Day 57: Neptune Day
The beginning of Neptune Day was much less rushed and spontaneous then I expected. We were expecting to be woken up incredibly early and rushed out onto deck seven. Not even close.
When I am anticipating something I can never sleep well so I was restless the whole night. Finally, I got up and looked at Jessi's clock, which read 8:06. I freaked out a little that I was missing things until I remembered that her clock likes to jump itself forward. It was only about 7:30. I could hear a whistle and someone drumming.
I got up and got dressed and went out into the ship. It turned out that Neptune would start at 9, after breakfast was over. So I went and ate breakfast. Molly asked if I had seem them walk by, apparently they were wearing entertaining outfits. I had not but when I got up to go to the bathroom I saw them as they were going from deck five to deck six. They were all wearing togas and tinfoil helmets. Some were carrying spears. The guy who was drumming had a mask over his face but you could see who everyone else was: the crew. It was all our cabin stewards and the majority of the dining hall crew. This must be their favorite day. They get obnoxiously wake us all up.
At 8:30 we made our way up to deck seven. It was good thing that we got there a bit early because we were able to get seats on the edge of the pool before it became packed with people. They had one of the students DJing and we were all crowded around the pool jamming to the music. By 9:00 the crowd had gotten huge. We had the idea to start Molly's camera taking a video and then pass it around the circle facing inward so everyone would say hi to it. It worked in the beginning, everyone passed it and waved to the camera but eventually people stopped giving the instruction and were just passing it so people were really confused. And halfway around the circle someone turned it off. It was a pretty clever idea though and the beginning turned out really awesome.
Right at 9 King Neptune and Queen Amphitrite processed in along with their royal court. The royal court was made of a bunch of people including the royal barber. The we were explained that we needed to prove to King Neptune that we were worthy of crossing the equator. We were asked a series questions that determined whether or not we were worthy. We had to respond aye to them. We then recited a pledge. Then the ceremony began. I was one of the first people to go; we picked a good side of the pool to sit on.
Members of the crew poured fish guts over your head, then you jumped in the pool. You exited out the other side of the pool where you had to kiss a fish. Then you kissed both King Neptune and Queen Amphitrite's rings and then were knighted. It was so much fun.
I am so glad that I was one of the first people to go because then I got to alternate between watching other people go through the ceremony and watching people get their heads shaved. I was also glad that I had worn regular clothes because it made it feel more spontaneous and special. Jumping in a pool in a bathing suit is nothing new.
The entire thing was extremely high energy. John Boyer, the awesome history professor, would yell at people to kiss the fish and would push people back into the pool if he saw that they didn’t kiss. People would jump in the pool crazy and then get in trouble. So many people were shaving their heads. Girls and guys. There were more guys of course but I was really surprised how many girls did it. They had to had the majority of their hair cut off before they went through the ceremony because you can't donate wet hair and then they would go back to get it shaved. You could only shave your head after you were turned into an Emerald Shellback.
There four people shaving heads and they were still going after the ceremony was over. There was hair everywhere. They would go through people so fast, someone would sit down and they would just put razor to head without even thinking about it. Some of them were not the cleanest shaves. People were walking around a bit patchy. Can I just say, that a bald head with a beard is a weird look when you aren't used to it. One guy left his sideburns. So he was bald with thick sideburns and a half grown in beard. I really hope he cleaned that up later.
Almost everyone went through the ceremony. Some were more fun to watch then others, like the lifelong learners, and Dr. Dave. One of the dads on the ship had both of his little kids, one in each arm. He was going to jump in the pool like that but the little boy was crying so he handed him off, jumped in with the little girl, and then had the little boy handed down to him. It was adorable.
It took about an hour and half to have everyone go through the ceremony and about two hours for everything to be over. We did so much before 11 in the morning. It was a big party, we just had so much fun. I lost Molly at one point and was told that she had thought about shaving her head so she went and locked herself in her room. And that is exactly where I found her.
The amount of bald heads walking around the ship now is very weird. Everyone changing at once is confusing. You can't recognize a person by their hair anymore. Everyone looks the same. I am so impressed by the girls that shaved their head. They look fabulous and have some extreme courage.
We actually crossed the golden X that is 0.0,0.0 at 2:15 in the afternoon. In the noon announcement Dean Rita told us to look off the starboard side so that we could see…nothing. And then right around 2:10 Captain Jeremy came on and told us that we might feel a bump and there might be turbulence as the toilets changed direction. Oh Captain Jeremy, we are not that gullible. Well… Molly kinda is. But shhhh, I didn’t tell you that. But really, she freaked out and I had to tell her that he was pulling our leg.
The rest of the day I spent in the piano lounge blogging. I literally spent the whole day there. I am still there actually, writing this.
It is crazy that Neptune Day was just this morning, it already feels so long ago.
Tonight is the bridge of half way through the voyage. There is an odd number of days so today and tomorrow share the honor of the middle.
You would think that I would be sad that we are already half way but I actually feel glad that we are only halfway. We only have 5 ports left. We are over two thirds of the way through our ports, which makes me feel so much closer to being done then we actually are. We are only half way!
The pace of the voyage is weird. It makes the passing of time feel so weird.
We have a lot of sea time ahead of us.
Oh, guess what! My parents left today! They are probably on the plane as I type this. They are headed to Paris. They will spend a few days there before flying to Cape Town. I get to see them in a week! I hope they survive, especially my dad. He took a red eye back from California just last night, and now he is flying east again. He is going to be so sleepy.
I am so excited to experience Cape Town with them. That makes it so much more special.
I was contemplating telling you that I shaved my head. You wouldn’t know either way, I can't post pictures. I think that would be mean though. I wouldn’t want to freak out you and make you think I did something crazy.
We saw a guy wearing his turban from Morocco to keep his head warm. Genius, I'll have to try that.
Oh, my dad emailed me a question he had. This is what he wrote:
"A key question your blog readers want to know (well, me anyway). When the heck do they stop and change the oil in the boat?? It seems to just run all the time, all year round. Mechanical things eventually need maintenance. Did they tell you anything on the bridge tour?"
I stuck something about bunkering in Day 46. We get fuel in country usually. During long stretches we will have a day that we spend bunkering. In between Morocco and Ghana we bunkered at the Canary Islands. I know there is a day we will be bunkering before we get to Cape Town, I'm not sure where though. Bunkering means to receive fuel. We basically just float in the water off shore and a giant bunkering ship will pull right up next to us. When that is happening there can not be any smoking on the ship and we can't go out on the decks on deck 5.
I also know that the ship will be going into dry dock in between the enrichment voyage and the spring voyage.
Tomorrow is more school. I am not really looking forward to that. Meh.
Can we have Neptune Day again?
