Today marked the opening of the 2012 Fall Crossing Olympics – a grueling five day test of strength, cunning and agility. Four teams competed – Pink, Black, White, and Blue. I was the main cheer leader for the Pinks.

The opening event was deck volleyball played with a balloon (or many balloons since multiple were broken in the heat of battle) and sitting on deck. With the rocking ship and the wind, this event was much more challenging than it looked.  Despite one of the team members rolling over and bumping her head (rather hard – she was on the injured list for the next day’s events but recovered), the pink team took the gold in this first event.

Day 2’s event was a treasure hunt (Hey, it’s shipboard Olympics). There was a list of 15 questions that needed to be answered and the majority took running around the ship to locate the answers. Some of the questions included, “How many wenches on the foredeck?” and “Where is the Mermaid’s Purse?” Ineka, our friend from the Netherlands, is a natural born leader and headed Team Pink. She stayed on deck and managed the others sending each of the other members off to find the answer to the next question so that all worked as a well-oiled machine. The other teams were much less organized and Team Pink again took the gold.

Day 3’s event was Charades – boy, do they need lessons in how to play charades which really added to the hilarity.

Team Black took the gold for this event but Pink took silver.

Day 4 was the Water Balloon Toss. This event consisted of two members of a team using a beach towel to toss a water balloon

 to two other team members who caught it with a towel and then tossed it to the last two members. At least that was the way it was supposed to work.

This event, too, was much more challenging than it looked and only 1 time did a balloon make it clear around without bursting – Team Pink takes the gold again!

Day 5 The Spoon Dive and The Ball Grab!!!! In the first of the final two events, one female from each team was sent to the pool. Spoons were dumped into the deeper end, which is not really very deep as you can see, and the ladies had to dive and collect as many spoons as possible. Team Pink collected 13 and the next closest competitor recovered only 10 (Yea, Pink).

The final event for the male team members, The Ball Grab, was by far the most entertaining event in the competition.  One guy from each team was in the main pool. Ping-Pong balls were then dumped into the pool and the guys were to collect as many balls as possible before the ending bell. Please, note that they were not given anything in which to collect the balls. This was a heated and hilarious affair and rather suggestive as you can see.

The end results were that Team Pink took first place all-around thus winning the 2012 Fall Crossing Olympics!!!! We celebrated with Champaign, cake

and high fives all around!