Tuesday, December 7- It's 81 degrees Fahrenheit and 81 degrees sea temperature; sailing at 13 knots, force 5 on the (Buford scale-it's
windy!)

 
FOLLOWING THE PATH OF THE SLAVE TRADE
 Today is Tuesday December 7 and we have been heading west on tropical winds for four days, following the route taken by the  Slave Traders and the 11-12 million people who took this route unwillingly over 400 years from 1450 to 1850.  We have learned much abut the slave trade as we visited Cape Verde and then took this seaway, which someone who said, "We are not only on a highway; we are traversing a graveyard." -One to two million people lost their lives at sea in the slave trade, including Europeans, and there were 300 recorded rebellions. The course we follow today is the exact one taken from West Africa to Cape Verde Islands to Salvador-our next port in two days.
       Along the way two nights ago we passed over the line from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere, with suitable ceremony.  At exactly 11 o'clock on the pool deck, King Neptune appeared and after suitable dunking and anointing with powder (flour I found out late) he presented to each of the first timers crossing the equator,  the famous  stamped certificate of proof:

 THE WORLD CRUISE COMPANY
    PROUDLY AWARDS
  Roz Hiebert
   ON BOARD THE VESSEL
   Ocean Explorer I
   in recognition of
      CROSSING THE EQAUATOR
On this date, December 5, 1999
Signed: Capt. El. Adassouras, Master

So it's a done deed.  You only get this on water. No airline
qualifies.  Many of my shipmates have done this many times,but they all showed up for the grand party.
A Day That Lived in Infamy
In the meantime, yesterday, a presentation scheduled
ironically a day before  December 7 took place---perhaps to the embarrassment of the party of 12 Japanese on board for the duration.  A passenger, Don Wilson, is author of a book,  "What Happened to Amelia Earhart?"  He presented his own video and a lecture outlining his conjectures-and his tale was very convincing. There is great fascination to Earhart to this day because nobody knows what really happened to her after she went down in the South Pacific in 1937.  His theory is that she and her navigator were thought to be
American spies and were captured and imprisoned by the Japanese on Saipan---and were executed and buried there sometime between April and June 1944.  It sounded very plausible with the first hand interviews on his video.  Now I have to go back and read a biography of Amelia Earhart who
was really quite a heroine in American history.  (His theory is that her plane and other evidence were destroyed when the Americans took over Saipan.)
           On that somber note yesterday, I went to our primitive ship cinema, down in the bowels of the ship, and saw Spencer Tracy in "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway.  Movie buff that I am, I had never seen it.  Especially as we bob across the sea this was an incredibly
moving movie.  Maybe I'll organize a showing at home when, and if, I return---Spencer Tracy hung in there for three days battling his fish, so I guess I can make a couple more days at sea before reaching land.
         The Stars at Night
      The days and nights go quickly in this strange world where you only know what's happening if your good friends tell you on e-mail.  More interesting than world news is the world of  space-last night  at 10p.m . the first of several groups reclined  in deckchairs around the pool and heard a program on "A Hundred Billion Suns-A Clasp Look at Our Galaxy" by our Canadian astronomer.  The captain consented to turn off all the lights, and even though I was not yet fortunate enough to be in the clasp group (my
 turn comes in a few nights), I stood on the deck in the dark for what seemed hours gazing up at a midnight black sky of millions of stars, and there were 10 meteors visible to the naked eye in the crystal clear heavens.  What an experience!  When I  see the Southern Cross-which is coming up soon, I'll let you know.  People here  are waiting anxiously.  (You can see how priorities change when you are held captive at sea.-actually it's great to be away from those momentous occasions in Washington of  federal budget decisions, Clinton gossip,  and beltway gridlock.  Sorry. I digress.)
  Back to the Sea
 This morning we gathered for a fascinating look at "Mammals-Blow by Blow" Which, of course was a  sea level look at  WHALES, how to identify them and more!
I understand we are apt to see many whales,  before this voyage is over, and I didn't know so many varieties existed, and certainly not how to identify the differences. But now I know a few interesting facts, more than you may want to hear:
 · The blue whale is the largest mammal that ever lived on earth-about 85 feet (the largest ever was found in Alaska in 1928 and was 110 feet)
 · The blue whale calf drinks 50% fat in its milk-how do you skim milk only types digest that fact?
 · And, the calf grows at a rate of 200 lbs. a day. 8 lbs. an
hour-which we will all do if we drink 50% fat in our milk, right?
 · Have you ever heard of a minke whale?  I hadn't until today; now I know it fetches $300 a lb. In Japan.
 · Now, before you are totally turned off---this is a terrible
 environmental atrocity of man:
 · The whale population has been decimated, from early 1800s to 1980s:
 ·the blue whale population plummeted from 200,000 to 1,000
 ·right whales (which are down here) from 300,000 to
 3,000
 · humpbacks  from 120,000 to 10,000

Before you fall asleep, I go.  Only to return with a fascinating lecture on penguins at some later date.
But before I do,  May I say to all my good friends out
there-think about setting aside a little nest egg
And think about a comment  by Shirley Maclaine
          "I hoped that the trip would be the best of all journeys: a journey into ourselves"

 or this one by some unknown:
         "Great rivers don't spring from indoor plumbing.  A 25th floor penthouse ain't the Himalayas.  Stay inside and you'll never get anywhere.
 The indoors has its limits."
         
Happy trails.