Neptune Day

Apologies that I'm only getting this blog started now, about 10 days into the voyage. The first few days after the faculty and students came on board were intense, with all-day orientation sessions followed by meetings with faculty and the admin team to get the voyage organized. During these orientations, I had double duty presenting the "voyage mission" to faculty and students as well as the themes of "global studies" (since I'm teaching one of the two courses). Once classes started, however, we soon settled into a routine that has been quite comfortable. On "B" days, I teach my global studies class on "the rise of new grat powers" in the morning, meet with the admin team, and then have time in the afternoon to work on other tasks. I organized a "cultural pre-port" on Brazil that was lots of fun, featuring Bahian food and music and ending with a demonstration of Bahian dance by the interport student, Natalia. She did a great job getting the students excited and informed about what they were going to see while simultaneously telling them about how Salvador reflected its colonial history in various ways that nicely reenforced what we'd begun talking about in classes.

Meanwhile, our family has started to get quite used to the comforts and pleasures of the ship. This picture to the right shows Mike Timko (UVA Biology prof) in front of the area where we usually have breakfast. The one below shows Isabelle and Gabrielle enjoying a meal on the sixth-deck balcony. We've had nothing but sunshine and pretty smooth seas for this first leg to Brazil, so we've been out here every morning!


The most photogenic part of the first passage to Brazil, however, was the Neptune Day celebration held to mark our crossing of the equator. The photo at the start of this posting shows King Neptune and his court presiding over the ceremony. Three of those shown are faculty members on the voyage who have crossed the equator before on previous voyages. The other, on the far right, is Loren Crabtree, one of the VPs from the ISE office who sailed with us to Brazil as an advisor. Armin Rosencrantz is the faculty member speaking to the assembled crowd.

In the ceremony, those graduating from "pollywog" status to "shellback" were required to have fishy water poured over their head, kiss a fish, kish the ring of Queen Minerva, and then be knighted by sword of Loren Crabtree. If we ever do this again, I could serve in one of these roles.