5417 Sunrise over the South Pacific. All the colors but red. The orange band is the transition from red to yellow. It there were red, in this case it’s below the horizon.
5452 This is how the punishment phase begins.
5518 This is how it ends.
5531 This is where the ‘baked’ pollywogs suffer until the ceremony is over. The bear pit is almost full. This is truly an equal opportunity activity. There are members of the deck crew, navigation crew, housekeeping staff, dining room staff, cooks, shops on board, bar staff, spa and photographers. The girl at the bottom, grinning at the camera is Daniela, the Tai Chi instructor.
5537 Diana with King Neptune (Gene Young, Cruise Director) and the Judge (Randal, the Onboard Marketing Manager).
Nov 22 (The Second) – At Sea. Yes, it’s Groundhog Day. We’re doing the 22nd over again so maybe we can get it right. Actually this day is different from yesterday in that this 22nd has been designated Thanksgiving Day by the ship so, Happy Thanksgiving! The official excuse for having two 22nds instead of two 23rds as originally planned was so that we could “celebrate Thanksgiving on the same day that you did in the USA”. Sorry, but that’s political speak at its worst. If we had celebrated yesterday it would have been the 22nd, the same day as you, but we would have been 18 hours ahead of you (depending on your time zone). So instead, we celebrate today the 22nd, 5 hours behind you (again depending on your time zone). Either way we’d be celebrating on the same day as you were. Yet when the ship announced that reason most people said, “That’s a great idea.” Goes a long way toward answering my questions about the last election.
Woke up pretty early and have been for some time. It’s been weeks since I slept late enough to have my alarm go off. Guess I’m pretty well rested. The sunrise out our window was very spectacular. The variety of colors was very broad. At the horizon there was a thin layer of orange and yellow with a light green above that. Then came a broad layer of pale blues and on top an even broader layer of pale violet. Of course, all this was topped off with the deep blue of open sky. Very pretty. Only missing color was red. It was a great day of doing not much of anything and eating turkey.
Our entertainer was Marty Brill. If that name seems familiar it probably is. He was the primary writer for Merv Griffin and also wrote for comedy show of that era, Dick VanDyke and others. He’s a seriously funny guy and you can see his show twice because apparently he has a list of the main gags he wants to do but how he gets from one to the other is mostly ad lib. He’s missing the middle finger of his right hand and he uses that fact at various points in the act. For example, he says that after that finger was removed he was forced to move to LA from New York City. Why, you ask? Because he could no longer communicate with people on the street.
Nov 23 – At Sea. Today is “Crossing the Equator Day”. Of course we crossed it coming south but, as it was in the middle of a bunch of ports, the ship did not celebrate it then. On HAL ships they have a King Neptune Ceremony to celebrate the move from the northern to southern hemispheres or vice versa.
The premise is that the ship’s passing has irritated King Neptune so he and his queen and a couple of mermaids board the ship to see what’s going on. To appease the king some pollywogs (crew that has never before crossed the Equator) must be punished for their transgressions. This initiation involves having a judge list their crimes and King Neptune deciding guilty or innocent. Of course they are always guilty. The crimes listed are always job related. (ie. Cooks are accused of making the passengers gain weight, the cabin stewards are accused of being so efficient that when you get up in the night to use the bathroom you come back to find that your bed has been made, navigations officers are accused of zigzagging the ship to make it appear that we are in rough seas, etc.) The guilty are then made to “Kiss the Fish!” usually a large sea bass, grouper or some ugly fish with really big lips. Of course they have a pirate stationed at the fish to make sure you kiss it and push your head forward if you seem about to air kiss.
After that they are taken to tables where ‘doctors’ and ‘nurses’ smear all sorts of gloppy stuff on them. After they are generously coated in whatever all that colorful stuff is the Captain and his staff vote on whether they are to be ‘dunked’ or ‘baked’. I should have mentioned that all this takes place by the pool. If they are dunked, they get to jump into the pool. That’s preferred because the dunking washes all the goop off and you can be comfortable. If they are baked, they have to sit in the sun at the end of the pool until the ceremony is over. By that time the goop has usually turned into a nice little crust. I’m told that there are some egg whites in the mixture so I guess it’s rather odoriferous as well as slimy. After their punishment the pollywogs are transformed into ‘trusty shellbacks’, have been initiated into the King Neptune Society and are no longer in danger when the Equator is crossed.
The last pollywog to be called for judgment was Daniela, the lifestylist that leads Tai Chi and meditation. One of her crimes was “Falling asleep while leading the meditation”. As the last to be judged, all the doctors and nurses assembled at her table and brought all the remaining goop with them. She was completely and thoroughly coated. Nice thing was that, because she was last she didn’t have to bake in the sun long but could go almost directly into the pool.
Our evening entertainers were Catch a Wave, a Beach Boys tribute band. They were very good. They opened up with all the car songs, Little Deuce Coupe, Shutdown, 409, that was a good start. They sang all the huge hits including the ballads, never my favorites. All the really good Beach Boys songs have a serious drum chart. I thought they were going to quit before getting to the garage song but they did Barbra Ann as an encore. They did it straight and didn’t include the mistakes that exist in the super-hit that single became. But it was the perfect cap to an excellent show.
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