Hello Neptune Day

It started at 7:30 am in the morning, September 26, 2009 with a parade of banging pots and pans. The secret and sacred Neptune Day tradition of semester at sea began. A rite of passage shrouded in mystery (or so we'd like to believe), the day is always on the calendar of any voyage crossing the equator. Today we crossed the equator and now sail in the Southern Hemisphere. For all pollywogs, or maritime equator-crossing virgins, the day includes a lot of surprising activities to commemorate their transition into shellbacks, maritime equator-crossing veterans. As I sailed as a student on SAS Fall 2000, I had the honor and privilege of participating in Neptune Day as a member of King Neptune's Royal Court instead of just stumbling around cow-eyed, like most of the pollywogs.
My role: the Royal Torturer, commander of the royal guard, and jailer of the deep. My real role: corrall the kids and keep them from killing each other. Mission accomplished. I left the pool deck after the last person performed the Neptune rite of passage. Let's just say, the decks needed swabbing, the pool needed draining, the filters needed cleaning, and everyone needed a bath. I was no exception!