Ship Life

Ship Life the past few days has been pretty interesting. We had Neptune Day finally in celebration of crossing the equator. By this time, we’ve crossed over and back a couple times but it just didn’t work out schedule wise. So, last Saturday, the day after India, the crew woke us up at 7:45am banging pots and pans up and down the halls. We got up for breakfast and then the ceremonies began around 8:45.

Our captain, Captain Jeremy, was painted all green wearing a speedo and a hula skirt as King Neptune. Our academic Dean was the goddess/queen and they presided over the ceremonies. As tradition has it, in order to pass from a  something to a shellback, you had to have fish guts dumped on you, kiss the feet of Neptune, kiss a fish and shave your head. A lot of people did the fish guts thing (colored water with some other gunk mixed in), and the fish kissing, while a select few shaved their heads. I was expecting a fair number of the guys to do it, but was shocked with the ratio was pretty split among guys to girls. Some of them had planned on doing it and I wasn’t surprised with those who did. But others just did it on a whim! Like oh, sure! Why wouldn’t I shave my head!? There were a few girls that just stunned me when I saw them bald. Two girls in particular—they’re cousins who had gorgeous long blond hair. Gone. Shaved it. I was seriously standing there holding my ponytail in fear. No way man, no way. Once everyone who wanted it had gone, the festivities were over and we had the day off classes, which was a nice day of recuperation after India.

Another factor of concern around the ship, is obviously the situation in Japan. We heard about it the last day in India and they broadcast the news station Aljazeera for us to keep up with. It was crazy—the top three stories they kept replaying over and over were the tsunami in Japan, the situation in Lybia, and Madison, Wisconsin’s protests over the governor’s bill. You know it’s pretty messed up with Aljazeera has a correspondent covering the story in Wisco. Anyway, the devastation in Japan was horrible. Luckily we weren’t directly affected by it, but it was horrible to see. We had just finished our tsunami unit in oceanography so we knew what these were capable of. And, as the 7th largest in recent history, this was bad. Our hearts went out for all of those effected as we watched the coverage.

Because we were due to port in Japan in a few weeks, we were monitoring the situation closely. At first we thought we might still have a chance of going there, but with the nuclear reactors going off and all the destruction and damage, it soon became clear that we couldn’t port there. If we did, we not only couldn’t go north to Tokyo and the like, but we would probably be interfering with relief efforts. They announced this and kept us waiting for a few days while they figured out an alternate port for us. The options being considered included South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan. I was personally hoping for South Korea, but with the radiation potentially being blown that direction, it was ruled out along with the Philippines, which was declared a no travel zone due to current wars. So, we’re going to Taiwan. Basically another port of China. Kinda bummed but at least Japan is easy to go back to someday in the future when they’re recovered and stable.

On a lighter note, yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day! Allie and I celebrated as much as we could given the ship circumstances and made our Irish ancestors proud. Hope you all had fun at home!