Crossing the Equator (FEB 14)

Today the ship will cross the equator.

At noon today, those who wished could “swim” across the equator.  This activity replaced the more traditional Neptune and his court harassing crew and (participating) passengers who had not crossed it before.  From our perspective, at one level, it was too bad to see the traditional ceremony gone.  On the other hand, it was a nice change of program.

For those of you who were paying attention, the first paragraph was in the future tense and the second in the past tense.  The event took place at a convenient time – just before lunch.  The actually crossing will occur at an inconvenient time – somewhere near midnight.

As of 1800 (-3 UTC), we were at 1^o17’21” north of the equator about 90 NM northeast of the closest point of land in South America.

The waiters in the dining room sang me an Indonesian version of happy birthday.