…is how I can describe my past couple of days. Of course with the passing of HMC Branum (whom we found out yesterday made E-8) the ship was in a sad/hard place. Many of us shared memories of her and enjoyed long laughs of the funny things she said or did. There was a memorial ceremony for Chief Branum the day before yesterday (Wednesday) and it began as we approached a lake within the Panama Canal. Many people spoke with heavy and happy hearts. Heavy hearts because of the loss…happy hearts because of the wonderful experiences shared while she was still with us. The ceremonial band played beautiful music in celebration of her life and the life she will have now…in heaven. God’s Blessings to Chief Branum and all whom she encountered. Rest in Peace. So just to backtrack a little bit, we began our trip through the Panama Canal quite early on Wednesday morning. We lifted anchor and set sail headed for the canal, which could be seen from where we were docked. Though it seemed so close, it took about an hour for us to reach. Once we arrived at the first set of locks we began our journey through the canal. My living space on the ship (berthing) is three platforms under the main deck of the ship. So basically, we are underwater…as are all of the berthing area and most of the workspaces. Shortly after reveille, I’d say approximately 0610, I was out of my rack still half asleep when I hear this loud WHOOSHING sound! It sounded like water was gushing down the stairs toward our berthing area. Talk about freaked out! My heart began racing at 90 mph and out of nowhere I yell “What the HECK is that?” at the top of my lungs! Everybody got quiet as the sound became more deafening. I looked at all the girls around me and it was as if we were all stuck in a time trance as we tried to figure out what was going on. For what seemed like an hour, we all stood there expecting water to start trickling down by our feet and then someone said “Oh that’s the opening of the locks in the canal, and the ship is really close to the sides of the canal, so it’s no big deal…don’t worry.” And just that quickly, it was as if someone pulled the stopper out of the tub as the water closed in around my quickly drowning self. Ahhhh! I could breathe again! YESSS! I continued to get ready and went about my morning just fine. It took quite a while to get through the canal, about 8 hours, so at different points throughout the day I went out and snapped a few photos of the gorgeous green forest flanking the sides of the canal. I didn’t get a whole lot of pics, so I’m hoping to bum some off of people. It was really amazing how perfectly the ship fit into the canal. There was literally about one foot on either side of the ship. Crazy close. Very cool, and I will never forget it. Here's a snapshot someone got as we were going through.Now to the fun and interesting part. Not that the canal wasn’t fun and interesting, but today was a bit more than fun and interesting…it was CRAZY! So the Navy has a tradition of called “Crossing the Line” and it “is a time honored tradition in the United States Navy that has in the past been characterized by a celebration that marks, inducts, and honors an important and significant event in the maturation and seasoning of young (and some not so young) Sailors. This celebration will mark a day in their lives which, when remembered later, will become a reference point used to gauge the passage of time. With this celebration we seek to rescue them from interminable, unhappy ranks of miserable "pollywogs" and induct them into the ranks of trusty, crusty and honorable "shellbacks". This ceremony will be a positive experience to all who are involved. It will seek to honor the rich legacy and lore of the mystical Davy Jones, His Majesty King Neptunus Rex and his court while reinforcing our Navy Core Values of HONOR, COURAGE, and COMMITMENT.” Now what does this have to do with me? With the Band? With the USAF? Well ladies and gents, today we all crossed the equator line and are currently in the Southern Hemisphere. So for all who have never crossed the equator line, we got the opportunity to become honorary “shellbacks” denoting that we were ahem…”inducted into the honorary shellback crew!” Induction came with lots of interesting, smelly, uncomfortable, salty, wet, flour-y and chunky situations. It actually started last night. And at first I was SO not into it. And up until right before I went to sleep, I was not doing it. But then I got to berthing and everyone was getting prepared and it started to look like a lot of fun so I decided to do it. I made myself a t-shirt with “Band Wog” on the back and my call sign “Pipes” on the front. I took a pair of ABU pants and turned them inside out and wore them backwards. It was quite interesting trying to button them. Have you ever tried to button your pants when they were backward and inside out? It’s hard! As the night grew long, many tricks started to happen…people were TP-ing stairwells and people being tied up…even some of the guys from the band starting playing a few songs to taunt the “Shellbacks”…that is until they were stopped by the Master Chief. It was great! Things finally