A big day today for the on board Pollywogs! So, our morning routine meant skipping Men’s Shed and heading for a 9:30am trivia. After that unsuccessful bid for stardom, up to deck 12 to witness the traditional, ritual humiliation of the Pollywogs. Bright sunshine and we managed a seat port side, in the shade, but all the action was starboard side at deck level and not as in the past, conducted from a bridge over the pool. That meant we couldn’t see much but we had seen it all before.
Pollywogs are passengers (and crew) who are crossing the equator for the first time by ship. In the distant past, before motorisation, being on the equator, there was often a lack of wind and ships could be stuck there for a while – in the Doldrums. I have no idea when the tradition started, but Pollywogs were brought before a ‘King Neptune’ and his court, found guilty of any misdemeanours and then had to suffer the penalty of being covered with sorts of goo, such as animal and fish guts, feathers etc. On board the modern cruise ship, using that sort of stuff might well put passengers off, but they are covered with chocolate sauce, red and yellow liquids of indeterminate origin, flour and spaghetti – and have to ‘kiss the fish’... Usually, the senior officer around also gets dunked in the swimming pool and also the cruise director.
In the past, it has been first officers, senior engineers and this time, it was the popular, sporting captain! All good colourful fun, with the deck crew hosing them down afterwards, then cleaning the deck and putting everything back to normal within minutes.
The pollywogs are now ‘Shellbacks’. Every passenger crossing the equator gets a certificate. For those future cruisers a bit worried about being covered in goo, it is voluntary…
We did succumb to the lure of a NZ Natural Ice Cream. In the past, soft serve ice cream, chocolate or vanilla, has been freely available and replacing it with a paid NZ Natural hasn’t exactly been universally popular. At $5 Australian for a single scoop, no wonder. However, if you have purchased a coffee card, (now $36 for 15 coffees), then a single scoop is a single clip on the card. As mentioned in the past, we usually swap our free mini-bar for 2 coffee cards, so at the moment, we are in credit to the tune of about 8 cards. Ironically, having brought on board about 50 sachets of Timms or Jed’s coffee, I have been using the older coffee cards anyway, as we have no future cruises planned (at the moment) and it is pointless having a pile of cards left over. Maybe we can sell some of them for $30 each?
About 12:30, we did feel peckish, so a turkey and bacon brochette plus some beef curry (not as tender as usual) was a good filler.
Beginner’s ukulele class (the advantage of consecutive sea days is that the ‘muscle memory’ kicks in) but Salomon was a bit late and the storeroom was locked, so no unofficial practice either...
A detour to the atrium International café which is always busy, but despite saying 5 times, ‘big cup’, it arrived in a glass. (For those Auckland friends in NZ who know where we usually have our coffee, who are reading this, please tell Regan that we are missing her…)
At 2:30pm, we crossed the equator. The sea was extremely calm, so we hardly felt the bump into the northern hemisphere.
After a 4:15pm trivia (still haven’t won) Paula and I detoured to the Atrium again, specifically to check out our ukulele player’s piano skills. Wow! No music, no cue cards, no hints on the ‘phone, but all by memory. Incredible playing of several genres of music from classical through to ragtime. (I wonder who requested that?) We were transfixed as he is seriously good. So if the name Salomon Orellana (from Chile) appears on your radar, well worth a watch/listen. We are looking forward to his concert in the theatre at a later date. Always smiling too, so a very popular guy on board.
The Curtis Stone ‘belly pork’, was my pick for the main course – for the second time in 9 days. Nothing really special about it though.
Late Showtime (9:45pm) was Donna Campbell’s second show. Good voice and a pleasant enough show, though we’d seen it before. Whereas singers can get away without changing too much, comedians certainly can’t.
Clocks back another hour tonight and Paula was watching Wimbledon.
I’m not very happy at the lack of internet uploading, meaning that by the time you read this, there will have been another 4 r 5 or more blogs written and a few pics uploaded, probably in quick succession.
Two more sea days ahead.
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