Crossing the Equator
This morning we crossed “The Line,” the fabled equator, which defines the limits of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. In this day, when people fly across the equator easily, they are hardly aware of the significance of the hemispheric transition. At sea however, where we have time to consider the full import of each movement, no matter how apparently inconsequential, we follow the age old and noble tradition of the Crossing Ceremony.
King Neptune and his beautiful Queen Tethys, the mother of all the oceans, together with their retinue of pirates, barbers, doctors and bartenders, would leave his briny lair to board the ship and inspect the ship’s documents before they were allowed to pass into the Southern Hemisphere. More importantly, the King rooted out any “Pollywogs” aboard, those who had never sailed across the line. They must be cleansed to rid themselves of any land diseases they may be carrying so as not to further contaminate the ocean. Once they had kissed a fish and the stunning Queen Tethys, they were shaved, inoculated and washed clean. They emerged from the deep as newly minted “Shellbacks” and joined a long, but exclusive line of blue-water mariners which stretches back to the earliest days of sail.
Once permitted into the Southern Hemisphere, we continued to sail south along the east coast of Brazil, having passed the islands of Fernando de Noronha during the night. The islands are home to a large community of seabirds. All day we watched masked boobies and red-footed boobies as they hovered above the mast or along the bulwarks, riding the slip-stream from the bow until they spotted a flying fish at the surface.
The boobies made spectacular diving runs to catch flying fish in the air or those just under the surface. It was a show that went on for hours!
This morning we crossed “The Line,” the fabled equator, which defines the limits of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. In this day, when people fly across the equator easily, they are hardly aware of the significance of the hemispheric transition. At sea however, where we have time to consider the full import of each movement, no matter how apparently inconsequential, we follow the age old and noble tradition of the Crossing Ceremony.
King Neptune and his beautiful Queen Tethys, the mother of all the oceans, together with their retinue of pirates, barbers, doctors and bartenders, would leave his briny lair to board the ship and inspect the ship’s documents before they were allowed to pass into the Southern Hemisphere. More importantly, the King rooted out any “Pollywogs” aboard, those who had never sailed across the line. They must be cleansed to rid themselves of any land diseases they may be carrying so as not to further contaminate the ocean. Once they had kissed a fish and the stunning Queen Tethys, they were shaved, inoculated and washed clean. They emerged from the deep as newly minted “Shellbacks” and joined a long, but exclusive line of blue-water mariners which stretches back to the earliest days of sail.
Once permitted into the Southern Hemisphere, we continued to sail south along the east coast of Brazil, having passed the islands of Fernando de Noronha during the night. The islands are home to a large community of seabirds. All day we watched masked boobies and red-footed boobies as they hovered above the mast or along the bulwarks, riding the slip-stream from the bow until they spotted a flying fish at the surface.
The boobies made spectacular diving runs to catch flying fish in the air or those just under the surface. It was a show that went on for hours!
