Sea Day 7 – Crossing the Equator

The wind and seas were heavier last night than on any other night on the cruise so far. In addition, the wind direction had changed overnight, and is now blowing out of the south, and more of a headwind than on previous days. When I looked outside at about 6:30 AM, the skies looked clear, so I thought there would be a really nice sunrise to photograph. With our current heading toward American Samoa, we can take pictures of the sunsets from our balcony. However, that causes the sunrise to occur on the other side of the ship (port side) and more astern. Therefore, I have to leave the cabin and walk to the stern of the ship to photograph the sunrise.

Normally, I load my camera gear in a backpack, head to the coffee bar on Deck 5 for fresh brewed coffee that is included with my coffee card, and then go up to Deck 16 and wait for sunrise. Today, after completing the coffee run, and getting to Deck 16, I was disappointed to see a large area of rain clouds exactly in the position on the horizon to hide the sunrise. Oh well, maybe another morning. The remainder of the morning ritual is to then head to the Horizon Court Buffet to fill up a stainless bottle with coffee for Stephanie, including two coffee cups, one empty, and one containing some cream, both for Stephanie’s coffee.

After returning to the room, Stephanie was still asleep, so I tried to get on the internet to upload yesterday’s blog post. Even though it was still early, the connection was already very slow, either from usage, or from poor satellite reception at this latitude.

Today is a big day, the ship is scheduled to cross the equator. The Captain made an announcement that we would be crossing the equator at approximately 9:42 AM. We were back in the cabin after going to breakfast at about 9:30 AM, so we were poised to take pictures of the crossing from our balcony. I took a picture of the ocean at the designated time.

Of course, it looks no different than any other picture of the ocean. I tried to get GPS reception from our balcony, to take a photo or our position on longitude and latitude from the GPS screen. However, due to all of the surrounding metal decks, we can’t get GPS satellite reception from the balcony. We were heading to the sun deck anyway, so I was able to photo our position at that time, which was a few minutes after the crossing (not time minutes, but latitude minutes, as in degrees, minutes and seconds of position). By that time, we were about 7 minutes south of the equator in latitude position terms. We have been averaging about 21 knots of speed, or about 24 mph, since leaving Kauai.

There was a special ceremony this afternoon to celebrate the equator crossing, all of the passengers will become Shellbacks, which is the term used to designate that you have made a crossing of the equator while at sea. Otherwise, without having crossed the equator, everyone is known as a Pollywog. The celebration involved four volunteer passengers, and about 20 of the ships crew that had not made the equator crossing before.

We had thought we would all participate, but it was more of a show for the passengers. It was an involved ceremony, and was pretty funny. The Captain of the ship was in the show, and actually had a major role, much more than we expected. It would have been nice if there was something that all passengers did to actually participate in the ceremony, but it would take too long and be too involved if everyone went through part of the ceremony. I guess our part is truly ceremonial in spirit only.

We could tell that the sun was intense here as were were out on the sun deck. We wore our 50 SPF sunscreen, but still turned a little pink from the exposure.

Tonight is our night to go to the Chef’s Dinner. We met at 6:45 PM with the Maître d’ for a briefing before we donned our white coats for the tour of the main kitchen.

We all were required to wash our hands after we initially entered the kitchen. We were served some champagne, and had four different appetizers while we were in the kitchen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We left the kitchen and were seated at our special table. There were 16 people in our group for dinner. They took a group photo of us with the Chef and the Maître d’ then took individual pictures of each couple, also with the Chef and Maître d’.

 

Then we were served a pasta dish consisting of Risotto with pieces of fish within a filling. It was very good. They served a SIMI Chardonnay wine, which went very well with the pasta dish.

 

Next, we were served a sorbet for cleansing our pallet, it was topped of with a little Grey Goose Vodka.

 

Then came the main course, which consisted of beef, pork and lamb tenderloins, that were heated with a flaming mixture of rum. Some of the meat was hanging on metal racks, they told us it was similar to a method of Roman cooking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The meats were served with mashed potatoes and asparagus. It was all very good. They also served us a Merlot wine with the dinner.

Next, we were served a dish of cheeses, followed by our dessert. Dessert was served on a plate made from sugar, and had twirled sugar sticks in and on the dessert, which was mostly chocolate based. They also served various coffees, we both had cappuccinos.

They brought roses for the ladies and each couple was given a set of the photos taken earlier, along with a copy of the Princess Cookbook. Overall, it was a fun experience, and the food and wines were excellent.

We called it a night and headed back to the cabin after a wonderful day at sea.