Crossing the Equator - 00° 00' 00" N 104° 51' 02" E

King Neptune smiled!

We had a sensational sail down from Nongsa.  We screamed along under full sail, hitting 11 knots, and feeling very flash.  We love the silence of sailing - free nautical miles without the throb of the engine.  Flat seas, no ship traffic, save the odd fishing boat.  A perfect sail for our last days as Pollywogs.

We left Mesanak under beautiful blue skies and in six knots of wind. The minutes of latitude ticked down.  Suddenly - dead calm, not a breath of wind so with heavy hearts, we started the engine.  Then, with just a few minutes of latitude to go, the wind picked up, we turned off the engine and sailed across to the Southern Hemisphere!


Anticipation and excitement builds....
The Equator
Some rum for King Neptune

And no crossing is complete without the sea-ditty:

Four polliwogs left Nongsa,
Took Popeye and our songs out,
To sail across The Equator,
And arrived a few days later
In Belitung, south hemisphere
To take a plane outa here

To be a Shellback would be great
We'd dance and sing a celebrate
But first we'd have to prove our worth
And cross the line that rings the Earth
On Wednesday morn we started out
The wind was kind so sails went out
King Neptune's favour we did seek
We'd bow to him, we would not speak
An unkind word. His great domain
The sea, could boil, we'd not complain.

As we drew near, the sea grew flat
But would that stop us? No, not that!
With motor on, we glided through
The sea as closer the Equator drew
So now we've gone across the Equator,
We're different now - we all feel greater
We've kissed a fish, paraded 'round
It's been three days since we've touched ground

The sails were up, the line's been crossed
The boats alright, no lives were lost
Salam, King Neptune, Terama Kasi
Now Shellbacks we will always be
Lorne, Kate, Joelle and old Sean too
Have sailed across the ocean blue,
Polliwogs no more...  Yahoo!



Our first Southern Hemisphere swim


.. and our first sunset

Comments

  1. Highlight of the trip (at least for me) crossing the equator under sail. So glad the wind piped up just in time.

    ReplyDelete

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