Howdy, Northern Hemsiphere

Equator crossing number two . . .

. . . aaaand, we're across.

Looking back to our first crossing, southbound through the Atlantic from Spain to South Africa, I missed the crossing. I was asleep, hunched over the keyboard of my nav station. So it was gratifying to be conscious for this second crossing to see the ‘S’ change to an ‘N’. It’s a cool thing to watch if you are a navigator type. For some reason, only sailors make a big deal about crossing the equator. On airplane flights they make hardly a mention. For us, the crossing ritual is taken seriously.

As ourr offering to King Neptune, we donated tomorrow’s ration of beef jerky.

I hope he likes beef jerky.

Unfortunately, those of us who were equatorial virgins and thus duly punished by King Neptune on our crossing, southbound in leg one, didn’t have the opportunity to pass along the ‘spirit’ of the punishment tradition to a new comer, this time.

Or fortunately, for someone. This would have been a brutal passing for a first-timer. Stu Wilson, who’s been over the equator any number of times, informed us, “Neptune seems to be angrier, the slower the boat speed and the calmer the wind”.

Considering that in leg one we were blast-reaching at 15 knots, it was all Neptune could do to organize a slurry of food to dump on our heads. I got off easy. In becalmed conditions and where the first time crossers are outnumbered by 10 to 1, Stu has instigated ‘ceremonies’ that have lasted the entire day. His favorite: Duct taping first-timers' hands to the grinder-pedestal handles.

You are warned.

The Green Dragon is still alongside, 200 meters away. The drag race continues.

And it is a grueling grind through light air to the finish. With Ericsson 4 and Telefonica Blue already in Cochin, the boats still out have special demons to fight. Over the weekend, before it got quite so hard, Matt reflected on the situation in an audio broadcast that you can listen to here.