It’s about time

 I am writing this on Saturday, February 1, yesterday (our Thursday January 30 we crossed both the equator heading south and the international date day. It is very confusing, because we “lost” Friday, January 31. I took the first photo in the morning while we were still in the northern hemisphere, and the second in the afternoon once we crossed into the southern hemisphere. Not much difference other than the sun position, no? And no, the water didn’t noticeably change direction in the sink or toilet. 

So many of our geographical boundaries seem to be pretty insignificant to the untrained eye, and yet we generally agree that someone with the scientific expertise has made an educated determination. On Thursday when the announcement was made that we had crossed the equator, I sure couldn’t feel or see any difference but I am willing to trust the scientists. I’m equally comfortable with the science about time zones also but it is still hard to grasp. On this trip we will advance our clocks forward one hour 24 times. So we set our clocks “back” one hour and gain one hour of sleep. In exchange we give up, as we did yesterday, one complete day. I mean really, how crazy is that? 

I recently read a wonderful short book Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, the 2024 Booker Prize winner. It was so thoughtful and engaging. The setting is one day in the International Space Station from the perspective of the six astronauts and cosmonauts. If you have any interest in space, astronomy, or geography, I would highly recommend this book. The single most surprising fact I learned from this is that during one 24 hour period, one day, the spacecraft will experience 16 “days”. A complete day of one sunrise to one sunset will occur every 45 minutes. Enough science for one day, haha. 

We had a couple of days in Hawaii earlier this week. In Honolulu both of us went out for a little sightseeing and shopping. Gary returned to the ship and I went to the Foster Botanical Garden, one of the five city botanical gardens that was closest. It is a small, very well maintained garden in the midst of a high density urban area. It reminded me a little of the Denver Botanical Garden where I have spent many a happy time in an earlier life. I loved the first of the tropical flora I’m looking forward to seeing and the Japanese influence in several parts of the garden. 

We were greeted by a beautiful double rainbow when we opened our drapes first thing in the morning. What a greeting!

This was an intriguing stand selling an interesting selection of corn dogs. They may be onto something. 

One of the giant tropical trees. See the tiny figure in white for contrast. It was leafless at this time of the year, but I was imagining how many leaves it must have dropped and the cleanup that must have been. 

I spent a fair amount of time in the butterfly garden, just soaking it in and thinking how much my sister, Nora, mother, Jackie, and grandmother, Nanny, would have loved it. So peaceful and a respite from the noise of the news of the world. 

I mentioned it is located in a pretty densely populated area, here is one of the neighboring apartment buildings. 

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This is just one of the art pieces with a strong Japanese influence. 

The next day was Kauai for the day. Gary and I have been several times previously, and Gary many more times than I. One of the things we have loved doing together there is playing miniature golf at the Kauai Mini Golf course, which is in a public park and combines the course with lots of information on history as well as being another botanical garden. Our good luck, the weather was great, and the course was open so we took an Uber across the island to get in a round of mini golf and a shave ice. Gary excelled in his game leaving me in the dust, so to speak. It was kinda silly to go so far for one round of gold, but it was the perfect excursion for us. 

There are lots of feral chickens on the islands, and we saw this mom with several cute very little chicks. 

That brings us up to our current six days at sea. Thanks for following along. Mahalo.