Big honking deal! For days the anticipation is palpable. We keep each other informed, “Hey Dan, only three more degrees and twenty minutes and we’re there.” That roughly translates into a few more days. A minute is a nautical mile and there are 60 minutes in a degree. We can smell the equator, we can sense the equator, yes, I kid you not, we can feel the equator. It’s a tangible thing with a grip on us that gets stronger and stronger the closer we get.
And then you get there. Nothing! There are no buoys in the water, there is no red line, no dancing girls, no marching bands. There is as much here as there was three degrees and twenty minutes ago. Bugger all, just a 35-foot boat in a big ass ocean. Horizon all around us. Water and sky. What is needed people is some proper marketing. Something epic like the biblical parting of the Red Sea, or perhaps a little simpler, something like a continental divide idea. All water here flows to the south, all water there flows to the north. Something!
Both Dan and I have crossed the equator before and have participated in hazing and initiation rituals and have obtained the good grace Neptune extends to obedient and respectful sailors. So no excitement there either.
I remember the first time I crossed the equator in Kenya, quite a long time ago. There was a big ‘Equator’ sign on the side of the road with a line going across the road. I stopped the vehicle and everybody got out for a forty-five minute stop. People were buying all sorts of stuff from the many souvenir stalls. They were toasting each other with drinks either bought there, or brought with them for the occasion. And, of course, everybody had their picture taken with the Equator sign. How could you not? And this was in the days that if you wanted a picture of you, you needed another person to take it. The act of pointing a camera at yourself, taking a picture and calling it a selfie hadn’t been invented yet.
Everybody back in the truck and on the road again. On our way to Samburu National Park. But low and behold, five miles down the road a big sign on the site of the road, a line across the asphalt. Yes, the equator. The one and only. Turns out this was the real one. Enterprising locals had thought the equator to be too far from the village. A simple matter, you either move the village, or you move the equator. Something like Mohamed and the mountain.
That crossing in Kenya has really nothing to do with this equator crossing here, but then, at least, we had a story to tell. And that’s a lot more than what we got here. This is how I see it. Whenever you watch a football game on the TV and there is, for example, a second down and five to go scenario at the 32 yard line, a yellow line is then superimposed on that line on the screen, or however they do it, so we at home can see how far the ball has to travel on the next down. That’s what we need at the equator. The yellow line that is. We got satellites in the sky, a little bit of technology, some brainy people, how difficult can it be?
A big yellow banner across the water and every ten miles or so a floating pavilion. That’s where you meet Neptune in all his glory. Not unlike Santa Claus in the shopping Mall at Christmas time, he’ll be sitting on his throne with his trident beside him. Can’t cross without seeing the man. Pay your dues and comply with whatever the rituals or customs demand. And then you get a certificate at the end, with your name on it, probably wrongly spelled, but something you can frame and hang on the wall when you get home. How is that for memorabilia. The way back to the boat leads of course through the gift-store for an unsurpassed shopping experience. Pick up a little plastic trident. For a few bucks more, one that glows in the dark.
But there is nothing like it yet. So we took a picture of the chart plotter showing our latitude position at zero degrees, zero minutes and zero seconds. Only at the equator that is.
Dan then ducked down into the cabin and came out with two glasses and a bottle of Talisker single malt. We toasted each other and we toasted Neptune. Dan actually poured some Scotch into the ocean. He thought that was the right thing to do, I didn’t think so at all. But still, at that moment, all was good in the world.
