20241217 Seabourn Sojourn Grand Africa Cruise Day 22/96 - Sea Day Gulf of Guinea Equator ceremony

Grand Africa Cruise Trip Day 22/96 -Sailing the Gulf of Guinea and an early celebration of pollywogs becoming shellbacks

We're still a couple hundred miles north of the equator, but the equator crossing celebration was held today to take advantage of favorable weather.

Prosecutor (and Cruise Director), Nick, kicking things off

King Neptune and his bride, arriving

The "Medical" team would pelt the accused with the marks of shame (colored meringue)

Members of the King's court

A pair of mermaids

The King and Queen, seated and prepared for judgment

Our Master of the Vessel, Captain Hamish Elliott, came to plead our case

He asked the King to be merciful - he said each of the accused would be judged fairly

Captain Hamish humbly accepted

He then joined the King and Queen in judgment of the accused

One by one, each of the accused was judged to be guilty and forced to kiss the fish

Yes, they were real, dead fish

The accused were marked and thrown in the pool

The judges were pleased and Neptune granted safe passage

Cruise Director, Nick, even joined in the fun

Captain Hamish even jumped into the pool

There was a distinct change in the color of the water - the pool was closed, drained, cleaned, and refilled after the event

Trivia today was a one-off event featuring questions submitted by the teams. Each of the nine teams submitted one question and each of the three hosts supplied one each for a total of twelve questions. They were all interesting, so here they are.

• What are the full names of all six of Henry VIII's wives?
• Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Kathryn Howard, Catherine Parr
• Who designed the wrapper for Chupa Chups?
• We had no idea what they even were, but it was Salvador Dali
• What is the quadratic equation?
• We gave an example as ax2+bx+c=0 which is correct, but he really wanted the quadratic formula of x = [-b ± √(b2 - 4ac)]/2a - they are not mathematicians nor were the team that created that question
• How many countries are there in Africa?
• 54 - we got this correct
• What animal always has four offspring and each set is all the same gender?
• Armadillos
• What is the longest word in the English language? (this was our question)
• Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicivilcanoconiosis (black lung disease) - we got this right
• How many cervical vertebrae does a giraffe have?
• All mammals (except sloths and manatees) have seven
• What company owns Lamborghini and Bugatti?
• VW - we got this correct
• What is the largest freshwater lake by volume?
• Lake Baikal in Serbia - Lake Superior is larger by surface area but Lake Baikal is deeper
• How long did it take to build the Panama Canal?
• Ten years - we got this correct
• What are the names of the two lions in front of the New York Public Library?
• Patience and Fortitude
• What was the first song played in space?
• Jingle Bells on December 16, 1965, during NASA's Gemini 6A space flight

We finished in a multi-way tie for third. We felt that was respectable given the difficulty of the questions.

Today, Arlona's art project was a changeable-length beaded necklace and pearl earrings.

We didn't attend the port briefing for tomorrow's destination, São Tomé (the city) in the small island country of São Tomé and Príncipe as we had a scheduling conflict. We did watch it later on in our room.

The conflict was a reception for the 90-day Grand Africa cruisers on this journey - nearly half of the passengers. They held the reception in The Club on Deck #5 aft. They served appetizers, drinks, and caviar as Amber and the band played requests from the audience.

It was a nice gathering and we enjoyed Amber and the band. We joined another couple in The Restaraunt for dinner before going back to the suite for the evening. We were both tired and an early evening was in order.

Tomorrow, we will anchor and take tenders into São Tomé for a highlights tour.