Nuie to Tonga - (68)
Beaujolais
Wed 18 Aug 2010 01:35
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Position
The forecast was for 10 to 15 knots
of wind from the East to South East. It is 8-10 knots and we are Motor sailing.
Just another 2 knots and I could put up the spinnaker. Anyway, the
weather is lovely. It is warm sunny and calm.
so I am not
complaining.
Here we are, in the middle of
hundreds of thousands of square miles and last night we saw two fishing
vessels and two there yachts, all within a 3 mile radius. It's busy out
here!
Today is a momentous day as tonight,
we will cross the International Dateline. From one minute to the next it
will go from being Monday 16th August to Wednesday 18th August and
I will have aged 24 hours in one minute! Maybe I should keep
circumnavigating the other way round and rediscover my youth! I know we do this
on aeroplanes all the time but there is something different and special about
doing it on a yacht; a bit like crossing the equator for the first time I
suppose, though no ceremony this time.
So that Tonga can be to the west , on
the same day as NZ, Australia etc. the vertical international dateline of
180 degrees from the Greenwich or Prime meridian makes an artificial kink to the
east to encompass the country. Our next significant milestone will be when
we truly cross from West to East, from longitude 179.59W to 179.59E. That
will happen when we approach Fiji but it will not be for another
few weeks still.
No FISH!
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