In The Navy (On the Boat), Part 17, Blue Nose

Before we acquired our prey, we sauntered north into the Arctic Circle. That is an imaginary line at Latitude 66° 33′ 39″ and everything above it is “inside the Circle”. Once you cross this on a Boat (or ship) it kicks of a historic celebration, called the "Blue Nose". Once the ceremony is done (and you only have to do it once, thank god) you become a member of the “Order of The Blue Nose”. I still have my card and poster sized certificate to prove I had gone through it.

The celebration is basically an initiation (hazing). Anyone who is not a Blue Nose already is fanatically urged to participate. Anyone who does not participate is loathed. If I remember right, we had only one guy do that. He caught shit for the rest of the time on the Boat.

Those of us who do partake are lined up and stripped down to our mighty tightey whiteies and a tee shirt. We form a line back in berthing and are blindfolded with some cloth. The next thing you know the guy in front of you is gone and it’s your turn. Someone guides you up to the mess deck, which has been covered in plastic and decorated in a very bizarre manner (I saw it after all this).

The room has a sick smell about it and the odor alone almost makes you vomit. Next thing you know, you are drenched in ice water and pelted with ice cubes from all sides. Next comes the slime, something really nasty gets poured over your head, like syrup with fish in it, and that is all mashed into your hair. It’s very disgusting and again the smell hits you hard. Someone had already puked when I went though, so I had that to contend with too.

More ice water followed, which was welcomed, it washed off some of the crap in my hair. It was freezing and treading on the wet plastic while barefoot was difficult. I half felt my way along and was half guided. Whoever was running the show was making sure no one got seriously hurt, which was nice of them.

At the end of the gauntlet I was force fed an extremely vile concoction that burned bad, some hot peppers mixed with some kind of fish, probably anchovies. Trying not to puke, I was lead to the final part of the ritual and was un-blindfolded.

I had to eat a cherry out of the belly button of the King! The King is the person on board who has entered the Arctic Circle the most times. In this case, it was a proxy King, because the actual King was a civilian, who was along just testing some new fangled Sonar gear. He was still the King technically, but was a thin small man. He had deferred the throne to a fat bellied Nav ET that more than fit the part.

I used my tongue to pull the cherry out of this guys belly button (the cherry had been cured in hot sauce). I chewed and swallowed. Next thing I know, I had a splotch of blue ink painted on my nose and I was pulled to my feet. Snap went a Polaroid and I was lead out of the mess hall to the head, to take a shower.

The first shower was really a rinse, to get all the crap off of me, with my undies still on. Something was inside the undies, I didn’t want to look and just shook off all the crap I could. I went to my bunk in forward berthing and got a change of clothes and came back to take a real shower. It didn’t get the smell off, but cut it back a bit. I still don’t know what all was used in the ritual, but it was certainly potent. I can still remember the odor and have never smelled it since. It stuck on me for almost a full month. That may have been mental trauma?