Day 549 Crossing the Equator
Transatlantic Voyage - Day 10
Today is a big day as we continue across the Atlantic. At 5 PM we will sail from the southern portion of the planet into the northern hemisphere. The captain here insists that anyone who is on the ship and hasn’t yet crossed the equator must be initiated into a right of passage that goes back hundreds of years. (Paying passengers may volunteer but aren’t required. Many did. I was spared because I already crossed by ship last fall on my way to Lima.)
I’ll let the videos speak for themselves, but basically the ritual involves those being initiated lining up, being roped together, sprayed with water and flour, then marched down a deck to crouch beneath a net where they are then doused with fish offal and more water. There’s a lot of yelling and loud banging. This alone is a nasty experience but there’s more.
After being marinated in fish juice, each of the initiates must crawl on their hands and knees to kiss the smelly fishy feet of the queen and Neptune himself, the god of the sea (suitably arrayed). Once they have been subjected to these humiliations, they must next drink some sort of nasty, spicy concoction -- recipe unknown and not to be revealed. By the looks of the people who drank it, and the stories I heard, it was bitter, spicy and fishy, all at once.
From there, the inmates are crowded together in the ship’s pool where another fusillade of nasty fish pieces and water is poured their way. By the end, the ordeal humbled several dozen initiates. But in the end, everyone survived, and soon they were drinking champagne and having a good laugh.
Afterwards, we were all treated to one of the finest sunsets of the whole 21 day voyage.
