Neptune Day!

Today was a special day on the ship! It was supposed to be a reading day, which is a time for students to catch up on their work and not have classes. This sounds like the perfect day, but SAS went on and made it even better! We celebrated Neptune Day. This is a tradition of the sea, representing crossing the equator. While at sea, before you cross over the equator you are considered a pollywog, but after initiation you have been deemed a shellback. This years voyage earned even a more prestigious title! Thanks to our captain, we sailed over the golden X, the intersection of the Prime Meridian and the Equator. Being of a rare population to do this, we were knighted Emerald Shellbacks today. The day started early. The king and his court paraded down the halls blowing whistles and clashing symbols at 6 a.m. They kindly gave us time to eat breakfast before summoning all voyagers to the pool deck. Here we became initiated, but not so easily. We were soaked in “fish guts” (luckily the let us jump in the pool afterwards), then had to kiss a very large fish and the rings of the king and queen before being initiated. As tradition has it, you are also supposed to shave your head, and many participants did. I believe that 30 girls shaved their heads today and many guys are running around bald or with some beautiful mullets. We then had the rest of the day to study for our ship wide test. We all have a test in Global Studies this evening. I think it will be fine, we have had study groups all afternoon. This evening for dinner they spoiled us! We had a BBQ! They served hamburgers, mac and cheese, baked potatoes, corn on the cob, lemonade and ice cream sundaes. IT WAS SUCH A TREAT! I think it was the best brain food I could have asked for! I promise I will finish the Ghana blog soon, I just need some time to debrief and collect my thoughts. Hope all is well and miss you ton