Calliope / date line
Gudrun V
Axel Busch
Sun 30 Sep 2012 11:24
hey - did you notice? The longitude is E now, not W anymore. I passed the date line today (180 longitude)! So, after passing the greenwich Meridian (0 longitude) in February 2010 on the way from Ibiza to Almeria, I've sailed now officially more than half around the world. Almost exactly half of that distance (89 degrees, from St Martin to Tahiti) together with Liz. Sweet!
But that is actually not the most exciting thing that happened today. That was when at 7pm after another no-wind day suddenly a heavy rain-front passed with 25kn and at the same time the radar detector and AIS alarm went off. Another boat! And I can't see it for all the rain :-(. So no photo. But thanks to the AIS I know it was the 42m Motoryacht Calliope, doing 12.7kn on the way to Denarau, Fiji. I verified it's position by Radar, and seeing that we'll pass each other with a mile to spare I went back to playing a roleplaying game on the iPad ("Aralon" - Nothing special, but you've got to do something when there's nothing to do all day because of no wind).
Now the rain's gone, but the wind is still 20kn. The sea is also pretty agitated at the moment, and the boat's rolling again. Ah, maybe going super slowly wasn't so bad after all :-)
183nm to go