We left Maui Thursday night. Our next port was American Samoa, the following Wednesday. Oh joy, five full days at sea! I’m gonna go nuts, absolutely stir crazy. At least the lights are back on, no more “stealth” mode. It became a sort of joke among the regulars on the Lido deck. Every morning I’d get my coffee, walk out the door and ask “Are we there yet?”. Of course, we never were “there”. Or anywhere, for that matter. For five full days, we never saw another ship, a plane, a bird, a fish, nothing! I believe that we passed within a couple hundred miles of Kiribati (formerly Gilbert Islands) but we couldn’t see that, either. To make matters worse, we also lost our satellite reception, so we were no longer able to receive CNN, ESPN, TNT, etc. Needless to say, it wasn’t my favorite part of the trip.
The only thing that we had to break the monotony was crossing the equator. There is a long-standing tradition among sailors regarding “crossing the line”. First-timers (called pollywogs) must be initiated by King Neptune through a hazing ritual into the Royal and Ancient Order of Shellbacks. Fortunately, the ceremony only applied to the crew while passengers got a free pass. The hazing involved being smeared with some rather disgusting food, flour, liquids and other assorted “stuff”. It reminded me of my college fraternity parties. It also seemed that the most enthusiasm was reserved for the ship’s officers, which I suppose shouldn’t be any surprise. After being lathered up, the initiates jumped into the pool to wash the stuff off. This produced a side effect – the pool was closed for a day and a half while it was drained, scrubbed and disinfected. All in all, I thought that it was pretty sophomoric. But at least I now have Neptune’s permission to cross the equator whenever I wish and I have a certificate to prove it!
By the way, did I mention that we’re still sailing west and my body is still confused?
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