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Lat: 26º 54.8 N Long: 178º 14.6 E

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Day 87

Not only will I be able to say that I circumnavigated the globe when I get home, but after today I can say that I lived one day twice. That's right. I woke up this morning, and it was the same day as yesterday: 22 November 2008. 

This calls for a discussion about time zones. I don't know how many time zones there are–I figured there were 24, but I think that's wrong. All I know is that I've been through a bunch; I guess all of them by the end of the trip. Sweet. 

So, up until now the boat has been plowing through time zones into the future...Last night at 2459 hundred hours, I was 16 hours ahead of home. Then we did the Time Warp. (Not the dance, although that would have been a fun event.) In essence, 16 hours had been building up in front of the boat like some kind of force field. As soon as we hit the International Date Line, we busted through time to the past. Now I am eight hours behind home.


Let me explain, though, that those 16 hours were not just squandered time. They were precious nighttime hours that were deducted from my sleep. And tonight I lose another one. What did they give me in exchange? Another day. Sure, it was a no class day, and I spent much of it sleeping. But not enough! This no class day doubled as a work day. I had to write two papers and read an entire book. Maybe I could have done those things earlier, but it's hard when hours are constantly being snatched away from you.

Our blast to the past was no seamless mater, on top of that. I was woken by lots of shaking. The rocking I'm used to; the shaking I'm used to also. But usually the boat only shakes when we are slowing down; therefore, when we are going into port. But right now we are in the middle of the ocean between Japan and Hawaii. Why would we be slowing down? If anything we should have been speeding up. We had to shoot through the International Date Line. I'm pretty sure that should be looked at like a game of Red Rover. 

Either way, we were shaking. And the shaking woke me up, resulting in even less sleep. And now I have more work to do.

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