avatarJosh Hinton

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Becoming a Shellback: Take Heed Pollywogs

When sailors fear lawyers more than King Neptune

Sailors are a superstitious bunch. When you trust your life to something so vast and powerful as the ocean it’s best not to take any chances. I still get uneasy when someone whistles and need to remind myself that I am not on a ship, there will be no mutiny today.

Although sometimes I think a mutiny is exactly what my preschool needs.

One of the time-honored rites of passage is when a sailor crosses the equator for the first time. Everyone who has not sailed across the equator is considered a pollywog.

Once you cross you are a Shellback.

Author’s Image: Sunset the night before the Crossing

They must ask King Neptune for permission to cross and there is an elaborate ceremony that takes place over a few days.

The opening ceremony

The opening ceremony is the beginning of the festivities. The masters of ceremony gathers the crew and each pollywog is given a task.

Some of the pollywogs were given unusual and funny tasks.

One shipmate was a big Trump supporter and he had to wear an “I love Joe Biden shirt” for 3 days.

One of the engineers had to wear a car tire around his neck for 3 days.

I had to recite facts about Mississippi anytime a Shellback asked me and I could not repeat myself.

King Neptune needs to be entertained so he will grant you safe passage across his sacred equator.

Jesters in the King’s Court

The night before the crossing each department puts on a short play to entertain King Neptune and his Shellbacks. These usually consist of friendly mockery of the department heads.

The 3rd engineers pretended to be the Chief Engineer in his office and every time the door closed he would get the lube and a dirty magazine out, then the door would knock again and he would scramble to put it up and tell them he was just working on reports. This went on for a few different cycles.

The captain of my ship was long-winded and it was a running joke on the ship how long our fire drills were because of his speeches. He is a good friend and mentor of mine so I felt brave enough to mock him in ours. We performed the “world’s longest fire drill” where I pretended to be him droning on while someone held up signs marking 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours.

Author’s Image: The World’s Longest Fire Drill

All in good fun

The real horrors begin the next day.

Lock’n in a safe passage

On the way to the infamous belly of the whale crawl you must give a lock of hair to the sea. It calms her down and shows King Neptune you are willing to sacrifice to be a member of his court. They shaved the center of my goatee leaving just sideburns.

Author’s Image: The Royal Barber taking my beard

Some gave a lock of chest hair, leg hair, some gave hair from the top of their heads.

The royal barber didn’t have time to wait, if you didn’t choose he chose for you.

The Belly of the Whale

This is the true test of a sailor’s commitment to joining King Neptune’s Royal Court. As the steward of the ship, I was responsible for food waste. For two weeks I was instructed to store all food scraps in trash cans in the reefers.

On the day of the crossing, a large tarp was laid across the deck of the ship and the scraps were dumped out and a few fire hoses were turned on to really soup it up.

Author’s Image: Belly of the Whale

Each sailor had to crawl on their hands and knees through the “belly of the whale” and on the other end sat King Neptune on his thrown.

The Bosun, shirtless, belly hair covered in whipped cream with a homemade crown and trident.

Once through the whale’s belly and after a quick dip in a tub to wash the filth off, you approached the king to kneel before him and kiss his belly.

Then and only then would he name you a shellback and grant you safe passage through his waters.

Modernity tempting fate

The tragedy is modern companies and even the Navy are abandoning this ancient ritual because of hazing lawsuits.

As someone who is sympathetic to anti-harassment and believes that hazing is not a good thing, I find myself conflicted.

I am honored to be a member of King Neptune’s court.

The Shellback Ceremony is a sailor’s rite of passage and I am lucky to be a Golden Shellback meaning my shipmates and I crossed the equator and the international date line at the same time.

My Captain took a lot of heat for holding the ceremony when he did. The next time we crossed a year later the other Captain would not have it onboard because of complaints from sailors who refused to partake in the ritual.

Will we as a society discard all of our traditions that make anyone uncomfortable?

Where do we draw the line?

I for one am not willing to tempt fate, I have seen the ferocity of the great blue and will always respect it and its traditions.

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Shellback
Rite Of Passage
Equator
Sailing
Luck
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