The Equator!

The Equator! How we spent two hours bobbing about between two hemispheres. The equator-crossing ceremony. How we welcomed Neptune and his assistant and drank seawater. Letters from the mainland. Jewish jazz and a stairway to heaven for the lookout: land! And birds with blue (!) beaks. The Equator and the Ceremony “I, Neptune, King of the Seas and Oceans, Lord of Storms, Typhoons, Hurricanes and Cyclones, hereby witness and solemnly certify that the brave young sailor of the sailing yacht Lady Mary, Lada Klochkova, on the 25th day of March 2018, at 17 hours 18 minutes Ship’s Time, at the meridian of latitude 00°00′00″ and longitude 87°33′00″, crossed the EQUATOR, the boundary of the Great Kingdom. She was baptised with salty seawater. She was initiated into the Order of the Ocean Depths and enrolled among the Souls of the Sea, and therefore I grant her unlimited permission to sail in my waters.” The Captain presents a unique example of the transmigration of souls, tapping his gleaming trident and shaking his silver crown. Fully aware of the importance of the moment, the young sailor accepts the colourful Certificate from Neptune’s hands. At around five this evening, the Lord of the Oceans climbed aboard Lady Mary from somewhere astern, without losing a single sapphire from his magnificent crown or even getting his trident wet. The sails had been lowered well in advance, and the yacht was drifting quietly along the equator, constantly threatening to lie beam-on to the waves. Owing to this unfortunate circumstance, the video tripod never found a suitable spot and was lashed on in a “well, at least it won’t fall over” fashion. This did nothing whatsoever to improve the video. To set the mood, Captain Vrungel had already been singing his equator song in the cockpit for the better part of an hour, and the King of the Sea had managed to learn the words of the special Neptune song. To its tune, the crew were ordered to answer the question: What fleet are you from, lad, what steamer, and on which seas have you sailed, sailor? And the seafarers replied, as they should: We have travelled all around the World... The fish is covered in ink—she was practising her handwriting all morning Out of nowhere appeared a flying fish with a billowing tail-skirt the colour of the sea and a silvery turquoise tiara to match Neptune’s crown. They looked like Father Frost and the Snow Maiden, ocean-style. The sailor scooped up a bucket of seawater, which Neptune poured into shot glasses that had just been cleaned with toothpaste, and—A toast! To our first equator! Bottoms up! The first mate advised the sailor not to sip the ocean water through clenched teeth while grimacing, but to knock it back like a shot of vodka. Given the sailor’s age and lifestyle, her mother’s advice had no effect. The young sailor, however, did everything properly: she tossed back the shot in a flash, screwed up her face and reached for a cucumber—a sweet. There it is! The Equator! It was important to take a screenshot showing the current latitude as 00°00′00″. Since the hundredths of a minute (one minute = 1/60 of a degree) tick by veery quickly, Lady Mary spent a long time tacking back and forth across the equator, half a minute north, half a minute south, until at last the button was pressed at just the right moment! To Vrungel’s “Tooru-tootoo-tootoo!!!” we opened a bottle of children’s champagne and filled our glasses. Hooray! Then the crew were supposed to leap shrieking over the side and manage to swim to the stern ladder before the yacht drifted too far away, deprived of most of her crew. Nobody even remembered to put a life jacket on the young sailor, but she made the swim perfectly well without one :). The solar shower bag on deck had heated the water to almost hot during the day, so washing off the salt was as pleasant as being at a spa overlooking the ocean just before sunset. The yacht was joyfully surrounded by protected Galápagos birds, snow-white, with wings edged in black feathers, legs stretched backwards like ballet dancers, and utterly penguin-like yellow-beaked faces outlined in black. A pair circled the yacht until sunset, which here, at the most perpendicular angle in the world, plopped into the ocean so briskly that even the young sailor began investigating how the speed of sunset varies at different latitudes. . The Banquet Continues Surprised at how quickly the official part of the celebration had passed, Ladunya demanded that the banquet continue. And all evening the Captain ate Ferrero Rocher (opened for the occasion), wearing his crown and hugging his trident. When darkness fell, the crew settled down to watch Captain Vrungel. After Vrungel, Lada insisted on reading and would not let me read a single word. Now it is the children who read bedtime stories to the adults. “What a lovely day it’s been!” the young sailor sighed contentedly before bed and went aft, where the Cap was already snuffling away in preparation for the night watch. Sailor Nastya settled into the cockpit for the night watch, which she handed over to the first mate at midnight without incident. The first mate lasted until three, after which Andryukha was woken, having transformed back from Neptune into the Captain. And in the morning the Captain established contact with space, and together, with great pleasure, we read your comments, emails from loved ones, and messages on the website from readers we do not yet know but who are very cool. This is one of our favourite moments on long passages. Thank you, dear people on the mainland, for giving the crew such wonderful moments! In his delight, Andryukha brought a speaker into the cockpit, and the sounds of some kind of Jewish jazz poured out. “Land will be coming into view soon,” said the Cap, and climbed all the way up to the spreaders, using steps rigged between the shrouds as high as they could possibly go. Birds are sitting on the water to starboard, including grey ones with blue beaks! These are very strange birds—mesmerisingly strange. Boobies An hour passed, and from the stairway to heaven came a thunderous cry of LAAAND!!!. To be continued tomorrow! (We can hardly wait to tell you ourselves :)). Current coordinates: 00°38′ SOUTH latitude, 89°10′ west longitude.