Saturday 11th June

One night down, six to go.

All day today is “at sea”, with land visible in the distance on the starboard side. See, all the lingo.

We spend the time exploring, but Sarah keeps getting lost. She wants to see whales, so we spend a lot of time identifying every bit of wood floating past, just in case it isn’t.

Tonight’s dinner is “formal”, so lucky I brought a jacket, eh?

Sarah is really pissed off. Our local Gibraltans told us they saw whales this evening, and she missed it. She wants to know when they are next scheduled to appear, so that she can be ready. Can you see why she doesn’t want kids? “What do you mean I can’t schedule the delivery? I’ve got things to do, people to abuse, asswipe!”

As we finish dinner, we are advised to put our watches back an hour. Thought we had hit daylight saving, but no. Alaska is on a different time-zone from Seattle. We will get that hour back as we return to Seattle.

Speaking of daylight savings, I have been pondering a theory.

Flying from NZ to damn near anywhere takes longer than getting back again. Look at a flight schedule and you will see what I mean. Going north (aka damn near anywhere) is going uphill, and coming back is going downhill. Simple logic, really.

No, that’s not the theory, that’s just a fact.

Now, go to LAX and you take 12.5 hours to get there. Not only that, but you arrive on the same day. Earlier the same day, actually. A few hours saved.

Flying home might only take you 11.5 hours, but you lose an entire day. 24 hours!

So what does all of this mean?

We are actually in the industry of TIME TRAVEL. Seriously. We might save a few hours going uphill, but we lose 24 coming back down. The result is that somebody who goes to the states (like I am now) will be almost a day older when I get back, than somebody who never left home.

Suddenly that explains why hosties age faster than the rest of us. If they go north twice a week, they could age an extra couple of days every week. Every week! After a year of flying long haul, they will have aged at least 100 days more than the rest of us. Yikes.

Like I said, Time Travel.

But not in a good way.