Day 19 - Sunday Jan 15 at Sea day 5

Equator Crossing photos

position at 7:30 am: N1:59:51 latitude W134:28:04 longitude
(about 850 miles NW of Nuku-Hiva, Marquesas Islands, our next port)
temperature: 78F and 95% humidity
distance since FLL: 7354 miles
blackjack status: -$112.50 (did not play)

This morning they had a special breakfast in the Compass Rose. We did not check La Veranda so don't know about it. In CR they had either white scrambled eggs, or scrambled eggs with white toast, with Caviar and mimosas. Sorry for the confusion, but we did not have it and it was one way on the entrance sign and the waiter offered it the other way. Clay had lamb chops with 2 eggs over easy and wheat toast again and Debbie had raspberries and a ham and cheese omelet with wheat toast and cappucino. No chocolate croissants again today. During Captain Dag's morning "vords of visdom" he spoke about the low-lying cloud formation that has been traveling at the same speed and in the same direction as us and that hopefully we would shake it soon.

Debbie stumbed her toe trying to close the balcony door this morning. She says its broken and rice-d it. We will see how much it slows her down. (This is Debbie. My toe next to the big toe on my left foot is broken. Got Clay to help tape it to the adjoining toe. Not much else to be done with broken toes in any event, so will have to carry on.) Debbie has ceded the balcony to Clay, his present use of it precludes another person having space to get out there and close the door behind them by about 3 inches.

Lunch on the pool deck today was another Tex-Mex buffet. It was well attended. There was beautiful weather out for it today. Debbie got another beef burrito. Clay shot some video of the 4-foot breakers in the pool, but not sure there is any way to easily post it online. We should have crossed the equator at 2pm. (0:22:50 latitude right now 2:10pm) They are having a combination King Neptune ceremony with a Country Fair on the pool deck at 2:30 to 3:30pm. Debbie will have to go in her workout clothes because Absolutely Abs is at 3:30 and she is sure she can do that and is not sure how the broken toe will affect the rest of her exercise schedule.

We have a dinner engagement tonight with (southern lady from LCT) Donna and Alan. We are meeting at 6:30pm in the Observation Lounge and will decide from there whether to go to Compass Rose or LaVeranda. Donna took theaerobics class at 9:15 this morning and got a good workout.
There was a good turn out for the crossing the equator ceremony. It turns out that Staff Captain Green was a pollywog. So, they made an example of him. They had some green foam stuff they used as shaving lather and shampoo to get his uniform whites to turn a light green, and then pushed him backwards into the pool. The country fair was a series of gaming booths set up by different departments on the ship and manned by the staff members. For example, the hair saloon had a table game, the dining room staff had a game, etc. The passengers played the games to collect tickets. Then after 45 minutes, there was a drawing for 8 prizes. Clay shot video on his digital camera of the entire Neptune ceremony which lasted about 15 minutes. But the video lost sound about 30 seconds into the taping, so we are not saving that as the dialogue read mostly by Jamie Logan, cruise director, and King Neptune was the main point of the taping.

During the ceremony, Elaine whom we met at the dinner in LA, came up to Debbie and confessed that she was sealover on LCT. So, the mystery has been resolved. Debbie had guessed that she was sealover during dinner, but Elaine had denied it. Elaine said she had looked for us everyday since then to apologize and confess.

The sun did come out today during the King Neptune/Country Fair event and we were not sunscreened. Debbie is lobster-red! On top of everything else!

The Observation Lounge was closed when we went up to meet Donna & Alan. So, we met them in the hallway outside and we all went down to the Horizon Lounge where we saw Elaine again and Donna got to meet her. Elaine guessed Donna as southern lady immediately! We had dinner together in Compass Rose in their favorite section with Edwin and Emmanuel. We still don't have a favorite section really, they have all been good. We have a very enjoyable evening and were one of the last tables to clear the dining room! Past Clay's bedtime! Clay forgot to bring his camera tonight and Donna brought hers but after she had a bad and lengthy session trying to post a photo online, she thought better of having a picture taken of the 4 of us together!

Equator Crossing photos