Leslie and David's Wanderings: 5 - 9 April 2024 Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands to Hilo, Hawaii, USA

Our first full day at sea we did what cruisers do, ate too much, drank too much, worked on our tans and did nothing! Between the 6^th and 7^th, around 1:06Am, we crossed into the northern hemisphere. For sailors, your first crossing of the equator is a big deal. Before you cross the equator, you are called a polywog. The more seasoned sailors will hold a Neptune ceremony where the polywogs are inducted into the ranks of the Shellbacks. Typically, this involves some humiliating hazing rituals. We did not get to see the crew go through this ritual. But they held a version for the guests up on the pool deck. King Neptune and his Queen presided over the ritual for guests crazy enough to volunteer (about 25 of them). They had to get on their knees (tough for old folks) and asked King Neptune to accept them as Shellbacks. Then they had to kiss a dead fish before being drenched in cold ice water. I’m sure it was pretty mild compared to what they put the crew through, but it made for fun entertainment. The decks are heaving about 10 feet in the swells and they are predicting it will be worse in the morning. During the day, we collected a piece of card board and some printer paper from the reception desk and made a Pin Hole projector. The Captain announced over the PA that we would be able to see a partial eclipse from our position south of Hawaii shortly after sunrise. The morning of the 8^th, we got up just after sunrise and went up to the pool deck. The upper decks (10 and 11) were closed off due to the wind and swells. We stacked out a seat on the pool deck and used our pin hole projector to observe the solar eclipse. There was a bank of clouds at just the right height to obscure the sun most of the time but in the breaks we could see the eclipse. The wind was blowing hard, so David had to use both his hands to hold the carboard steady, and Leslie used both of her hands to hold the screen steady. Result was we could not take a picture of the screen. There were a few other guests and crew trying to watch the eclipse. Some tried sunglasses combined with the tinting of the windows in Horizons, but that was not enough filtering for safe viewing. Others tried to use their phone cameras but we knew that would not work due to the intensity of the sun. There were other folks staking out their pool deck chairs for the day already! Who knew the ship was so busy at dawn? The 9^th we worked on our tans some more and read our books. We started a native crafts class during the at sea period. We made necklaces from nuts and shells and started on another shell necklace.