Commodore
February 12, 2023

Sunday 12 February – Neptune’s rituals on the equator

It was a stunning sunrise, seems like a Booby caught a ride on the bowsprit the whole night. No sign of wind anywhere, so we continued a slow motor the whole day.

We started preparing for our entry to the Galapagos. Signage had to be put up everywhere indicating the 3 types of rubbish bins, reminders to not throw anything, including compost overboard, and no emptying of the black tanks within 12 miles of land. There are specific fruits we cant take in, including pineapples, maracuya (passion fruit) and oranges. This meant I had to use up all our lovely maracuya stash. Only frozen meat is allowed in, and no eggs because of the bird flu.

Jonny has spent the last couple of days preparing for our crossing of the equator. Equatorial baptism is a ritual explained as being an initiation into the court of King Neptune. Edmund has been appointed Kind Neptune – Widge has been forced to resist trimming his beard for the occasion! The ceremony is a long-standing tradition commemorating a sailor’s first time crossing of the equator. The ritual is conducted by crew members (Trusty Shellbacks) at the “Court of Neptune”, initiating the Slimy Pollywogs (uninitiated crew) into “the mysteries of the Deep”! Each Pollywog is dunked in order to become a Shellback. Jonny wrote a 4 page script and we were all duly baptised and given our Shellback names! This all took place at about 6pm while we had light, about an hour before our real crossing of the equator. We all dressed up and had a very good laugh, we all got baptised and given a fishy name!!

We have had Amanzi sailing alongside us all day, about 2 miles away. Rowan called them to join us crossing the equator, we hooted and tooted at the official crossing. We broke our rules and had a Rum punch for such a special occasion. Rowan got goose bumps as we crossed, an epic moment in our sailing adventures as we enter the Southern hemisphere.

Finally we had dinner which was an enormous delicious frittata using up 16 of our 30 eggs that need consuming before our morning arrival at the island of Cristobel in the Galapagos.