Just for Joy: Day 30 - Kissing the Fish

Usual morning. In Tai Chi Jorge adds a new move each sea day, and this is our 16^th sea day. Most cruises only have a few sea days, and you can see in his teaching where he’s getting into the bits he doesn’t get to do very often. Kudos to him, though, because he’s doing some work in his down time to make sure he’s a step ahead. Today we really worked the last 4 or 5 exercises, which was nice.

After that I went to hear Kevin Lowell who is presenting a series on “Staying Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.” This was rhe 4^th lecture in the series and it was very good – it was about storytelling and was half about using AI and half about personal growth and all well done. I will try to get to the rest of the lectures and maybe go back and listen to the earlier ones.

There was a break until 11 and the Equator crossing celebration at the Seaview pool for the crew. This is a longtime maritime tradition to take sailors from pollywogs to shellbacks. We got up on the back deck about half an hour early and it was already packed, but we managed to score good spots on the starboard side railing on deck 9. It was a good time with ice water, colored meringue, a disgusting beverage concoction and of course fish kissing. Dario was wearing a black robe (ugh, hot!) and white wig and was the barrister presenting the crew, and he had an elaborate script listing the “crimes” of each department. King Neptune and Queen Neptuna were there judging all the crew and sentencing them to fish-kissing (at which we would all chant Kiss the Fish! Kiss the Fish!). The Captain and senior officers were there at the end to send the new shellbacks to sit in the sun or float in the pool. After it was over Captain Cadet (the cadet who looks and behaves like he’s already a Captain, in a good way) was hanging out in a corner of the pool looking very satisfied with the proceedings, and I think that’s a good summary. And as you already saw, we (along with many other passengers) kissed the fish to complete our crossing. It was slimy!

We had 12:15 reservations at the Pinnacle grill for the Rijstaffel Indonesian lunch. It was a fixed menu that started with shrimp crackers and 7 condiments and moved through 3 delicious courses. They had two different sambals, sambal bajak and sambal bawang, and the sambal bajak was absolutely fabulous – we had two small bowls of it. It was a lot of food, but not overwhelmingly so, and it was all really good.

The lunch moved pretty quickly, but it was still almost 2 by the time we got done. While we were there Dario stopped by to check in with Dave about tonight’s star gazing & also to confirm that he’ll be giving a lecture in the Wajang theater later in the cruise. Exciting! I went back to the room and grabbed my ‘uke for ‘uke group. It was a smaller group but still fun, and we learned a new song – Don’t take my sunshine away. We’ve given up on brown eyed girl for the moment, which is good. My C to G7 and back is getting much faster!

My plan had been to go to the gym after, but I stopped in to check the schedule and there was a class there at 3:30. So I grabbed my laptop and went out to deck 7 aft, found a place to set up, and did aerobics for a half hour. It was HOT and I drank my whole 20 ounces. Then I went to the pool, which has gotten pretty warm but still felt good. Back to the room, shower & get ready for dinner. There was lamb again, and it was very good.

We went out to 6 forward to look at the perfectly clear sky and for Dave to do some orienting, which was tricky because the talk will be off the back of the ship – different stars. Then to the show, which we were looking forward to. It was Jesse Kazemek again, this time broadening his palette to include 50s and 60s rockers. It was a fun show with lots of singing along. I went to do some dancing while Dave finished getting ready. Then it was finally time!

Like everything else, the turnout was great for the talk. They’d set out chairs and people brought out more chairs and sat around the edge of the pool. They were able to turn off a lot of lights, so the view south off the back of the ship was pretty good. Dave and Rabbi Richard talked about the movement of the stars and the awesomeness of them while our eyes got used to the dark, and then they took turns speaking. Dave had a green laser and was able to point out a lot of stuff. There’s little wind tonight, which meant that the smoke from the engines was streaming back right overhead – our own local milky way – hiding a lot of stars, and of course clouds came in right over Orion which was the showpiece, but it was an excellent talk. Ilene says Dave should become a lecturer on the ship. I agree.

Reality check: I was checking my mail and there was an e-mail about a Christmas gift exchange. It was in the 80s today, and sunset is at 5:30 pm. It doesn’t feel like people should be talking about Christmas. We’re in for a shock in a few days!