April fool and Award night

This can be a dangerous day to believe in anything, and of course there is no exception on FRAM. Those who signed the declaration list for amount and state of clean shoes before we arrive to Lisbon, were caught by the "April-fool".

As we left Las Palmas yesterday afternoon we started to prepare for award night after more than 2 weeks with different games for single and group events, as we have described throughout the last weeks. The victorius ones were to receive their prizes tonight. Captain Rune Andreassen  handed out all awards, on the picture above Roy gets his 3 place in the Chess competition.

Housekeeping 5th place in the Olympic Games - Group Event

Galley 4th place in the Olympic Games - Group event, and by the way they deserve credit for having best group spirit, banner making, sponsorship and cheerleaders, with head cheerleader Mervyn in front left on the picture. Your pop-pom skills will go down in history Mervyn.

Restaurant 3 place . This team was close to win the whole thing, and they deserve credit for being the abolute best color coordiated team in the games, having color themes on their shirts every evening.

Left over team 2nd Place did not behave as "being left over", they were absolutely to be reckoned with, fierce competition spirit in this bunch.

Deck/Engine/Expeditionteam won the group events of the Olympic games like they did on the southbound crossing. You might guess the prize was orange shirts :-)

At the end of the evening the groups dismantled into one big group which is the crew on FRAM. We recommend you to take a look at the extensive work the galley team put down in that banner, and how many important sponsors they managed to get for the games.

We received a nice comment from Kjell Eriksmoen who will be one of our passengers from Lisbon the 7th. He is travelling together with a group of friends. Kjell, we are approaching Lisbon now, welcome onboard, looking forward to see you and your friends. We extend  that to all our embarking passengers for the upcoming voyage "Spring in Western Europe".

Todays interview is:
Name: Richardspn Quines
Position: Cabin Steward

How long time have you worked for Hurtigruten?
6 years

How many times have you crossed equator with a Hurtigruten ship?
6 times

What do you like best about the equator crossing?
I like that team work is developed in all departments and across department lines.

Is job different when the ship is crossing?
No difference in my job, the only difference is less or no passengers

Which tasks do you have during the crossing?
My tasks during the crossing is to clean, clean, clean the whole ship

Land in sight- Las Palmas

We have land in sight, we have used 17 days from Buenos Aires to Las Palmas. During the morning hours we arrived back to civilisation for a few hours. The Pilot boat arrived approx 0830 and at 0900 we were at pier to commence bunkring. In the early afternoon hours we were back out at sea. A couple of shipshandlers appeared on the pier, well aware of a crew who have not been shopping for almost 3 weeks. A little mini-mall on the pier made a nice diversion for many of the crew.

The evening games in the Group Olympics had its last tow evenings of competetive behaviour across all department borders the 30th and 31st of March.

On the pictures below you can see some of the final games. The first picture shows a game called hepp hepp hello. There are hand movements involved in it and you have to say the opposite of the one before you. The second activity picture shows an impressive effort by the galley team, as they won the game of  5 people dressing, running, undressing in jumpsuit, helmet, big-big-big boots and welding gloves.

The third activity picture shows a really messy game where both contestants are blind-folded and have to feed the opposite sitting person with whipped cream. Funny and messy.

The last activity picture shows an eating contest where the Chef has prepared a lot of things, you are not able to choose what to eat, but you draw two notes where it says what to pick up. 3 from each team participates. As you might see from the picture some of the food was tough to get down.

The day of judgement is here!

 This picture says it all. The equator baptism were upon us very soon, always the same day as crossing takes place.This time it was March 24th at 02:21 we we crossed the equator.

  Already in the morning Chief Purser Aleksander boldly and in good spirit showed his defeat of not bringing his certificate from his equator baptism a few years back. The result is that King Neptune will not admit anyone into his Kingdom unless they show the certificate on the day of judgement "Baptism day".  You might have to click on the picture to see the entire text he wrote around that t-shirt.

At 15:00, March 24th the ordeal began by Safetyofficer and Captain announcing King Neptune's arrival. The ceremonial event could commence in all it's horror.First on the program was to double check position. Did we really cross the equator? It's not like it is a red line. Yes we had, all in order. Bring out the the victims!!Neptune and his Police and Medical Personell have a job to do!!

 

                      Very few words can give any justice to the feeeling og being soaked in a mixture of old fish and god knows what. The smell was as you see from Marilyns face quite distinct.We also would like to direct attention to Safety Officer Andreas excellent binoculars. After the ordeal all 22 victims went through, some justice was granted by the bosun Renato who hosed the worst "dirt" off. But they all stank even after several showers. Last picture shows that Aleksander went through it with grace, and Hotelmanager Bjørn-Erik as well. We have to give a big credit to the official Baptism photographer Eduardo (Souchef), who put together the collage of pictures.