As we have been at sea for 3 days, we decided to combine the last 2 days into one post.
Since we left Barbados, the Queen Victoria has been battling against the North Equatorial Current which has been pushing against us, as well as relatively high winds. This has meant that we have fallen somewhat behind schedule and will be 4 hours late arriving in Fortaleza, Brazil tomorrow. We are now estimated to dock at around midday. This is fine though as Fortaleza isn’t one of the stops we’re particularly excited about. It will however be nice to get onshore for a couple of hours and stock up on cheap soft drinks which are about a thousand pounds each on the ship!
Yesterday we sailed past the Amazon Delta but as we are 250 miles out at sea we had no chance of seeing any of it.
Today we crossed the Equator – woohoo! 
Did you know that it’s the place where the earth’s rotational speed is at its fastest? On board there was a fair old hullabaloo over this milestone involving some boisterous “It’s a Knockout” type festivities, known as the Crossing the Line ceremony. As well as covering each other in brightly coloured slime, accompanied by much screeching and merriment, participants were asked to beseech King Neptune to “initiate the ship’s pollywogs” (folk who have never crossed the equator) into the “Grand Order of Shellbacks” (folk who have crossed it), thereby transforming us from “mere land-lubbers into seasoned sailors!” Well I’m glad we got that cleared up!
More soon… 