Atlantic Crossing Day Four

Today’s watercolour lesson was on painting simple, but effective, figures. As it turns out, though not entirely unexpectedly, it was also my final lesson for the next ten days, because the craft room is going to be taken over by Immigration officials for the whole time we are in Brazilian waters.

At the end of the class, we packed up all the painting gear, and stashed it away in a side room. It felt a bit like being evicted. On the plus side; it means that I get a bit of a break from teaching, and will be able to concentrate on enjoying the river experience and spending some more quality time painting, in preparation for when we resume.

After lunch, we watched the ‘Crossing The Equator’ ceremony. It’s traditional to ask King Neptune’s permission to cross from the Northern to the Southern hemisphere, and for the ship’s entertainments team to make a bit of a show about about it, dressing up, making newbies (people who have never crossed the line before) do silly things like kissing a giant fish and being thrown into the swimming pool. Mostly, it’s a chance for the entertainments team to have a good time, but it was also great fun to watch.

Our official time for crossing the equator will be 6:30am in the morning, but our mock Neptune duly granted permission for us to pass, and I spent the rest of the afternoon in the cabin painting another Mindelo boat scene.

Around 5pm, I surfaced and headed up to join Tracey to watch the sun go down.