wound down around 2300 and I got some sleep. The 0430 rude awakening came WAAAY early and the whistles and pan banging was crazy loud. The “Shellbacks” came in screaming for us to get our hineys out to the deck, and get down and duck crawl or elephant crawl or whatever. So we headed out and our first challenge was met in CASREC where we had to low crawl. We had to sing…of course…”Row Your Boat” was a favorite amongst the “Shellbacks” as was “I’m a Little Tea Pot” and of course the Navy Song, “Anchors Aweigh” but we’re not in the Navy so whenever we were told to sing “Anchors Aweigh” we sang the “Air Force Song” even though we all know the words to “Anchors Aweigh”. Singing our song made things more interesting and fun though…for us and for the “Shellbacks”. The first part after CASREC was spent getting soaked with the hoses in the spray off section…more singing and low crawling. We duck walked our way up to the galley to get a breakfast of green eggs, purple rice and pink pancakes. Water was available…but you could not use your hands to drink nor eat…so it was pretty funny…I felt like a little chicken getting up the seeds…peck peck peck! After our ‘breakfast’, we headed out so that we could finish the rest of the course, but for some reason we got turned back around and headed back to the galley for a second time. We made our way down the hall on our hands and knees and sloshed through flour and cracked eggs and from what I could smell, a little Tabasco and soy sauce also made up a part of the mixture. Yum-O! As we waited by the door of the serving line, I got doused with so many lovely fragrances…a little mustard and ketchup on my head…flour in my face…a little lemon juice concoction down my back and for a little extra flair…some vanilla yogurt under my pits! I smelled lovely! And looked great…you should have seen me:) Once the serving crew figured out that we were actually telling them the truth in saying that we’d already been through the line…they all but actually put their foots in our rears as we made our way back out. So out we go again…and once again it is demanded that we sing “Anchors Aweigh” to which we answer with “Off We Go into the wild blue yonder….” It was brilliant, and eventually people started to smile because we didn’t break. Hoo-Rah! We finally make it through the galley AGAIN and go back down to CASREC where we do some calisthenics and more low crawling. We then have to line up and get blind folded to make our way to a “Tug-O-War” with some of the “Shellbacks” which we later found out…we were tugging with a wall! DOH! I had a feeling we were doing something silly like that as we were tugging…eh well…those tricksters! So then we head out side for tunnel low crawling…still blind-folded mind you. I almost barfed as I was going through here. There was all this old food on the bottom and it smelled like…really old food. Gro-die! When I got out, I took off my blindfold and my pants looked like I’d hurled all over them…yuck! So then we got rinsed off, but that really didn’t work. On to the next station. I have never been sprayed with so much salt water…actually, up until today, I’ve never been sprayed with salt water. We were doused off and we thought we were going to be on our merry way but they called us back and made us sing, and do jumping jacks and push-ups all the while being drenched with salty ocean water. My boots were filled and my fingers were prune-y! We were near the end though. We had to ‘elephant walk’ to the next station. As we approached, I saw three HUGE people-sized crates full of who knows what? It had no smell, but it was the color of Nickelodeon slime or spiked pickle juice. We had to get in there and ‘slime’ ourselves. It was funny. After that we had to run over and do some calisthenics and then blow the water out of these holes on the flight deck. I was laughing so hard that I barely got any water out of them. The last three stops before becoming a “Shellback” were the funniest and the most ridiculous. The first was a guy sitting on a thrown, let’s just say that he has a tummy…He had a huge vat of CRISCO and some Marischino cherries. He wound his hand around the Crisco can and rubbed it all over his belly….and then, you guessed it…the cherry went right where God put the center of our body…yep his belly button…YUCK-O! Some people just got the cherry, some people got the cherry and a face full of Crisco. LOL! It was awful. The second station was kind of a baker/barber chair. There were all of these cake baking ingredients and the “Shellback” there put threw whatever she desired into your face and followed it up with a tasty “GET OUT OF MY CHAIR!”. The last stop before getting hosed off was a toilet bowl filled with Lord knows what. There was a little bit of everything in there. BLEH! I didn’t partake in the toilet treats…so I made my way over to be hosed off before kneeling before King and Queen “Shellback” to be granted an “Honorary Shellback”. Woo hoo! Today was filled with a lot of gross stuff, team building, lots of laughs and most importantly many great memories. Here is one pic that someone snapped of me as I was going through the “Vomit Hell Hole”!