Location: Equator
Calling all Pollywogs!
This morning, Argo’s crew woke to a special note from the high seas:
“Prepare thine finest talents or performances and a worthy sacrifice to be made to Neptune’s Ocean to please the mighty Royal Shellback Court. Should you please this Court, you may be granted safe passage across the Equator and bestowed the title of Shellback. Should you displease the Court, you must complete the gauntlet of the sea. Come dressed in thine finest garb. Fair wind and following seas, Pollywogs, you’ll need it.”
Just after sunrise, Talia and Sylver paraded around to wake up the entire crew to come together on deck for the big countdown and watch as we sailed into the northern hemisphere. We all crowded around the chart plotter to watch our latitude countdown to 0 and for the S turn to an N. To celebrate, we immediately broke into a dance party and conga line around the boat. As King Neptune is a busy guy and there are lots of boats crossing the Equator, we had to wait a few hours for him and his Royal Court to visit Argo and put us up against the toughest tests of the sea. After a lovely lunch of homemade biscuits, gravy, bacon and watermelon prepared by Chef Maddy, our time finally had come. Sporting attire ranging from Gumby suits to dresses to expensive swimwear, the crew gathered in the cockpit, hoping their sacrifices and talents would be deemed worthy. Some performed poems, dances, and songs, while others made animal noises, drew portraits, and drank dishy pit water. While the most common sacrifice was the crew’s most treasured snacks, the most daring was shaving their entire head. Olympus, Ben, Eli, Isaac, and Sylver all entered this hemisphere with new (no) hair! However, the Royal Court was not pleased with the efforts of Kara, Nini, Ben, Zac, Benny, and Kiki. To prove their worthiness, they had to take Zamboni cereal off the deck, sing at the top of their lungs, and be baptized in dishy pit water from lunch. Now satisfied, King Neptune read an original poem aloud and ceremoniously welcomed the pollywogs into the righteous shellback squad.
To continue the fun and games, the students sat for a Marine Biology Exam, and Kara led the class in Leadership where she discussed group and team dynamics, and we even got to play bingo. Dinner was another delicious success of lasagna soup with an amazing sunset on the side to end our action-packed day of costumes, showbiz, and bravery.