Dear Friends, Today started like any other day I made mochas, walked the dog, set out breakfast, was thankful for the sunshine and then the most amazing thing happened. We crossed the equator and King Neptune christened us "shellbacks" with a roar and a ritual not soon forgotten. After weeks of sea rations, we ate lovely chocolate and drank too much champagne with rose hips and were baptized with a bucket of water from the South Pacific Current position 00 degrees 42 minutes South, 129 degrees 30 minutes West. A minute is roughly a mile and a degree is approximately 60 miles. 00-00 is the equator. Previously we were always North but now we are South.

Inspired by Lewis Carrol's Jabberwocky (A "Shellback" is someone who has crossed the equator by boat.)

Twas brillig and the slivey squids did wizzhle and splizzle in the wabe All splathery were the wavery rows and the lumnesce did flabe And hast thou sailed the starlit night Slip'd through the dark and mystris sea Oh bright of day, splalu splalay To Neptune bend your knee

He took to air and water bright A star to steer by through the night The Southern Cross she showed the way The dipper followed night and day Oh glory world beneath our sight You slither hither but feign the light.

The red eyes glow as bounders blimmey Plop and plipper , saul and shimmey Gargon deep pulls ruptious on Rolling gyring toward the dawn And then as curtains open sun to hewn One Two they leap the deck bestrewn.

To Sushi's plate their big eyes beckon Down in a gulp all slithey steckon' Eight tenticular legs and eyes big staring Torn from the deep no longer caring. A slipey pile content and melding From dark to dark but now warm felding.

Still on we striven Long worlds unknown Mysterious souls whisp hisp and moan We live the life of the glorious sea Across the equator now shellbacks we be.

Twas brillig and the slivey squids did wizzhle and splizzle in the wabe All splathery were the wavery rows and the lumnesce did flabe And hast thou sailed the starlit night Slip'd through the dark and mystris sea Oh bright of day, splalu splalay To Neptune bend your knee

--Pat, John, Rebekah and Sushi S/V The Rose The Equator, April 20, 20128