Captain's Log

DATE July 8, 2007 

At midnight local time on Friday July 6^th, we advanced our clocks a full 24 hours to account for the crossing of the international dateline (180^th meridian). It instantly became Sunday morning at 0000 hours thus completely skipping Saturday altogether. I’m not sure if anyone onboard missed a birthday or not.

 Actually, we advanced clocks 24 hours at midnight and then two hours later retarded the clocks one hour to account for the local change in time zone. So, where we were four hours behind Vallejo on the same day in time, we skipped ahead to be 19 hours ahead of Vallejo a day ahead. World time keeping can be a little confusing sometimes, n’cest pas? We actually crossed the date line at 0825 that next morning at 24° - 04’ north latitude.

 With a new-found instant maturity of a day some might say was undeserved, we pressed on into the western Pacific Ocean, which quite frankly, couldn’t be more beautiful. The weather since leaving Hawaii has been delightful with light following breezes, low swell and mostly clear skies with only occasional light small squalls. These tropical seas are illustrated in this series of three pictures:

Rain squall

Late afternoon seas

Sunset

This kind of weather produces excellent conditions to take celestial observations for our senior deck students. With the likelihood of sky, visibility and wind conditions not being very conducive to this while we are out in the orient and then coming across the north Pacific this time of year, the officers have convinced the students that now is the time for them to fulfill their celestial navigation requirements of the training plan. The students, who want to procrastinate from time to time, have been convinced of this wisdom and are jumping into it with both feet; many students are trying to finish BEFORE arriving at our first port.

Here is a picture of one of our Mexican cadets, Arturo Urrea-Bueso, breaking out his sextant and learning how to determine instrument error before taking observations of celestial bodies.

One of our Chilean Navy ensigns, Manuel Fuenzalida, can be seen in the background assisting students with how to “shoot stars.” Traditional nautical skills are universal worldwide, irrespective of country.

No matter what the weather conditions might be topside, the engineering department continues to tackle maintenance projects all cruise long. Here, cadets Moore, Bond and Beuret work on disassembly of the lube oil purifier (removing the bowl).

More to follow in a few day

Captain Leyda

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