Yes, this is a luxury cruise ship.
After a half day at sea yesterday, two more days at sea were on tap! The Seychelles are REALLY far away and thus it takes 3 full days to get there. These days were amazingly relaxing full of napping, eating, drinking, trivia, good conversation and an odd ceremony – more on that soon, so get intrigued for now by the photo to the left!
First though Ross Dowling, an academic from Western Australia, had joined us on the ship and was giving lectures daily on tourism topics and some of our destinations. His lecture the first day was all about cruising, which Dave especially found very interesting because its an unfamiliar segment of the tourism industry. I also found it very interesting because I equate cruising with mainly Caribbean vacations and, for the most part, as a cheap way for the masses to travel. That is still mostly true, but luxury cruising is on the rise as are cruises to the more exotic destinations. A cruise really is the way to go for some of these obscure places; you wouldn’t want to book a flight just to see what’s going on in Fujairah UAE…but if the ship’s stopping there, then what the hell? Also, it was pricey enough to fly home from the Seychelles, so I can’t imagine we’d ever choose to go someplace like that without another reason. Ross also gave an excellent overview of the Seychelles (which are on their own continental plate btw!) and got us even more excited about seeing all of the natural wonders.
So, as mentioned, we also participated in an odd ceremony during our time at sea heading to Seychelles. Since we would be crossing the equator, a ceremony called King Neptune’s Court would be in order. I had never heard of this, but apparently it is something that the military does and cruise ships do as more of a novelty. In the military, sailors who have not crossed the equator yet are deemed “filthy pollywogs” and are hazed in all sorts of weird ways as they cross the equator, emerging as “shellbacks”. We would thus be doing something similar, only our hazing would not involve getting thrown overboard. Instead, we all gathered on the pool deck at 3pm on Sunday and watched a hilarious course of events.
Jimmy, our cruise director, was in charge of the ceremony but the cast of characters involved included Ira Feldman dressed as King Neptune, some other crew member dressed in drag as his wife and some of the girls that do the shows (we never go to them) dressed as weird nurses and pirates. There was a script and the plot went something like 1) a member of the crew who hadn’t yet crossed the equator was brought out 2) Jimmy read a list of comedic “offenses” 3) King Neptune ordered the offender to kiss a dead fish (it was a huge tuna) and for the nurses and other characters to cover them in food like jello, flour, spaghetti and raw eggs and 4) King Neptune asked us if they should be thrown into the pool to be punished more. There were 4-5 “pollywogs” who hadn’t crossed the equator yet and wound up covered in food and tossed into the pool. Next it was the passengers’ turn.
Most of the passengers had actually already crossed the equator (although I doubt they went through this ceremony) but of course not all of the ones who hadn’t were willing to kiss a fish, be covered in food and tossed into the pool. Jimmy knew which passengers would be down with that though, so up Dave and I went along with only three other passengers. We all sat on the deck surrounding the pool and were informed of our crimes. Our offenses included eating all day, lounging in the sun and the like. Well, ok, that’s about right. So, of course, we had to kiss the fish. I disliked the fish kissing a lot more than I thought I would. Yuck, that thing was looking at me with its big, dead eye. Next we were covered with jello and spaghetti, and then topped off with some flour everywhere. Of course they weren’t nearly as hard on us as they had been against their fellow cruise members, but we still got pretty disgusting. Dave and I also were covering each other with food that was still on the deck, which led to lots of jello down our shirts because, well, what the hell? Next, it was time to be thrown into the pool. It felt great after being covered with all of that food. We emerged as Trusty Shellbacks and have a certificate to prove it! And then we were in the Southern Hemisphere….land of spiders as big as your hand and other weird animals and plants. 4 degrees more until Seychelles!
Into the Pool!
