Across the international dateline

We crossed the international dateline and nobody called me for a date. Poor pun! We lost a day so January 29th vanished. We celebrated with a fabulous brunch!

I had another milestone--I saw the Southern Cross. Almost every night since we left Tahiti astronomer Perkins and stalwart followers went outside on deck 9 at 10 pm only to be frustrated by cloud cover. Last night the clouds cleared enough to see the Southern Cross and 2 pointer stars. The diagram shows how to locate the south celestial pole. Connect the 2 pointer stars and draw a perpendicular line bisecting them. Draw a line connecting the 2 Southern Cross stars on the long axis. Where the 2 lines intersect is the south celestial pole. This is better shown then described. Now I don't have to stay up past my bedtime anymore.Read more