Monday Tuesday – Cruising the Pacific Ocean Lake

We had no Monday as we crossed the International Date Line. We went to bed Sunday night and got up on Tuesday morning.

The international date line (IDL) is an imaginary line that runs along the Earth’s surface from the North Pole to the South Pole in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. When you cross it, you either gain or lose a day depending on which way you are traveling. If you are traveling westward, you skip a day, and if you are traveling eastward, you get it back. Read all about it here. We’ll get the day back when we fly from Tokyo to Honolulu. We both got certificates that confirmed we had crossed the Date Line similar to the ones we got for crossing the Arctic Circle back in May on our previous Viking cruise.

Note that I crossed out “Ocean” in the title above. The Pacific is doing an excellent imitation of a lake. Sailing is smooth as silk as you can pretty much tell from the pictures I took this morning after breakfast as we sat in lounge chairs in the pool area facing out to sea. The pool area has a retractable roof, but its been closed on this journey due to the cool temperatures.

Near where we were sitting is this photograph taken by a Norwegian photographer. There’s no explanation of what it is. I don’t know. Do you?

We had lunch in the World Cafe and sat with an Aussie woman who has spent most of her life in America. We know EVERYTHING about her and her kids, natural born and adopted, and about every volunteering job she has every done as well as everywhere they have lived. We shall avoid her in the future. She knows nothing about us and didn’t ask.

After lunch we spent time on our cabin balcony deck. More reading. Some napping. A few more pictures. (Elaine is awake in the picture – I do the majority of the napping.) The captain in his daily noontime announcement said that he expects good weather for the next few days. Kiss of death? We’ll see.

Cocktails in the Living Room Bar as usual. Don and Donna joined us. We four ate dinner in the World Cafe. And then they went to hear the entertaining ventriloquist in the theater. Edgar Bergan and Charlie McCarthy? Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney? We skipped it and had nightcaps in the Explorer’s Lounge. Our photo from the Living Room. I should have had my gimlet in my hand. You can see it in the foreground. Everyone is smiling. That’s my version of a smile.