16 October 2008, At sea.

Today was a beautiful sunny and almost windless day. It was still blowing over the deck, but that was wind caused by the ships speed, the regular wind was almost nothing. Thus it was a warm day, a very warm day but a good day to welcome King Neptune on board with his court to oversee the proper induction of those, pollywogs, who had not crossed the equator yet.

Captain and ships staff welcome King Neptune
King Neptune announces his disapproval of the pollywogs

We had invited King Neptune to come on board today. Although the official crossing of the equator is tomorrow when we are at the Macapa clearance station on the Amazon River. And as we all know, King Neptune only rules the deep sea; there is somebody else who takes care of the rivers. Another reason for being early with the ceremony is the necessity to empty, clean and refill the swimming pool. This is the Navigation deck aft swimming pool which is a sea water pool. The closer we come to the Amazon estuary the more silt there is in the seawater and we do not like a ships pool to be full of Amazon sediment. We saw the first streaks of brown water, while we were still 180 miles north from the estuary. So much silt is carried by the river to the open sea and from there carried along the coast by the sea currents. Thus it was important to have the pool refilled with clean sea water before we sailed into the muddy waters.

Jailed polywogs awaiting their judgement call
This time we had almost 50 crew who had to judged and sentenced. So after the King had been properly welcomed, we handled the crew in groups in order to have the proceedings not last too long. As it was warm and lots of guests were witnessing the events we had to be careful with organizing this open-air event as the sun was burning merciless.

Doctors preparing their treats for the pollywogs
The procedure is straight forward. Of each pollywog the sins are read-out (tongue in cheek of course). King Neptune, frequently interrupted by his lasvious Queen makes the appropriate noises of disapproval and then the pollywogs are brought to the Doctor’s table after having “Kissed the fish”. On the table they are “shampooed” with stuff coming from the kitchen. Food dyes, mixtures of water and wheat, shredded and rotten vegetables and for the worst offenders, meringue, that normally goes on a cake.
Ships operations clerk Amin getting the full treatment

Then it is time for the judges, Captain and the ships staff, to decide whether they will be dumped in the pool or have to sit aside. Going in the pool is the merciful option as at least all the junk washes off at once. To be relegated to the side, means that all that has been smeared onto the bodies dries up and starts to itch. So we keep that for those who behave not in the spirit of things or are obnoxious.

We saved the meringue left overs for the cruise staff and the cast (dance revue group) who are known on board to be the biggest drama queens, so the worst treatment is very appropriate for them.

After an hour of screams and mayhem, King Neptune granted free passage to the ship and returned to his kingdom. Leaving a very messy pool behind, to be cleared up before we hit the silt of the Amazon and the sea water became unusable.

Guests watching the proceedings

Tonight around 11 pm. we will be near the beginning of the estuary where the depth of the sea becomes less than 20 meters. Then 20 miles further in, the estuary bar starts, where the depths are much, much less. We have calculated that under normal circumstances we should have less than 6 feet under the keel at the shallowest parts. Will see what happens in reality when we get there. I will be on the bridge all night until we enter the river proper, where the depths are more normal.
Note: All photos courtesey of Safety Officer Jan Westerbeek.