Neptune Day: Semester at Sea style

 

Of all the lore about Semester at Sea full voyages, Neptune Day has had my attention for the longest. I remember receiving a letter from my friend Shawn Rohwedder in Australia this past year encouraging me to work on this voyage. She ended her sweet note challenging me to partake fully in Neptune Day and shave my head! Little did I know at the time, this letter is what spurred me on to shave it myself quickly after the letter – making less of a spectacle than Neptune Day in front of 1,000’s of people but completing this elusive challenge I had for myself. I made the right decision; there was clearly no time for me to stop and shave my own head this day because I buzzed heads for 4 hours straight!

Neptune Day is an ancient maritime tradition dating back to the 19th century. There are certain levels sailors obtained based upon sailing through certain key spots on the Earth: Suez Canal, Panama  Canal, sailing all 5 Great Lakes, and crossing the Artic Circle, for example. For us, crossing the auspicious point of intersection between the Prime Meridian and the Equator signified a highly obtained status: Royal Diamond Shellback.

Semester at Sea celebrates Neptune Day each voyage with a full morning of activities involving crew, faculty, staff and students. There is no one on the boat that is left out. Crew obnoxiously jolts everyone out of bed with loud clanging of cymbals and instruments, while all of the Shellbacks (staff & faculty who have previously sailed) are dressing in full ‘sea’ costume – many of which resemble seaweed, fish, sea goddesses … or in my case Edward Scissorhand-esque underwater barbers. My friend, Becca, made cut outs of scissors that were dripping in blood to demonstrate our ruthless sheering ability!

Everyone, lead by the crew band, marches up to the 7^th deck, where the entire shipboard community is waiting with cheers and anticipation. Tall tales are told of King Neptune’s reign over the seas and each person is put through a series of ‘tests’ to graduate from pollywog to shellback status. These tests are really fun, silly games of having fish guts/kitchen mess poured over your head, a big jump in the pool, a sloppy kiss with a fish and a sword knight from King and Queen Neptune. As a fun aside, people shave their head. Impressively, 28 students donated to Locks of Love, with many, many more shaving their head. (hair must have been 10 inches to donate to LoL) It was quite the scene! Kids, Life-Long Learners and students alike all joined in on the sans-hair opportunity; however, the most memorable head to shave was Desmond Tutu!