By Bob Van Leer

  (AT SEA, SOUTH PACIFIC , March 4, 2003) - Yesterday at about 2 p.m. we crossed the International Dateline so March 3 disappeared. We went from Sunday, March 2, to Tuesday, March 4. The reason for this is it was required by standardization of time.

  According to an interpretation in the ship's daily program, the dateline, and other time features were set in 1883 in a meeting in Washington, D. C. The world was divided into 24 zones of one hour each. The starting point for all zones, the Prime Meridian, was at Greenwich, near London, the site of the most prominent astronomical observatory of the day.

  From there, lines were drawn to the east and west at 15-degree intervals (360 degrees around the earth divided by 24 hours). Since the sun rises in the east, the day begins there. So time is later at points to the east of the Prime Meridian and earlier at points to the west. With all the hours of the day present and accounted for, there remained only one issue.

  Half way around the world from Greenwich, it was both 12 hours earlier and 12 hours later. This was designated the dateline. As you cross the line you go from one day to the next. The day is one day earlier on the eastern side of the line and one day later on the western side. When you are crossing from east to west, as we were doing, we lose a day.

  But not to worry, when we return from Sydney to San Francisco we get an extra day. Because of this peculiarity, when we are flying back from Sydney, we will land in San Francisco before we take off from Sydney. It is all a fiction of the dateline of course; the elapsed flight time is about 15 hours.

LONGEST SEA RUN

  This is our fourth day at sea, the longest sea run we have made, 2500 miles from Bora Bora to Auckland, New Zealand, where we will dock for a day's stay.
The other day I went on a tour called "Behind the Scenes", conducted by Stan Kuppens, food and beverage manager. Mostly passengers are kept out of working areas of the ship but we are naturally curious. Through the doors marked "Crew Only", the ship is different. There is no carpeting and paneled walls, instead painted steel. But the crew areas are as spotless as the passenger areas.

   There is one main passageway running the length of the ship which is called I-95, after the Florida freeway through the ship's home port of Ft. Lauderdale. Supplies are moved in by forklift and sorted to the various storage areas in the ship: dry, cool or frozen. Supplies come in on wood pallets but Kuppens said these can be contaminated and supplies are moved off the wood to stainless steel pallets owned by the ship.

  We toured some of the food storage areas, which have stainless steel walls and ceilings. One complex is for waste handling. Everything that can be recycled is; waste water is treated. Some debris is incinerated and paper not suitable for recycling is used as fuel for the two incinerators. So little needs to be disposed of off the ship that off loading is done only about every 25 days.

  The ship is quite self-sufficient. In the food area there is a produce cooler, dairy cooler, meat freezer, ice cream room, poultry room, dry storage, defrosting room and butcher shop. Kuppens said about 70% of what was needed for this cruise was loaded at Ft. Lauderdale. Some of the rest was shipped ahead and some purchased at local ports along the way, such as fresh fruit.

  There is a complete laundry and dry cleaning area, carpentry shop, upholstery shop and tailor shop. Red painted floors are work areas. Blue painted ones are crew living and work areas. There are dining areas and recreation and bar areas for officers and crew.

  Officers can eat in the ship's passenger dining rooms, but they have to wear dress uniforms. For officers working who don't want to change there is a below-decks dining room which Kuppens said is nicknamed the "dirty officers' mess".

  Early tomorrow we will dock in Auckland, the first of our three stops in New Zealand.