Race 10 - Day 17
Crew Diary - Race 10 Day 17
19 April
On Saturday the 13th of April at about 16:00 hours we crossed the International Date Line (IDL) in the North Pacific Ocean. And yet it’s only 09:00 on Saturday the 13th of April as I write this blog. How bizarre!!! Feels like we’ve gone back in time.
There’s a lot of fun jokes that can be thought of about yesterday and today. But I’m going to write about the significance it made to me:
1st - It marks the point where we crossed from the Eastern Hemisphere to the Western Hemisphere at 180 degrees longitude and we start logging our longitudinal coordinates as W rather than E.
2nd - It’s about halfway across the Pacific and also roughly halfway around the world from where we started in Portsmouth so it feels like we’re on our way back home counting down from 179W to 1W of longitudes.
3rd - Since it’s in the middle of the Pacific it’s probably the furthest away from any other humans other than on the other ten Clipper Race boats or vessels around. The closest other people are those on the ISS (International Space Station). Yesterday on my night watch we had a clear sky full of stars and I saw what looked like the ISS fly past.
4th - Although it’s a little cold it’s not been raining, and we’ve had some great sunsets and sunrises with clear skies in the past two days (or rather the same day repeated).
5th - I was still confused about the time change and trying to work it out in my head until I did the log entry this morning. So, I figured the UTC time did not change. It never does. All we did was move our boat time from UTC+12 to UTC-12. So much simpler to comprehend now!
Finally - this one is the most important: when my Mom realised I had signed up to sail round the world, she asked me why I had done such a thing, obviously not happy about it. Not having a better answer, I told her I wanted to make sure the world is round and see for myself. This marks the point that it is indeed round.
Also wishing my mom a happy birthday on the 24th. We seem to be missing all the low-pressure systems and may not get to Seattle before then. “Happy Birthday Mama”.