Sunday, January 29, 2023 – Day 39
(Yup…It’s Sunday here, we crossed the International Date Line!)
What is the ‘Bounding Main’? Well, the infallible internet says it is, “the mass of water occupying all of the Earth’s surface not occupied by land but excluding all lakes and inland seas.”
That’s what we’ve been doing for the last 26 of the 37 days we have been on the ship. Yup, we chose this isolated, bobbing cork to transport us on our adventure knowing that the first part of our journey would be many, many days at sea. We have 1 more sea day and then we will have 7 days in several ports around New Zealand. The plan is to visit the North Island, first Waitiangi (the Bay of Islands) and then 3 days in Auckland, before moving to three more ports. I said the plan is, because, well, if you’ve been watching the news, you’ll have heard that Auckland got nearly a season’s rainfall in 15 hours and it’s pretty flooded; and more rain is forecast over the next 5 days. We haven’t heard how that will affect our staying in port, but we are praying for the people of Auckland and recognize our itinerary may change while they deal with this state of emergency.
So… what do we do on sea days? Jeff gave you an idea of a typical day a few posts back. One of the things we do is attend lectures. Typically, there are lectures at 9:30, 11, 4:30 and 6:30. Here is a note from Jeff about these lectures…
Donna has mentioned that we’ve attended a number of lectures and we’ve been asked about the topics. So, I thought I would just list some of the topics. We didn’t take notes so don’t ask us what we remember once we return home! All I can say is that almost all have been extremely interesting.
- Who Wants to be a Spy given by a retired CIA agent.
- How Hollywood Invented the Pirate.
- Panama: Landscapes, History, and Wildlife.
- Gadgets from Q’s Workshop
- The Man Who Walked into the Jungle- The Story of the Costa Rica’s Railway
- The Quest to Determine the Shape of the World. Is earth shaped like a grapefruit or an egg?
- 1000 Words of Hawaiian You Already Know
- The Pacific: Exploring the World’s Largest and Deepest Ocean.
- The Pacific Ring of Fire-Geology in Action.
- The World’s Greatest Explorer.
- Polynesian Voyaging and the Great Pacific Highway. What the study of rats can tell us about how the Pacific islands were populated.
- The History of the Aloha Shirt.
- DNA Ancestry Test: Fact or Fiction
- South Pacific – The History Behind the Musical
These are just some of the daily lectures that we took part in. As you can see, there is plenty to do and learn on sea days!
P.S. A few days ago we officially crossed the Equator entering the South Pacific. While we were over 400 miles to the nearest bit of land we saw several sea birds flying about hunting for fish. They fly very long distances in their lives!
Donna here again, we hope to have better internet and update our travel story more frequently once we get closer to land. For now, I hope you’ll enjoy a few pictures of a recent sunrise, storm clearing and sunset, as seen from the ship. Wishing you all well!
