Sea Zero: The big nothing

There is no yellow rope at the Equator, but you know when you’re there.

We’re back in the doldrums.  The sea is flat, there’s no wind.  The sea and air temperature are the same, which means the sea has warmed up 32 degrees in the last five days, going from 55 to 87.

We’re heading for absolute zero, 0-0 in latitude and 0-0 in longitude.  Wikipedia probably has a better name for it, but the internet is down.

Update:  I couldn't turn up a name for the intersection of the equator and the prime meridian.  Evidently an arbitrary line does not rate a name.  I did, however, turn up two non-royal passengers from Charlottesville who have never crossed the equator on a ship.  I am lobbying for a change of course, and I am claiming "Sea Zero" as mine.

There’s a closed circuit TV system on board and one of the channels shows the ship’s position.  I keep turning it on to check our progress.  At 0645 as I write this, we are 01 48.09 S and 000 54.37 E.  No word on whether Captain Jeremy is going to alter course to hit the big 0-0.  Last fall, the ship did cross precisely at that point, making the passengers “Emerald Shellbacks,” but it was their first crossing (fall was the Atlantic circuit starting from Halifax) and probably the other captain as well.  We’ve picked up a few passengers in Cape Town—no word on whether they’ve made a sea crossing, but I really don’t see anyone’s dunking the Saudi Prince in fake fish guts under any circumstances. 

Although we might like to.  Prince Fahad is one of dozens or maybe hundreds of Saudi princes; they are a billion a dozen.  (A student told me the other day, “He has $7 billion dollars worth of camels.”  I replied, “That IS a lot of cigarettes.”  Joke wafted right up over her head.)  He was brought on board as an Unreasonable at Sea mentor.  Let’s just say that the Unreasonable Institute has shown us over and over that their name is apt.  Just not for the reason they picked it.

We still have time.  The only people awake at this time (besides the crew) are the students trying to get in time at the gym before faculty hours start (at 0700) and the insomniacs.  Maybe we’ll hear from Captain Jeremy yet.

Talking about this in the office yesterday, my boss Jim (from Arizona) was reminded of the Four Corners, where you can put one foot or hand in each of the four states, AZ, NM, CO and UT.  I said, “Or, for some of us, sitting down would accomplish the same thing.”  I was reminded of the first time I crossed the Continental Divide, and Paul availed himself of the handy rest room.  I wondered idly how many men gave in to the urge to watch their pee divide itself between the Atlantic and the Pacific. 

We are at the end of Spirit Week, and it is “Wear the World” Day.  I am wearing a length of Indonesian batik fabric I bought in Burma as a skirt, with a t-shirt made in El Salvador over leggings made, to my surprise, in the USA.  The elastic holding up my skirt I got in India.  Pretty sure my Keens are from Viet Nam. Horn earrings from South Africa make it a three-hemisphere ensemble.

Meanwhile, Thelma and Louise is stuck on Channel 6 in the “Press Play” mode, unmodifiable until our AV guy shows up for the day.  Too bad; I like to watch the last scene, where my friend Chris goes over the cliff, goes over the cliff. 

Before reinventing herself as a savvy MBA and coming to work for UVA, Chris was a production assistant on lots of movies you would recognize.  Her stories keep me entertained on the rare day that my job doesn’t present me with adequate hilarity.  There are probably still a few people reading this blog who don’t know that Chris served as the body double for both Thelma and Louise for the scene where they drive off the cliff.

Speaking of outlaw heroes, we had an Explorer Seminar on pirates the other night.  (Back in pirate territory, evidently.)  In an attempt to get more than a dozen students to come to these seminars, the faculty dressed up, took pirate names, and assigned one person the role of chasing, capturing, and carrying off one of our staff members.  (Interestingly, this versatile young woman had, at 1830 won the "Twins Day" contest by dressing quite convincingly as our IT Coordinator Dan, complete with two-day beard.  At 2000 she was all girl, being carried off by a pirate.  "And other duties as assigned," all in the job description!)

The faculty deconstructed the pirate anti-hero and told us about some famous pirates and privateers. Urbane Sir Walter Raleigh wound up in prison for getting married without the Queen's permission, regained favor, but eventually had his head cut off.  It was the custom of pirate widows to embalm their dead husband's head and keep it as protection.  We even had a discourse on art painted by pirates.  This is a faculty that knows how to research arcane topics.

Then it was time for Captain Jeremy to talk about pirates in the modern day.  He does not find them romantic, cute, or funny. He observed, with his dry Britwit, that one could no longer dispatch pirates in the most expeditious manner, by killing them, as there are now pesky laws protecting their civil rights.  Neither can one bring them back to Britain for trial, lest that they seek asylum in a country that does not have the death penalty—and then where would we all be?  When caught, they are usually deposited in the Seychelles.  The US, he said, has the naval power to do something, but so few cargo ships fly under the US flag there is no incentive to address the problem.  So we are standing by with our extra watch, our crew members posted with high pressure water hoses, and our reports from British intelligence.

If you squint, I think you can see Sea Zero just off the bow, port side.  Unless it’s a pirate ship.