Mmmm Fish Guts

The voyage from Takoradi, Ghana to Cape Town, South Africa has been exciting!

First of all, our stabilizers are broken. So, the ship violently rocks day-in, day-out. They’ve been broken since somewhere between Casablanca and Takoradi, but they weren’t able to get them fixed in Ghana, so we have to wait until South Africa. I have been wearing my anti-seasickness patches, which have really helped, but I still feel a bit nauseous all of the time. The only time that the rocking is nice is when you are sleeping. When I get home, it’s going to be so hard to sleep in a bed that doesn’t move.

On the 26th, we passed through the center of the world—0 degrees by 0 degrees. Apparently, one of the geography teachers begged our captain to veer off course a couple hundred miles so that we could all cross the point where the Prime Meridian and the Equator meet. We had a big huge party, stopped the ship on the line, where everyone put their feet in the northern hemisphere and hands in the southern. I was in four places at once!

Then, on the 28th, we had Neptune Day. Neptune Day is actually supposed to be the day that you cross the equator for the first time, but for some reason, we did it two days later. About 6AM, the crew, professors, and life long learners came through the halls dressed as sea creatures (well, more like sea royalty…think little mermaid … only without the mermaids) banging on pots and pans and drums, clanging cymbals together, banging on doors, etc. All of us pollywogs were instructed to go to the 7th deck. Once up there we met “King Neptune” aka our executive dean and we had to have fish guts poured on our heads, swim through the murky, nasty, fish gutty swimming pool, kiss a giant Atlantic Salmon, and then have our heads shaved. I did all of the above except shave my head. Once we went through the disgusting obstacle course, we were christened as Emerald Shellbacks and allowed to pass into the Southern Hemisphere (which we had done two days prior). Then, we had a big huge BBQ. It was pretty cool to BBQ in the middle of the ocean.

We’ll be in Cape Town in 2 days, so I’m off to plan more exciting adventures! ☺