Neil Wylie
Wednesday, March 15th, 2023 Queen Victoria, at sea
Updated: Jul 3, 2023
Today we crossed the equator back into the northern hemisphere and we attended the onboard ceremony that has been a maritime tradition for a couple of hundred years, turning “pollywogs” into “shellbacks”. The ceremony was overseen by King Neptune and his court who passed judgement on those first timers seeking to become shellbacks. A band of ship’s musicians playing New Orleans jazz led in the court (crew members in suitable attire) and soon the pollywogs were brought to the side of the pool, judgment was swift, and the candidates were doused in a sickly-looking mixture of old soup, and then “thrown” in the pool. It was all great fun.
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