The following image was taken from the sliding door of our stateroom. A bit cloudy today. Still a balmy 79F. This post covers two dates, though only 24 hours in total, as we crossed the International Date Line and jumped ahead 24 hours. We will slowly gain 13 hours back as we cruise west to Greenwich/London.
Cheryl: My view today during my 1/4 mile deck 2 loop. Pretty nice.
Bob: I attended Mike Foreman’s presentation on his first space walk, STS-123. Both educational and informative.
We attended a presentation on The Dynamic Sea given by Julian Dowdeswell, Bob’s favorite speaker.
The second image summarizes the extent of all of Earth’s oceans. Incredible. The third image shows how a majority of the continents fit inside just the Pacific Ocean. No wonder we have so many sea days from Los Angeles to New Zealand.
97% of Earth’s water is saltwater. Of the 3% of fresh water, 68.7 is in ice and glaciers, 30.1% ground water, and 1.2% is in lakes, swamps, and rivers. The bottom line: there is not a lot of liquid fresh water.
We attended a presentation on The Economies of Middle-earth (we are going to New Zealand after all). John Wakeman-Linn has a PHD in economics. This talk, however, was a lighthearted overview of the economies found in the Lord of the Rings books and movies. John also shared how the six movies and Peter Jackson have had a significant positive impact on tourism and the economy of New Zealand.
The evening ended in Manfredi’s for a great meal followed by an international date line crossing toast and music on the pool deck.