I hadn’t planned to post anything today as we rounded the eastern tip of Brazil on our way to Recife, but there was enough of interest to merit an update.
After breakfast we returned to the cinema, which is becoming one of our favorite venues on the ship, for a 9:00 am showing of “Pele: Birth of a Legend,” a moving docudrama about the soccer superstar’s rise from poverty to become the world’s greatest soccer player, leading Brazil to the 1958 World Cup championship at the age of seventeen. While I knew a lot about Pele, I certainly didn’t know how truly humble his childhood was. It’s a wonderful movie, and I recommend it highly.
We had quite a surprise at lunch when our tablemate glanced out the window and spotted two men on a small raft. I have to confess that I’m puzzled, because we’re not near land, and this isn’t an area where people might be using a raft to flee to another country. To our east there’s nothing but the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Africa, and there’s only Brazil for a very long way north and south. We were clearly close enough to them for the bridge crew to see them, and I imagine they signaled the rafters to ask if they needed help, but I don’t really know. At any rate, the sun was shining, the seas were mild to moderate, and they weren’t waving like they needed any help. So, we kept going, and it will remain a mystery, at least to me.
After lunch we went out to the pool deck to witness the zaniness of a traditional equator-crossing ceremony. While these ceremonies have been around for years, there’s no formal script, and it’s more of an “anything goes” thing that would be called hazing if it took place in a locker room or college fraternity. In this case King Neptune summoned a couple senior crew members to represent all of the crew members who had crossed the equator for the first time on Christmas Day. Also summoned was a young passenger and TikToker named Brooklyn to represent all the first time passengers. Clearly she’d been tipped off and agreed, as I’m sure the ceremony will only make her TikTok views go up. Long story short, King Neptune decreed that they each kiss a fish and have ice and water dumped over them. It was all good fun, and now they and the rest of us are all “shellbacks,” veterans of an equator crossing.
By the way, while I’m on the subject of TikTok, our cruise continues to generate interest on social media, to the extent that the Today Show did a segment on it a day or two ago. The buzz continues to surprise me, but if you missed it and are interested, here’s a link to the Today Show segment.
We had planned to see my new friend, Professor Tremura, give the last of his three lectures on Latin music this afternoon, but there was some confusion over where and when it was, and long story short, we missed it. Hopefully I’ll catch up with him one more time before he disembarks in Rio. With a little unexpected time on my hands I wandered up to the top deck to try my hand at miniature golf. Needless to say, it didn’t go well on the moving ship. That’s my excuse anyway, and I’m sticking to it. Maybe I’ll try again someday when the ship is docked snugly in port.
On the nature front, I’ve also enjoyed watching the masked boobies fly alongside our ship for the past several days. My working hypothesis is that the ship stirs up the fish, improving the large birds’ dining prospects. Today one of the birds actually landed on our helipad, and another passenger got a photo. I hope she won’t mind if I share it with you. They really are quite impressive.
I’m going to try to get this post out early today. There’s no show scheduled in the main theater tonight and we have to assemble for our excursion in Recife tomorrow at 7:15 am, so I’ll probably call it an early night. I’ll be back after Recife, so until then, boa noite from the apparently famous (at least on TikTok) Serenade of the Seas.
In keeping with the theme of our three ports of call in Brazil, today’s movie was, “Pele: Birth of a Legend.” I can’t recommend it highly enough.
I managed to get a photo of the two men on a small raft that we passed around noon today. No idea why they were so far out in the Atlantic, but they didn’t seem to need any help.
King Neptune and his wife presiding over the hilarity of the equator crossing ceremony.
The ship’s hotel manager getting an ice bath on behalf of all the crew members who crossed the equator for the first time.
Passenger and TikToker Brooklyn kissing a fish on behalf of all the passengers who crossed the equator for the first time. I have no doubt that her TikTok views will only go up.
Masked boobies have been flying alongside our ship for several days, enjoying the improved fishing we seem to be providing them with. This one landed on our helipad. They really are magnificent birds.
I’d throw in this time zone map at the end, because I think it’s quite interesting. Currently we’re two hours ahead of the eastern U.S., and we’ll stay that way all the way around Antarctica and up the west side of South America. And, if I’m reading it right, we’ll get those two hours back all at once when we reach Peru. We’ll see.
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