It's All Fun and Games

Monopoly Deal

Most of the time, everyone gets along here. Not so during this game – we have vendettas. Much like the eponymous board game (although MUCH shorter), this game involves making sets of properties and using them to gleefully rob your friends. There are long-standing rivalries among the crew (and a twice-daily scheduled game), and the crew has been kind enough to let scientists in on the cutthroat fun. I’ve made most of my frenemies this way.

Cribbage 

This is a classic sailor’s game, and I see why. It’s the exact entertainment value you’d expect from a game invented in an era where other popular games included hitting a ring with a stick. It’s 95% luck and 5% being able to count to 15. But maybe I’m just bitter because I got eliminated in the first round of the tournament.

Wacky rituals and traditions

I shouldn’t have been surprised that mariners in general and Thompson mariners in particular have a lot of interesting traditions. During our deepest cast (the seafloor was 6280m, but we sent the CTD down to 6000m), we decorated styrofoam cups and attached them to the CTD in a bag. The pressure squeezes the styrofoam, and it comes back much smaller and usually a little wonky. So many people are talented artists (I, alas, am not one of those people), so the big reveal of everyone’s shrunken drawings was quite impressive. We did the same thing at our equator crossing (around 4000m), but to my chagrin, there’s no consistent difference in size. I have it on good authority that max squish occurs around 1500m, and anything beyond that is just for street cred.

Crossing the Equator

Speaking of equator crossings, my favourite tradition has been the shellback ceremony.  In sailor jargon, a pollywog is a person who has never crossed the equator on a boat, and a shellback is someone who has (Imagine my annoyance when I found out that my landlubber partner became a shellback as a kid by taking a quick day trip from Singapore! That shouldn’t count!), so the shellbacks and crew make the wogs jump through a few hoops to “prove our worth” to Neptune. To those who passed this initiation in ye olden days, you may be surprised that I count this among my favourites. Legend has it that it used to involve rotten food and scalp sunburns, but nowadays it’s a lighthearted and fun equator crossing ceremony.

 We channelled our inner high schoolers and had to carry an egg around for the week, under penalty of apology haiku to Neptune if you lost it – there was a lot of wog-on-wog crime, and many eggs were stolen/hidden. It’s still unclear whether our CTD engineer “found” a load of them at her research station or stole them herself. But the best part was a talent show! We had to impress Neptune and affiliates (who had great costumes, including ersatz togas and an incongruous but very fashionable fez) with our acts, which included an interpretive dance inspired by floating plastic, a Houdini-esque straitjacket escape, and my rap parody of “I’m on a Boat.” I’m happy enough to let my shouty rap performance fade into obscurity, but I’m quite proud of my lyrics, so here they are:

*FREESTYLE CROWD HYPE*

I’m on a boat (I’m on a boat) I’m on a boat (I’m on a boat)
Everybody look at me
‘Cause I’m sailing on a boat (sailing on a boat)
I’m on a boat (I’m on a boat) I’m on a boat
GO-SHIP here doing science on a boat (boat, yeah)

I’m on a boat standing watch over a CTD
Six kilometers down in the deep blue sea
Fire bottles, later drop an ARGO float
Sampling niskins all day cause I’m on a boat

I’m a shellback now, crossing the equator
My seasickness is gone, I’ve never felt greater
I’ve got my foulies on and my steel toed boots
And for emergencies, got an immersion suit

We’re out in the middle of the Indian Ocean
How the seabirds are here, I don’t have a notion
If I could fly, I’d already be in motion
I’d be eating pad thai and applying sun lotion

 *(SUNG)*

We sail this transect, once in a while
To see how climate change changes the profile
41 days on a boat from Freo
Halfway to Phuket, playing Monopoly De-al

 *(REPEAT OF CHORUS)*

I’m on a boat (I’m on a boat) I’m on a boat (I’m on a boat)
Everybody look at me
‘Cause I’m sailing on a boat (sailing on a boat)
I’m on a boat (I’m on a boat) I’m on a boat
GO-SHIP here doing science on a boat (boat, yeah)

After the ceremony, we all got gorgeous certificates signed by the captain and Neptunus Rex himself, so now I have some artwork for my apartment. And I suspect a lot of us will be getting turtle tattoos when we reach Thailand. I’m grateful for all these games and traditions, as they really do make 41 days at sea go by much faster. It’s never boring on the R/V Tommy Thompson!