18.1.2011 crossing the equator 11th Dress

18^th January 2011Crossing the equator and dress 11

We saw Flying fish, an aeroplane from the Brazilian air force and skua birds all before the bell 12.00noon today. Both the aircraft and the birds circled the Aurora for a while checking us out. Other than a ship on the horizon just after we left Madeira we have not seen any other ships and no birds’ whist crossing the Atlantic. .  Later in the afternoon we saw our first Frigate bird. We are 2 degrees south of the equator and we travelled 450 nautical miles at 19 knots yesterday. This is one of the longest distances we have covered in a day.  We are now 120 miles of the Brazilian coast

The temperature is 25 degrees it’s very windy and we are experiencing short tropical showers which are great fun at least the first time.  We can see the black cloud approaching so quickly and desperately try to clothe ourselves in the fierce wind without losing hats, shorts and wraps.  These showers only last a few minutes but of course no-one wants to get drenched.  For sunbathing I wear a very small bikini and a very large hat, David has some very small speedo type trunks.  We like to go to the top of the Ship – the sun Deck right at the front – it’s quiet and we can see where we are going. Our tolerance of the heat is quite short but we are turning a lovely shade of Brown.

This afternoon in accordance with Naval tradition there was a crossing the equator ceremony, Neptune his wife and mermaids made their entrance so Neptune’s wife’s is Dress Number 11. ‘She’ was played by the Ships Engineer. The ships company were obliged to complete certain tasks in competition with Neptune’s band of pirates they needed to win to gain us permission to cross the equator the ceremony was great fun lots of water. The afternoon finished with the initiation for the new members of the ships company, an initiation takes place only once for each sailor and gains them the freedom of the 7 seas for as long as they live. Their final task was to kiss the head of a dead fish.