20240415 (16th here) Sapphire Princess South Pacific Cruise Day 12 - sea day crossing the equator - did you feel that bump?

Sapphire Princess South Pacific Cruise Day 12 - Sea Day - crossing the equator

We're still at sea, making our way from Hawai'i to Samoa. When we went to bed last night, it was Sunday evening. When we awoke this morning, it was Tuesday. No Monday. No April 15. No tax day! Woo! That was all the result of crossing the international date line yesterday. Today, we'll make our way across the equator later this afternoon, moving from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere, and transitioning from spring to fall. It doesn't matter as it remains in the 80s year-round here at the equator.

When we opened the drapes this morning, we were treated with a lovely rainbow to start our transition day.

The day was generally normal for us with ukulele lessons for Arlona and three sessions of trivia. Our team got its first outright win this morning, so that was fun. Here are our mistakes throughout the day.

• Epistemophobia is the fear of what?
• Knowledge
• What country governs Christmas Islands?
• Australia
• How many flavors are in Dr. Pepper?
• We guessed 13, but it was 23
• Delta, Diamond, and Box are types of what?
• We guessed turtles, but duh - these are kites
• How long is a dog's gestation period?
• We guessed 42 days - it was 58-68 days
• How many kids did Cleopatra have?
• We guessed zero, but it was four
• What was the first James Bond novel?
• We guessed On Her Majesty's Secret Service - it was Casino Royale
• What company was established in Switzerland in 1866 to market baby formula?
• Nestle
• From which language does the word, chocolate, originate?
• Nahuatl - the Aztec language - Aztec was acceptable

We hit up the Trident Grill again today - this time for dogs.

I spotted a few boobys flying along with the ship and diving for fish. They were out a bit so I couldn't get any great photos but these were adequate.

I did some reading and Arlona continued working on a knitting project. But then, the time grew close for the epic equator crossing. We were ready.

I watched our position on a compass app when suddenly, there it was - the equator!

It is a little-known fact that I just made up that the equator is color-coded by the ocean. It shows as yellow in the Pacific as seen in this awesome capture as we crossed. Of course, there was a slight bump as the ship passed over the mark.😀

If you look at the location, you can see that we are 0.4 seconds of latitude south of the equator or about 36 feet after crossing the equator, plus or minus 42 feet

On the way to dinner, we were treated to dolphins playing toward the horizon - too far for a photo, but fun to see. We also got another decent sunset.

Here's a look at tonight's menu.

We opted for the Cobb salad and the pork tenderloin with applesauce. It was a nice dinner. The chocoholic cheesecake rounded out the meal.

We headed to the theater early, just before 7:00 for the 7:30 show. Again, the place was already jammed more than 30 minutes before showtime.

Tonight's performer was Rob Rasner, billed as a comedy magician.

His act was fun and enjoyable

I even got called up on stage to help with a trick

The sky was stunningly clear tonight. We went up to deck 15 and checked out the stars. You could clearly see the Southern Cross. It's tough to photograph stars on a moving ship, so there is a little motion blur in the stars. I also added lines to define the constellation.

The moon was on display as well, turned from the orientation we see in the northern hemisphere.

It was another nice day. Tomorrow will be interesting as they will have the formal (and messy) equator-crossing ceremony. Armondo, the Cruise Director, mentioned it several times today. The printed Princess Patter daily schedule and the online schedule in the Princess app don't have anything about it. This isn't the first time there have been schedule issues. The other day, the printed Patter and the online schedule disagreed about the location and time for an event. On most cruise lines, they tell you to believe the online schedule as it is constantly updated as things change and it is impossible to reprint and deliver paper schedules all the time. But...in that case, the printed schedule was correct and the online version was wrong. Sure seemed odd. Now, neither have anything about the ceremony tomorrow and they also don't have the updates to regularly scheduled events that have been moved to accommodate the ceremony. We'll see if they can get their act together by the morning.