180th Meridian

Just a quick note from the north Pacific.

We are most of the way through our second consecutive May First and nearing the completion of our fifth straight day at sea. At about 16:30 on the first May First, we crossed the International Date Line. Around 19:00, we crossed the 180th Meridian. We are now physically halfway around the world. Every moment brings London closer.

Early this morning, we passed north of Adak Island, where, in 1945, FDR was rumored to have left his pet dog …and then sent a destroyer to retrieve it.

We are filling our time by reading, resting (we lose about an hour each night), and taking in some of the entertainment. Yesterday they broadcast the appropriate A&E series Longitude. There have been some great seminars on Alaska and whale research. And today, the second May First, we took a tour of the bridge. Even though they did not let me “take the wheel” it was quite interesting. We were fortunate to have a number of people on our tour much more familiar with seagoing vessels than we were. While some of the technology being used was unfamiliar to them, they understood the tasks this equipment performed better than I. They asked questions that we would never have know to ask and we learned more from the extra information. We also had the benefit of one of our dinner companions to help answer some of the questions we had after the tour was over.

Seas are a bit rougher (12 foot swells, we were told on the bridge) but the size of the ship and the stabilizers really help. We should be out of the worst of the rough seas for the rest of this cruise.

• Around the World