Ocean Rock Stories: Day 9 - King Neptune and my pledge for a good cause

Another early morning rise. The sun however kept herself behind the clouds. Out of those clouds the Aurora had gotten a nice white coat. A nice thin layer of fresh snow had settled over night on deck and it was like exploring new territory walking over this pristine blanket and imprinting my foot steps.

Today on the plan is an environmental briefing – a reminder on the environment protocols and our responsibilities to maintain Antarctica as pristine as possible. Following this briefing we stepped up to the plate and did another run of cleaning our equipment. Before our departure I already had checked my pockets and backpack for any kind of seeds. Today I pulled my luggage once more apart and double checked things. Some of the tricky places are these smaller stow away pockets, in between the cracks where the hip belt sits and yes most items now come with Velcro. Velcro so convenient is also a good hitch hiking place for any kind of seeds. Using a special Velcro brush, kind of mini- cat or dog hair brush, my Velcro strips got much faster cleaned then I did in the past using my nail scissors.

The plans for the later afternoon was more of a social nature. The first – was the tribute to Neptune. Passing across the Southern Ocean every visitor to the Antarctic Continent will meet and pay tribute to Neptune. His arrival was announced for this afternoon and everyone was gathering in the Mess. I have met and gave my tribute to Neptune in January 1996 on my way to the Argentine Station San Martin at the Antarctic Peninsula. Thus I expected to be only a by-stander and taking pictures. One after the other of the newbies was called in front of King Neptune and payed his/her tribute. As King Neptune comes from the Sea, there is something smelly about it. He greets you well with some special brew. For whatever reason King Neptune thought I still needed to be reinitiated. I briefly said I have been down south before and already met the King in 1996, though if King Neptune requires your presence you won’t really argue. Wearing my bright yellow pants I wasn’t really prepared for this visit, I short handedly striped to my underwear under the cheers of my fellow travelers and once again met King Neptune, just wondering who had set-me up for this.

In any case it was one of those events you will remember.

After King Neptunes visit and after everyone had a thorough cleaning under the shower we all met up again on the Troll deck for a BBQ. A friendly afternoon, chatting away with everyone outside watching the ice pass by.

After the BBQ the auction started. As an old tradition on every voyage people do an auction to raise funds for Camp Quality.

Up for auctioning were post cards, massages, candle holders and other crafty things the ship’s crew and passengers had made.

The grand finale however was a hair cutting, shaving session. Every year a number of people offer their hair to raise funds. I heard about the auction last year in October and started growing a respectable beard. Together with another fellow and fella traveler we pledged to lose our hair. One of my generous donors asked a little favor for his money. He requested that something slightly creative would be done with my shaving. And so it went that my hair was cut in pieces first and at the end they apparently made me into a chopper, bold hair on top and some of my facial hair being left. To everyone’s enjoyment and joy the hair was lost, and a nice significant number of money raised. Off to bed with a new feeling putting my head onto the pillow.