9. Today's the day....or isn't the day.
Despite the fact that the ship's GPS is showing a position of 168 degrees west, the international geographical authorities deem that the international date line actually passes through this line of longitude rather than at 180W, thus at midnight, we jumped from Tuesday April 9 to Thursday April 11. Technically the date line has been reached and instead of being 12 hours behind Greenwich, we are now 12 hours ahead. Around a dozen people aboard have missed their birthday. Talk about time travelling.
On the other hand, at 12.45pm today we will be crossing the equator. However and somewhat surprisingly, their has been no announcement of King Neptune making his customary appearance. Maybe he couldn't afford the fare, although we've now just heard he'll be arriving tomorrow instead. All a bit late if you ask me.
(The attached picture shows our position about 10 minutes before crossing into the Southern Hemisphere at just 0 degrees, 3 minutes north).
Wildlife sightings out in the open ocean have been rare to non existent. We have spotted just one pod of dolphins, a few flying fish and the occasional seabird. Equally rare is sighting of other shipping. Since departing Los Angeles we have only seen one other ship (Hawaiian waters excepted of course.) It's hard to comprehend what a huge ocean this is and how much water it contains when we consider we have been sailing for days with no land anywhere close and the water depth is over 5,000m.
Our trivia team has been reasonably successful. Mike and Zena are very keen triviaists (is that a word?) and seem to spend their whole life cruising Therefore they know many answers before the question has even been finished! We've won about four times so far but the quality of the prizes never improve. It's all about the glory.
The menus and food have been a little disappointing but there is certainly nothing to complain about. The menus state that many of the dishes are regional, but all that means is that they put a few pieces of pineapple on top and call it Hawaiian. The main talking points around evening dinner are questions about Trump from the Brits to the Americans and questions about Brexit from the Americans to the Brits.
Our captain, Michel Tuvo is, without doubt, the best captain we have ever sailed with. From previous experience, the captains are largely anonymous people, but Captain Tuvo is completely the opposite. He is always wandering around the ship, talking to passengers, eating in the buffet, checking on the progress of events and deliberately photobombing people's pictures. Because he is Italian he says that he is an "excellent driver" of the ship. When the weather is good he says it's because "me me me in charge of the weather today", when the weather is bad, it's because somebody else is in charge. He always ends his broadcasts with a quickly spoken, high pitched "bye bye!", and this catchphrase is now being used by everyone. He has also announced that as so many people aboard have already crossed the equator, this time we will be going underneath the line, rather than over it.
It's been mooted that in the event of a real emergency whether or not he would be taken seriously, such is his jocular demeanour.
On the other hand, at 12.45pm today we will be crossing the equator. However and somewhat surprisingly, their has been no announcement of King Neptune making his customary appearance. Maybe he couldn't afford the fare, although we've now just heard he'll be arriving tomorrow instead. All a bit late if you ask me.
(The attached picture shows our position about 10 minutes before crossing into the Southern Hemisphere at just 0 degrees, 3 minutes north).
Wildlife sightings out in the open ocean have been rare to non existent. We have spotted just one pod of dolphins, a few flying fish and the occasional seabird. Equally rare is sighting of other shipping. Since departing Los Angeles we have only seen one other ship (Hawaiian waters excepted of course.) It's hard to comprehend what a huge ocean this is and how much water it contains when we consider we have been sailing for days with no land anywhere close and the water depth is over 5,000m.
Our trivia team has been reasonably successful. Mike and Zena are very keen triviaists (is that a word?) and seem to spend their whole life cruising Therefore they know many answers before the question has even been finished! We've won about four times so far but the quality of the prizes never improve. It's all about the glory.
The menus and food have been a little disappointing but there is certainly nothing to complain about. The menus state that many of the dishes are regional, but all that means is that they put a few pieces of pineapple on top and call it Hawaiian. The main talking points around evening dinner are questions about Trump from the Brits to the Americans and questions about Brexit from the Americans to the Brits.
Our captain, Michel Tuvo is, without doubt, the best captain we have ever sailed with. From previous experience, the captains are largely anonymous people, but Captain Tuvo is completely the opposite. He is always wandering around the ship, talking to passengers, eating in the buffet, checking on the progress of events and deliberately photobombing people's pictures. Because he is Italian he says that he is an "excellent driver" of the ship. When the weather is good he says it's because "me me me in charge of the weather today", when the weather is bad, it's because somebody else is in charge. He always ends his broadcasts with a quickly spoken, high pitched "bye bye!", and this catchphrase is now being used by everyone. He has also announced that as so many people aboard have already crossed the equator, this time we will be going underneath the line, rather than over it.
It's been mooted that in the event of a real emergency whether or not he would be taken seriously, such is his jocular demeanour.
Comments
Post a Comment