Crossing the

180 DEGREES EAST/WEST:

Underveis has crossed the
now counting the longitude
A new milestone for us.
mahi-mahi and newly regained

international date line. We are
backwards home towards Røst.
We celebrated with freshly fished
youth.

as we approached the date line.
marked off? No worries, as we were
with a thick, red line stretching for as
and into the South. We had crossed it!

The last time we crossed a milestone like this, was in the Galàpagos islands, when we crossed the 90 degrees median, as well as the Equator at the same time. The international date line stretches from the North Pole all the way to the South Pole through the Fiji islands. They are usually the first ones to celebrate New Year. They celebrate New year 11 hours before we do it in Norway. Subsequently, American Samoa, some few hundred miles to the East, 12 hours behind us in Norway, celebrate their New Year some 23 hours after their neighbours in Fiji. Confused? So are we, but it is really very simple. Check out this link for more information about the international date line.

In the waters north of Fiji, there is a seabed system with depths ranging from over 3000 meters in depth, to only a few tens of meters on the shoals. This makes for an abundant fishery, and we at Underveis, who have until this point only been on the average fishermen, suddenly became great fishermen overnight! Every day, we could haul a new, big fish out of the water, and tuna, barracudas and mahi-mahi found their way into our frying pans. Unfortunately, there is way too much food in one of these fish for only two people. So we cut out the best parts for filets, and cut the tail up in shreds to dry in the sun. The remainder, we must throw to the sharks.

As we are approaching our next destinaton, Port Vila in the Vanuatu archipelago, new and exciting adventures await us. Regrettably, Vanuatu will also be our last and final stopover before Australia, and so our Pacific adventure is mercilessly drawing towards an end.