NEPTUNE DAY!!!

So on Tuesday February 10th the MV Explorer crossed the equator! I am now in the southern hemisphere and my toilet water flushes in the opposite direction!!! Haha so on Neptune day it’s been an old sea tradition for sailors who have never crossed the equator to go through a sort of initiation ritual. It was like the sailors were asking permission to cross into the next land. It’s really weird to think about in one of my classes the teacher was saying how you are in the northern hemisphere or the southern hemisphere, when we were crossing over the equator for a few minutes of our lives we were nowhere literally nowhere! Ok so it all began at 8am when the crew woke us up! They ran through our hallways with whistles and drums it was so funny. We were told to head up to the 7th deck where the pool was for further instruction. I was a little nervous at what kind of stuff they were going to make us do! So it all began with the King and Queen Neptune. They were painted head to toe in lime green paint and wore pirate costumes and wigs. As soon as King Neptune began speaking we immediately realized that it was our captain! He is from Britain so we all love his accent and recognized it instantly. We were all shocked to see that he would get so into Neptune day for the students. So after careful instruction this was what we had to do. First we had to have fish guts dumped over our head! (It was actually water, green food coloring, and fish oil but it smelled AWFUL) Then we had to kiss a dead fish on the lips, then kiss the King of Neptune’s rings, bow to the queen, kiss another fish, jump in the pool (which was freezing ocean water), then shave your head!!! I did all of the above…..minus the shaving of my head! A few girls did it though and then immediately regretted it I felt really bad but hey it’ll grow back! Anyways Neptune day was really fun we had the day off of classes and after the little ceremony which lasted like an hour or so we were free to lie in the sun! There was not an empty chair on any of the decks! They threw a BBQ for us for dinner which was SOO good with like burgers and hot dogs and stuff. We never get that kind of food on the ship it’s always meat, potatoes, and a form of pasta. Literally every night. So that was really exciting! Let me tell you the sun by the equator is STRONG! Laying outside so close to the equator for like an hour is like laying out at Waubee for 4! I swear it’s intense. I thought that being on the ship for 8 days straight was going to be awful but it’s actually flying right by! I’ve been getting pretty busy in my classes so that’s been really time consuming and we play a lot of card games to pass the time oh and my guilty obsession on the ship is playing Sardines! It’s like hide and go seek but opposite one person hides and then the group goes looking. The last person to find them becomes the new person to hide! Ha its so lame but on this ship we are literally cut off from the world we have to resort to children’s games to keep us entertained! But hey that’s the way I like it. The water has been really really calm I mean we look out our window at night and it feels/looks like we are on a lake. Well only 2 more days till my African Safari adventure begins! I’ll update after that.