Mar 12 - Kiribati

March 12, 2008

This morning I woke up to find a note from Karen telling me she was up at the pool and had a chair poolside. I went up and we witnessed and interesting ceremony that is customary whenever a ship crosses the equator. Anyone on board who has never crossed it before is known as a “pollywog”, and during the ceremony, the pollywogs are brought before King Neptune (the cruise director all dressed up) who anoints them with a variety of substances (chocolate syrup, pasta in red sauce, flour, raw eggs, mousse, etc.) before being taken to the side of the pool, made to kiss a large fish being held by one of the Sirens, and then are unceremoniously dumped into the pool. After this ceremony they are forever called “shellbacks” – since we crossed the equator at the 180^th parallel we are now known as “golden shellbacks.” It was really funny, and the pool was closed for the remainder of the day. We had skipped breakfast so we headed up for lunch and then got ready for the tender ride to Christmas Island. We were on the first tender off the ship, into an island this cruise line has never been into. Te tide was very low and the island is surrounded by a shallow-water barrier reef. We sat at the front of the tender and I could see parallel lines of buoys, red on the left and green on the right. The water between the buoys was darker blue – obviously a channel into the docks. After a while, I noticed that we were slowing down and were to the right of the green buoys, obviously outside of the channel. Before I could say anything there was a series of loud scraping and banging noises as we grounded ourselves onto the reef. After a few attempts we were able to power backwards and float again. They pilot managed to get back between the buoys and follow the channel to the pier, where we were met by another surprise. When tied up alongside the dock, the tender was about four feet below the surface of the dock. We literally had to climb out of the tender. The back of the tender was filled with nearly 100 boxed packed with school supplies, shoes, and linens for the island. We were received by the minister of education and welcomed by a dancing line of native children, decked out in grass shirts and flowers, singing welcome songs. We then boarded trucks that took us on a tour of the island, stopping at all the school we passed. We visited two each of the preschools, primary and high schools. At each stop we would present the children and the teachers with supplies and they would than us with cheers and songs. Since the main product of the island is coconuts we were offered fresh coconuts pretty much everywhere we stopped. I amazed my peers with my coconut-opening abilities and personally drank the contents of three large coconuts and ate the flesh of one. Our final stop was at a local welcome house where they island leaders had an official welcome ceremony. We all got “lei’d” and were given flower headbands and shell necklaces. The villagers had cooperated and each had cooked something to bring to the ceremony. I had boiled potatoes, lobster, taro bread, cucumbers, papaya, white rice, and fried breadfruit, along with a piece of welcome cake. For drinks they brought bottled water and fresh coconuts. A few of the local girls danced for us in traditional dress and we were serenaded by the local high school band that I unofficially named “The Pipe and Shoe” band. They had taken various lengths of plastic (PVC) pipe and tied them up in a “pan flute” arrangement. They did this also with a variety of pipe diameters. These instruments were played by hitting the top opening with the sole of shoes or sandals, making sonorous whacks of different pitch and timbre. When all played simultaneously, the result was an amazingly harmonious melody!!! I delivered the medical supplies to a local woman who promised to get them to the doctor, who was unavoidably occupied at the time. We then headed back to the ship without hitting bottom again. Upon boarding the ship we found out that we were a fortunate few. Only 2 tenders made it and the rest had to return to the ship due to the extremely low tide and dangerous shallow water situations. As tired as we were, we managed to make it to dinner, where we presented our tablemates with leis and flower headbands that we brought back from the island. Oh, I almost forgot: the ship’s stores had a $10 sale that brought havoc and mayhem to the midships area. There were women everywhere, pushing and shoving as they, with glazed eyes, attempted to gain access to the sale goods in crazed frenzy. Karen managed to snag a couple of beach bags while I hid behind one of the stores’ glass doors. While diving with sharks I felt no fear, but amidst that frenzied chaos I felt true fear… :)