Grand Africa Cruise - Null Island

Cruise Day 55

Saturday, December 3, 2022

"Love is the food of life, travel is the dessert”  -- Amanda Jane Sturges

“And when you travel with the one you love, it’s a gourmet delight.” -- Dave Brown 😊

With the clocks being set back last night I woke up early, but laid in bed for a while, and finally got up just before eight.  We had breakfast in the Neptune Lounge and then waited for the big event of the day – we would be passing through the Null Point, 0 degrees latitude and 0 degrees longitude or as some call it, Null Island.

The captain had told us yesterday that the ship would be altering course just a bit so we could pass through this point.  He pointed out there was nothing to see, just the ocean as usual, but we were looking forward to it.  As the time drew nearer the captain made an announcement that we would be crossing the Null Point around 9:45 AM and he would blow the ship’s horn at the second we crossed it and then make an announcement afterwards.

There were many people out on deck and as we looked out of our balcony, we could see that most people with balconies were out on theirs.  The moment came at exactly 9:49 and the ship’s horn blew, and it was over, but at that exact second the ship was in every hemisphere at the same time, kind of like our four corners area in the Southwest US where you can stand at a certain spot and be in four states at once.

The TV in our room has a channel that is always on that shows the ship's location and other information.  This photo is the exact moment we crossed the Null Point.

A few seconds later the captain came back on and made the announcement that we were now all Trusty Emerald Shellbacks.  When you cross the equator for the first time you go from Pollywog to Shellback and when you cross the Null Point (0, 0 lat, long) you become an a Trusty Emerald Shellback.  We didn’t know if that was a real thing or just made up, but Val did a little research and sure enough, that’s part of maritime tradition.  Another thing we learned was that it is often called Null Island even though there is nothing there but open water.  Anyway, as the captain said, there was nothing to see, but it was a unique moment and we had been looking forward to it.  We even got a certificate stating that we were now Trusty Emerald Shellbacks.  I took a video of the screen and the captain's announcement and have included it below as well as our certificates.

At the end of every year, I take our best travel pictures and make a calendar for the upcoming year, but this year there won’t be much time to get that done before the end of the year.  We decided that for next year, the calendar will be of our best animal pictures we took on safari.  We took a lot so I spent the rest of the morning going through them and picking out candidates for the calendar.  There are a lot of pictures, so I only made it halfway through the first day as it was hard to decide which ones to choose.  I only need twelve for the calendar, but I will choose quite a few and then narrow it down to the very best.

All the time I was doing this Val was out on the balcony relaxing so when I got tired of looking at pictures, I joined her until it was time for lunch.  As it has been the last couple of days, the weather was warm and humid with some heavy cloud cover at times, but no rain.

After lunch we decided to walk around the ship a bit and after we returned to the room, we took the computer to the Neptune Lounge and looked at the rest of our pictures we hadn’t seen yet.  We are finally caught up!!  By the time we were done it was after five and we relaxed until it was time for dinner.

It was our usual routine for dinner, but tonight Val did very well in the casino.  Tomorrow we are in Ghana and have to be up a little early, so we didn’t stay up too late and called it a night around ten.