PCV: Paid Caribbean Vacation

The writing of haikus on this ship is spreading like wild fire. What began as a stupid joke while sitting around reading one night has turned into a 20-person epidemic. We even have started arguments over words and how many syllables they have in them. The one that continues to come up night after night is the name Brian.
There is a crewmember that works a desk we always sit at and we make him talk to us even though most of the time he is trying to keep busy with something else. He is a great guy and throws in comments from time to time to shut us up. When writing haikus the other night, I wrote a few about him. He then told us that it didn’t work because Brian was a 1-syllable word. We all told him he was crazy and that he didn’t know what he was talking about but then he busted out the napkin and pen and gave us an explanation for why it was only 1 syllable. He says that according to the International Prophetic Association that the ‘ian’ in Brian is s trip thong and that you can’t separate it.
We do not believe him and tell him he needs to get with the picture but he insists that it is only 1 syllable. We have polled about 200 people on this ship and only 1 other person has ever said one, and one person even said 3. Needless to say, the results seem to remain that it is 2 syllables and those who think 1 or 3 are crazy and need to learn how to clap out their syllables all over again. They must have been absent in elementary school, or their teachers were just slacking because clapping them out is error proof.
Life on the ship is steady as usual. It rains a lot here. There is so much heat and moisture that it just dumps rain down on the ship at all times. We looked at satellite pictures of the clouds today and it is very evident why it rains. Pretty much all around the Equator are clouds, which would explain why the Internet has been even slower, if working, than it usually is. The weird thing is the decks do not have a drainage system on them really so when it rains, the water just goes back and forth with the roll of the ocean until one of the crew members comes out to mop the deck. I'm outside right now watching the water go back and forth and someone just came to get rid of the water. I think it is ridiculous but my thoughts on the crew will come later. They are some of the nicest people I have ever met and will do anything in their power to make you happy. They do all this with a smile 24 hours a day.
There are seagulls flying around the ship so we are obviously close to Brazil on the Starboard side. If it were not cloudy we would be able to see land maybe but for now it is still just water on all edges of the horizon. There are accounts of more and more rowboats being seen out at sea which is so weird to think that people pack themselves into a boat and try to row somewhere else in the world. I guess people will do whatever they have to do to find a better place but packing 10 people into a row boat with life jackets and hoping you land somewhere nice is a gamble that even the biggest risk taker would have to think about.
The sun is brutal. People are getting burnt like crazy here. Apparently we are near the Equator or something. I usually only have time to go out on the deck during lunch and dinner and everyone thinks I have the greatest tan ever. I don’t need to go lay out for hours on end to get blisters to get the desired color of skin. I figure after Brazil, I will be close to black. Hailee, if you read this, you better keep tanning because I'm gonna challenge you when I get back.
Tonight is cultural pre-port so my guess is we will dance around and make fools of ourselves like always. Tomorrow is my 1st test. We will just see how that goes. It’s mostly on geography, and I know my maps, so I think I’ll be ok. Only about 36 hours til Salvador, Brazil

Location: off the coast of Brazil
Latitude: 5° 8.41 S
Longitude: 34° 58.13 W