We’re in a new hemisphere.
Last night around 3:30 in the morning we crossed the 180 degree longitude, and now our positions read
32° 49′ 28” South
178° 27′ 32” EAST
That last is the big one. For our whole lives the longitude of our Lat/Long Positions have been in degrees West of the Prime Meridian, now they are East. We are on the diagonally opposite corned of the globe from where we spend the bulk of our lives.
In some ways it is less momentous that crossing the Equator ? there are no ceremonies or names that I am aware of. But in some ways it is much, much more.
Crossing the Equator you can do in the Atlantic Ocean; in Trinidad we were only about 600 miles North of it. While it is far from our starting point in Rhode Island, people are still on the same day, only a time zone away anywhere in the Caribbean ? even the Galapagos wasn’t that far off in time. You can fly back in a single day, arriving the same day you left.
We crossed the equator some 2,500 miles as the crow flies from our starting point ? we are now three times that distance from our starting point. We’ve come a long way.
Here, it is tomorrow already. Plan to spend two full days getting to the U.S., and I haven’t the faintest idea what time it is ?back home?. Trying to follow a football game with a with a 7:00 a.m. kickoff in French Polynesia was odd ? now if I want to do it I need to get up earlier on a Monday!
Though on the other hand coming to New Zealand is in some ways closer to home that we’ve been for a long time. For example not been in an English speaking country in over a year. Reportedly the do speak English in New Zealand, although the accents and slang are supposed to take a little doing. But being an Anglophone nation, it will be much culturally closer to the U.S. in many way that we’ve experienced for a while.
But it will also be quite different, not the least of which will be repeatedly explaining that our Footballers aren’t ?girls? for hitting with pads. I also suspect my son will learn how to drive on the wrong side of the road.
Currently we’re motoring along in next to no wind, with an expected arrival time of less than two days from now. The wind may be expected to fill in tomorrow, of course blowing straight from New Zealand. No biggie, we’ve been sailing upwind for days ? what is one more?
We are looking forward to it. Not just the end of a less that thrilling passage, but exploring yet another new place in the world. Learning what is the same, and what will be very, very different.
And maybe we’ll get a glimpse of a Hobbit?
