Booby Boards on the Nazca Plate
23 June 2022
• (0.0n , 87.5w
by robin
Volcano Cake for the Equator
As chief morale officer I am responsible for event planning and cakes. Today was a red-letter day. Thank goodness Justin had nudged me in our call from Panama asking if I was planning anything. It meant I had some things up my sleeve.
As usual the time for the crossing kept slipping, last night, dawn today, 845 and finally it looked like close to noon. Best to have major celebration where it does not intrude on our long sleeps so this was perfect. In the dark, dark at 4 AM in the company of the ghost birds I mulled what I had certificates done and signed, silly hats prepared and formal clothing staged. A special cake was in order. A green and white ship shaped cake sat on the table when Karl and I launched the just complete sailboat, the Frog, into the Otter Creek in Vermont. A dinosaur cake joined a pinata and a pony cake joined a pony ride party marking the kid's birthdays. A lamb cake mold can be adapted to other creatures with a little cosmetic surgery usually involving chopping off the huge ears. Greenlandic ice sheet cake was somewhat stymed by my guessing what the directions in Danish. White chocolate with dark chocolate chip cake at the South Pole honored the passing of the good dog Frodo. At my office we celebrate every notable with step forward or backward with cake. Frozen cakes the local French bakery sit frozen but ready for a celebration. No bakery, no lamb mold no time for a replica of the Mabel Rose all I have is a frying pan and donut molds. The ghost birds fish and I ponder how to make a cake appropriate for an equator crossing. The certificates looked forward to volcanos palm trees and penguins. Maybe that was the answer. A volcano cake decorated with palm trees. A cake and donuts were made between squalls and the assembly and decoration followed. Volcano cake with chocolate lava flows erupting pipe cleaners with palm trees, penguins, mermaids, anchors and even Neptune peering from the deep. Somewhere pie bird penguin who would have been perfect for the event is hiding. Fortunately, Beryl had given me a book of cut out polar animals that solved the penguin problem without tearing apart the boat.
As the cake sat ready for action, the wind eased (got less windy) so boldly I staged the glass wine glasses for the rum toast ready to be poured from the fish flask. My anticipation oozed over the satellites as I let friends know we were close under the guise of telling the about those aligned planets. Now we just and to get to where the GPS would read 0.00.
Formal dress seemed appropriate. Thinking of Danielle inher white gown and mircospikes at the mountaintop wedding I leave my wool long underwear on under the gown, drop the pink glittery headband from my niece Bin on my tussled hair and pop on my life vest. The vest perfectly hides the zipper I tore putting on the dress in a rush. I in my mermaid cut gown, Karl in his boat club commodore blazer and the wine glasses are rattling we approach the zero-degree mark, Karl announces I think we need a reef. No time, we will be heeled over and the glasses will rattle. Karl counts down the decimal minutes, horns sound, toasts are made, rum is shared with Neptune, certificates are read aloud, silly hats are donned and doffed, Marie's South Pacific map is studied and of course Equator cake is eaten. We have moved spring in New York to a flash of summer in the Pacific and now winter as we approach the Galapagos.
For the first time we see large fish jumping as the boobies fish close in.
Bird Note: We have noticed the Ghost birds (swallow tailed gulls) arguing over the fish they catch. This morning while making cake I found an entire cuttle fish on deck. The ghost birds are the ones who dropped the body parts the other day and the entire cuttle fish today. It is their favorite food and we must attract them with our lights and motion. So many questions Do dolphin and whale have wakes that attract the cascade of tumbling plankton, plankton eaters (cuttle fish and flying fish, petrels) and the carnivores gulls boobies.
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