Day 8 - The elevator carpets in Holland America's Oosterdam clearly show that today is Saturday. That demonstrated the fact we boarded this ship one week ago! Already? It was a 'sea day' as we now head toward a port in Ecuador. We enjoy hanging out onboard our ship between ports.
So although we don't actually cross into the southern hemisphere until midnight, it was a perfect day to commemorate that passage. We've noticed that the staff has been ramping up during this trip with new staff boarding at different stops. Many of these new folks have never crossed the equator, so needed to undergo a sort of hazing that often takes place in world Navies.
The aft pool will have to be cleaned as new shellbacks removed the food-colouring-based paints that'd been poured over them. Much of the ship turned out to watch the antics.