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Published: April 11th 2019
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Just across the Equator
View of the TV Screen with longitude and latitude Today is a really unique day. You are probably wondering what happened to Wednesday’s entry in the blog. Well that just didn’t happen to us. We crossed the International Dateline and woke up this morning 24 hours later on Thursday morning instead of Wednesday. Because of the weird adjustment of the dateline, we were still around 166 degrees of west longitude this morning instead of 180.
Today is doubly unique because it is a special anniversary date for us – bet you can’t guess which one! It is our 200
th day cruising on Princess Cruise Lines. That doesn’t win us anything special at the buffet, but it is interesting to note. We have had 28 days on other cruise lines too, but somehow the 228
th day just doesn’t sound quite so special.
Anyway, we went up to the Horizon Court this morning and found it wasn’t very busy. We got what we wanted off the buffet and then headed to our morning activities.
Janet went to Knitters and spent the morning doing lots of arm exercises with her knitting needles. David took our paperwork to the Future Cruise Desk and got 2 reservations each for another cruise. If we book something within the next 2 years then we get a handful of benefits and if we don’t book anything then we get all our money back. We have a cruise scheduled for next year but you never know when something fascinating might appear on Princess’ schedule. He then read his book in one of the lounges until 10:30.
At 10:30 David went to the Princess Theater and watched a preview of the DVD which is being prepared concerning the whole cruise. Actually he had no interest in it, but that was the best way to get a seat in the theater for the 11:15 presentation on American Samoa. That session was 110%!s(MISSING)old out with people sitting on the aisle steps and standing along the wall as early as 11:00.
We will be docking in Pago Pago (pronounced Pango Pango). American Samoa is composed of 4 islands with the largest being Tutuila. The islands of the Samoa chain are from 1-10 million years old, but since the depth of the water is about 18,000 feet then fewer of the islands reached sea level before moving off the volcanic hot spot (review April 1 if you do not remember).
Directly across the bay from where we will dock is the only remaining tuna canning factory in Samoa. Where there had been 3 until fairly recently, now only Star-Kist is left. Just like Hawaii, it has become cheaper to produce and ship products from elsewhere than out in the middle of the Pacific. Currently their main crops are Bananas, Breadfruit, Coconuts, and Taro. They also have a great abundance of seafood in their daily diet.
We were told to expect hot & humid weather just like Samoa from the day before. They use the US Dollar and speak English. The population is about 60,000. There are few public buses and a limited number of taxis. The tour buses are usually painted in festive colors, but they are not air conditioned and they usually have wood bench seats. The port lecturer recommended everyone to bring one of pool towels to sit on to provide a little cushioning on the bench. There are many beaches, but some are private and others are public, so you need to check first before dashing into the water. Also some form of shoes are strongly encourages (pool shoes, reef shoes, or just old sneakers) because there is a lot of rock/coral on the beach and in the shallow waters.
After the presentation we met in the cabin and went down to the Amalfi Dining Room where they were selling various souvenirs (T-shirts, coffee mugs, etc) but mostly from their previous South America cruise – not too much from this trip. We bought a couple of shirts. The Captain had announced that we were going to be crossing the Equator about 12:45 and he would blow the ship’s horn. Apparently we couldn’t hear the horn in the sale, so David got a photo of us being just slightly south of the equator. Looking out from our balcony he could have captured the same view anytime during the day – there is no billboard floating in the water saying “Welcome to the Southern Hemisphere”. SPOILER ALERT - For some reason they are delaying the “crossing the line” celebration until tomorrow, so that will be the big even in tomorrow’s blog.
We went up to the Lido Deck for lunch and hat hot dogs and brats. We also got some ice cream for dessert and then returned to the cabin. Janet spent the next couple hours working on her needlecraft project while David went up to the pool for a little swim. It was fairly crowded and he swam for a while but had to move to the covered pool (called the Conservatory on the ship’s deck plan) because it gave some protection from the hot sun. However there were a lot of folks gradually turning into pieces of crispy bacon in the deck chairs, but not David. The temperature on the TV screen always seems a lot cooler than it feels out on the deck. The computer said the temperature was 86 degrees at 8:00 this evening.
Back in the cabin David read for some of the afternoon and Janet finished her craftwork for today and took a nap. We had another restful day again. We’re sorry if we aren’t making this part of the blog sound interesting, but we are just having some relaxing sea days. Anyway, we got dressed for dinner and went to the Elite Lounge for a couple of cocktails before dinner. Janet got a strawberry margarita which was enormous (took a picture but not sure if it will be uploaded on the blog or not). Then we went to dinner. Janet had Veal Cordon Blue and David had Sirloin Steak – Janet made the better choice tonight.
After dinner we went to the Vista Lounge and watched the flute player we had seen a couple of days ago. He has a lot of talent with the instruments but needs to work on his stage presence. His show was very similar to what he did previously, so it wasn’t as impressive tonight.
That is all for now, so we will say good night from somewhere south on the equator.
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