PCV: Paid Caribbean Vacation

We had waited for so long to see what the great Neptune Day would share with us. I had heard all about it from friends about how it was and what happened but it is one of those things that experience is the only way to understand.
When crossing the equator, it is customary to pay homage to King Neptune (the God of the seas). When you are a regular land dweller as all of us were, you are considered by most to be a tadpole. Just a small creature that is not worthy of open waters. However, when you cross the equator, it is the way of the sea to be introduced to the King of the Seas and grow as a person to be more accepted by the sea.
The best thing about Neptune Day was there was no class. This might have meant that we got to sleep in, but we could not be this lucky. Instead we were awoken at 8am to the beating of drums and the crew screaming and chanting in the halls as they traversed the ship waking everyone up. I heard them, rolled over, looked at Zander and said, “It has begun.”
I then got up to get some breakfast before the festivities began at 9am. Now you will notice that we are a bit late when it comes to celebrating crossing the equator since we did it before Brazil but we are actually attending class after all and the administration couldn’t let on right away that we have some fun on this ship. I think it was important for us to go to Brazil first so that we understood what kind of things were expected of us in the classroom before they started giving us days off.
Once on deck 7, at 9am, the fun really began. People were everywhere around the pool and we were waiting for instruction. Then we heard the drums again. They were followed by a procession of faculty and finally King Neptune, who happened to be Captain Jeremy. King Neptune was painted green and sat in his royal chair by the pool. In order to go from tadpole to hard-shell, you had to pass the test. This test including getting in the line to have fish guts/rotten milk/oatmeal or something that was disgusting poured on your head. It smelled horrible but then we were instructed to jump into the pool. I had never been in the pool and had no idea that it was actually sea water so the salt hit me and made the nastiness of the fish guts stuff even worse. I was lucky enough to be one of the first 10 people or so to jump in. Not long after the water became close to milk and the longer people waited the worse off it became.
Upon getting out of the pool, we all got to make out. And by make out, I mean kiss a horrid smelling fish. One kiss for each of the two fish, and it wasn’t pleasant. Then you are in front of King Neptune and you have to make the decision to kiss his ring or not. If you do not kiss the ring, you get pushed back into the pool and the voyage starts anew. I felt the need to kiss a little more ass so I actually got on my hands and knees and bowed to him, then kissed his ring. Dean Mike was standing there to turn me from my inferior tadpole status into something that granted some respect as a hard-shell.
This seems like a great day already, but it had really just begun. The next tradition of Neptune Day is people shaving their heads. This was no big deal for me and I had been waiting for the day to lose my hair a long time because it was so long. The big challenge was to find out how many women were going to do it. I was surprised to find out that 37 women shaved their heads to supposedly set some kind of record for Semester at Sea. I feel that the number is actually higher but some only Mohawk their hair 2 days before and didn’t partake in the festivities of Neptune Day. Needless to say, our shipboard community looks like a bunch of skin heads walking around the ship rubbing each other’s heads all the time.
I decided that shaving it wasn’t enough and that I should do something different since I have shaved my head so many times in the past. I decided to go a bit further and actually shaved it with a razor. I bic-ed it as some were saying. It felt great and was a lot of fun although it was gone the next day and back to stubble. I find it awkward that my hair on my head still grows faster than my face. Someday I’ll go through puberty and become a big boy. That day was not today, and tomorrow isn’t looking good either.
The rest of the day was spent catching up in reading and homework and just trying to relax as much as possible. It was amazing to actually be able to do nothing for once. Not having weekends on the ship make relaxation hard because there never ever seems to be a break. Technically, our breaks are in port. However, anyone that knows anything about semester at sea realizes that we sleep as little as possible while in port so that we can eat up the country and soak in as much as possible. I look forward to more days with no classes, even though I do not know for certain if there will ever be another. If I have any suggestion it is to give us a day off and if there is anything planned that they make it after lunch so we can all enjoy a day to just sleep in. Everyone can do it; there will be no demands from anyone on the ship. This means you too Dean Mike, you too Captain Jeremy, and even you Archbishop Tutu. We might not deserve a break, but 23 days are hard on the body and a day to sleep the day away sounds like a fascinating day.

All hail King Neptune