As you sail west things get later. The sun rises and sets a little later each day. After a while you are eating breakfast while your friends in Germany are eating lunch. Later, their dinner time is your breakfast.
And then, finally on the other side of the world, you are behind everybody. The whole world has lived their day and gone to bed by the time you watch the sun set. You have reached the end of the day and ahead lies only the international dateline.
Luckily the wind dropped and left us drifting only miles before the dateline. The swell stopped and we were left bobbing gently, totally alone in the middle of our private blue ocean. We were directly above the Tonga Trench and therefore eight thousand meters above the sea floor. A strange feeling to be sat in your home knowing the ground is eight kilometers below you.
Together we cooked Risotto “Esprit” with our last bottle of red wine. While it cooked through, we enjoyed a sun down drink in the cockpit – or as we like to say “on the balcony” – as the sun set on Wednesday evening.
At five o’clock on Thursday morning, while we were still cuddled up together in bed, we drifted across the dateline and Thursday became Friday. We got up on Friday morning having jumped over Thursday. We are ahead of the whole world and jump out of bed before any one else is awake.
So now, we have a great excuse for anything we should have done but didn’t. “It was planned for Thursday October 14th 2021!”
Isn’t that strange. To have lost a day.