Blogs from Oceans and Seas - page 69

At Sea: Throughout today we continued on a South – Westerly heading through the South Pacific Ocean towards Auckland. Around midnight this evening we will cross the International Date Line. The I.D.L. is a line running north and south along the 180thmeridian of longitude, but with some adjustments to avoid dividing certain island groups that are bisected by it, namely the Aleutian Islands off Alaska, and more locally to our position the Fiji, Tonga, and Kermadoc groups as well as New Zealand. The International Date Line is the geographical point at which the zone times GMT +12 hours and -12 hours meet bringing about a 24 hour time change. It is the case that if one were to set out from Greenwich in England which lies at 0 degrees longitude and travel eastward, the time zone ... read more

At Sea: Yesterday was the annual Dawn Princess crew versus crew tug of war competition. It was a very serious and colourful competition, with all teams taking part getting dressed up and putting on a wonderful display, as can be seen by the photos attached. The winning team consisted of members of the casino and members of the gym and spa section, . There were two team mascots both from the Philippines dressed as women, bloody hell they did not come up too bad either, would hate to see them close up though, the outfits they had on were amazing to see. Where they got them from is anybody’s guess. Bet you did not know that cruising is the best way to cover the most ground on the earth, there are 328,000,000 cubic miles of seawater ... read more

At around 10:00 a.m. we arrived at Pitcairn Island. The local vendors came on board and we then set sail for a sail around the island. The Pitcairn Islands group is a British overseas territory. It comprises the islands of Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno. Pitcairn the only inhabited island is a small volcanic outcrop situated in the South Pacific. It is roughly 2170 Km’s south east of Tahiti and just over 6600 Km’s from Panama. The islands administrative headquarters are situated in Auckland 5310 Km’s away. The sight of the vendors approaching the ship was very unusual in their wooden longboats, as the island only has a population of 50 people I reckon 49 of them must have been on the boat. The prices of their souvenirs were not cheap however I just had to ... read more

At Sea: During the day we will continue our voyage on a South Westerly course across the South Pacific Ocean towards Easter Island. The Pacific Ocean separates Asia and Australia from the Americas. It may be further subdivided by the equator into northern and southern portions. It extends from the Antarctic region in the South to the Arctic in the North. The Pacific Ocean encompasses approximately one-third of the earth’s surface, having an area of 165.2 million square kilometres, significantly larger than the earth’s entire landmass of some 150 million square K’ms. Yesterday we facetimed Richard and Lyn Nottingham who gave us the very sad news that Wayne Spendlove had passed away, we were shocked and saddened to say the least particularly that it had happened over a week before, and we did not know until ... read more

Geo: 44.8048, 20.4781We've pretty much given up on trying to sight see in Belgrade and had the slackest of travel days, for a little bit of recovery time. It happens every so often, the need to take a bit of a vacation from the vacation, especially for us, nearly a month into our travels. The pace was pretty hectic in the Scandinavian countries, as we tried to pack in as many sights and activities as possible while we were in cooler climates. We slowed things down a little bit once we hit the Balkans, but the high temperatures here have still taken a bit of a toll.The activities for today consisted of not much more than sleeping, eating, and a half-assed attempt to see the Nikola Tesla Museum. A lazy morning and breakfast meant that it ... read more