At around 1130 boat time on 18th January, SANYA LAN crossed the Equator and the four Equatorial Virgins got to meet the King of the Ocean. For Dave, Cam, Tiger and myself it has been a long time coming having missed out on leg one. There was a noticeable sense of nervousness on board, as no one quite knew what to expect.
The GPS hit 0’00. 00 on latitude and King Neptune and his faithful assistant Codfish emerged from down below to greet the first time crossers. The four of us were bound together and tied to the stern of the yacht and awaited our questioning and ultimately our punishments. We were donned with dried flying fish 'necklaces’, a gift from the mighty King Of The Ocean. Each of us were given an array of questions and for each wrong answer a specific punishment followed which usually consisted of a dousing of sludge that smelled like it had been brewing since we left Madagascar.
Thankfully the ceremony was over before we knew it and, as if on cue, we were greeted by some of Neptune’s friends, a pack of dolphins that jumped and played next to the boat for the next 5 minutes welcoming us to the Northern Hemisphere.
We are back on track with the masthead zero up making 9 knots and heading straight for the finish. We are all certainly eager for a cold drink, a cold glass of water would actually suit us just fine to start off with. We are looking forward to catching up with our shore team and getting straight in to preparing the boat for leg 3 stage 2! We can’t wait to get back out here again…
Andrés
