming pool to dump the pollywogs in, they are those who are crossing the Equator for the first time: Crew only of course.
The place was absolutely packed. Seating was at a premium, and people were very, very protective of their 'view’ of the proceedings. There was some behaviour that belonged more in grade school than a civilized adult. But all in all it was a half hour of Fairytale Make Believe entertainment. Getting decent pictures was almost impossible.
After that merriment the captain announced that we were approaching the point in the ocean where the Equator and the Prime Meridian crossed. Believe it or not, the ship could not locate it!!! He indicated that the Buoy was not sending a signal like it is supposed to. So, with a billion dollars worth of navigation equipment up in the bridge we never located nor saw it. It was a bit embarrassing, however he made up for that.
What he and the navigator did was: they positioned the ship, [according to their navigation equipment], with the dead centre of the ship right in the centre of the where the Equator and Prime Meridian crossed, facing North. That meant, are you ready for this... that the right hand half of the ship was in the Eastern Hemisphere; the left hand side of the ship was in the Western Hemisphere; the front half of the ship was in the Northern Hemisphere and the back half of the ship was in the Southern Hemisphere. Just for fun!
As you can likely tell, our minds have gone to mush and we have far too much time to think about meaningless things!
As a point of interest, on our bed tonight was what I consider a 'Mia Culpa' from the ship. See photo below. It is a significant fact to me!
In come the officers who were the jury who decides wether the lathered up Pollywogs get dumped in the pool or have to sit all covered in foamy slime-like material that has been poured over their body as part of the rites of initiation.
More candidates.
Judge and Jury.
Ignore the two heads: To the left of the glass shower you can see a medical staff has jut pored slime on a candidate lying on his back. They are then judged to find out if they get to jump in the pool for the remainder of the ceremony or sit on the sidelines covered in goo until they can later dip.
There you can see the sliming table where the candidates would lie and a tote that was full of slime.
The cleaners had to then clean the messy pool and surrounding are and have it pristine with fresh water in jig-time.
As predicted, the certificates celebrating todays silliness!
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