Neptune Yes, Spoons No

It's a tough day to write a blog entry. My keyboard and I are bouncing out of synch.

I zig.

It zags.

The boat's motion is pretty violent. We are blast-reaching toward Fernando de Neronha, our scoring gate, and making 17 knots.

Early this morning we crossed the equator and—every bit as reliable as Santa on Christmas— King Neptune boarded us at 10 am. A clever fellow, Neptune. He timed his arrival to coincide with a change of watch and, not to disturb us unnecessarily, disguised himself to resemble our crewman Johnnie Portman. (Johnnie crossed the equator in the previous race and so was not a rookie to receive the traditional ceremonial hazing.) I was a rookie, so there I was, and there was Neptune with a beard, crown and cape, trident in hand.

One by one, we first-timers were punished for our sins.

Sins that included, for example, coming onto watch late, leaving personal gear lying around the interior, or hoarding candy bars. I was punished for my persistence in maintaining our boat's heading. Neptune was not happy. He told the crew: "Matt pokes his head up on deck to tell the guys, 'We're sailing two degrees too low, the course is 240.' Fifteen minutes later it's, 'We're three degrees too high; the course is 240.' And fifteen minutes after that, 'The course is still 240, can you press it up 2 degrees?' "

Apparently, after thirteen days, this gets annoying. Who would have thought?

My punishment was to sing the Star Spangled Banner to the crew. Then a ladle of "brew" was dumped on each rookie's head. The "brew" was made from seawater and freeze-dried detritus that had been left to fester below in the heat of the doldrums for the past couple of days.

It was a great way to start the day and, actually, I mean that.

Getting back to what we're here for: Today, due to our easterly position on the fleet, we launched past the Russians and have left them over 40 miles in our wake. As I write, Ericsson 3 is eight miles in front and to leeward. We are closing quickly. We have only 60 miles of runway to Fernando, however. We hope we can catch them before we pass the scoring gate.

P.S. For those of you who are keeping track of our 'spoon count', Stu broke our last one today.

Editor's note: One of Matt's dedicated readers suggests that we offer further reading on the traditional transformation from Pollywog to Shellback at the crossing of the equator. Here's a wikipedia link.