#flathal #flatstanleyproject #internationaldateline
Sea days can be a fun time to look back at where we have already been, as well as looking forward to where we are going. Flat Hal and Flat Halena each have friends and family back home who want to know they are staying safe and healthy as we travel. There are lots of ways to use the internet to keep in touch from a cruise ship.
One is an app that lets us put pictures and text (we have been sharing our journal pages) on pins on a map. This lets people see exactly where in the world we were when we had that part of the adventure.
For us, it is fun to see the line moving across the map, with circles appearing to mark each place we journaled. One of the other apps we are using to track our route just shows a bright blue line of where we have been, and usually we notice nearby countries and land. Today we noticed the funny gyrations (movements and shapes like when we squirm around in bed) that the International Date Line makes so islands can stay on the same day as the rest of their country, or in a few cases, so they can stay on the same day as the part of the world they do the most business with. (Australia and New Zealand provide a lot of cargo ships, so having the same Monday through Friday, and the same weekend as them makes life less confusing.)
Tomorrow, when the Flat Friends wake up, our calendars will have leapt right over Feb 27th and landed on Feb 28th.
We have crossed the International Date Line (IDL) before, but it feels like time travel every time!
And every time we feel sorry for the people who miss their birthday. We think the best cruise ever would sail East across the IDL, so you repeat a day, in leap year, so February 29th is repeated… those folks deserve an extra day of celebration!
