13/12 Crossing the line - Equator

Tuesday 13 December               Crossing the Line

We gained another hour overnight – 1 more to go – and also crossed the equator. Elizabeth joined us for brekky and we chatted on about Botswana and Cologne etc. The sun had been up to greet us – we just lift our head off the pillow and there it is – but it soon clouded over and spotted us with rain.

A gannet has befriended us! It soars effortlessly next to us, no more than 5 metres away, and then tilts its wings and soars up to the bridge or overtakes us – all without flapping a wing. Another one joined it after a while and seems to be much better at getting a feed. They both peel off and plunge down but only one goes in and the other banks around and rejoins us. We are sailing at 30 km/hr and the wind is across us so they are not getting a free ride. They only flap their wings when they are skimming the waves.

Can anyone identify this bird? Only 2 of these appeared, sometimes the tail split looking like a swallow tail.

Gym as usual and then the consequent laundry – tied the rope across the balcony. Now there are a dozen gannets seemingly doing very well for themselves. The morning ended with the traditional Court of King Neptune with a couple of hundred inductees to be daubed with paint, bolognaise, cream, flour, egg and dunked in the pool on the occasion of their first crossing. Pool was very dirty very quickly, was totally clean again by mid-afternoon.  Lunch, movie, nap, watch the gannets. A few extra treats tonight – more of that later. We are wondering about buying some internet – hasn’t been working for a few days at all and we haven’t had any access for about 6 days.

Treat 1 was the presence of a small archipelago of tiny islands right in our path, about 250km off the Brazilian coast. It was the first land we had seen for 5 days or so. There wouldn’t be many places you could cruise that would be so empty. They were going to be on our side of the ship but it was gym time so I went up to get the vantage point from over the bridge. I got the bike in the left front corner BUT the bloody gannets had crapped all over the window! Anyway I stayed there until we had got level and then came down for the balcony view and a cocktail before dinner. The islands formed a typical volcanic rim with generally jagged edges and studded with gnarly Gothic spires jutting up at unbalanced angles. They were green topped and apparently sustain some 3000 people. We gave them some rousing blasts from the horn as we passed. So one more sea day then the port of Salvador.

Fernando de Noronha

I took about 40 photos of these islands, so excited to see land.

Dinner was all about the Virgin Chicken, which Zuniga thought was hilarious. He suggested J didn’t qualify to order it? This kept him giggling until he brought the dessert with a pineapple ring, which he pronounced not to be virgin either. I just hope they never put coq au vin on the menu. They need to review the syllabus at the MSC college of waitpersonship. Manuel went and had a yarn with the Phillipino at the adjacent table. Apparently he is a dancer and has been working in Germany for 16 years. Now Renelda is wondering aloud whether he is married???

On to the show – Excalibur. It was another excellent performance from the song and dance team. The guest stars were perhaps the best yet – outstanding acts that would have featured highly in any of the Cirque du Soleil shows and yards above anything we had seen at sea. They had a couple that performed aerobatics in and around a hanging net and then a gymnastic balancing trio – 2 big men and a girl. One man always ended up carrying the other two in spectacular balances. This while the ship was rolling around a bit -  we have had steady crosswinds for a couple of days (50km/hr last night).

The night ended with a samba lesson followed by the Carnivale but it was packed with youngsters doing complicated and anatomically impractical Latino dances and jammed with older people watching. There is no possible way of watching anything sitting down because random peasants will just come and stand in front of you so the only recourse is to jostle in amongst them. Couldn’t be bothered and went to watch the rest of the movie.