{"id":14869,"date":"2018-12-08T22:04:14","date_gmt":"2018-12-09T03:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=14869"},"modified":"2018-12-23T22:05:28","modified_gmt":"2018-12-24T03:05:28","slug":"two-december-8ths-crossing-the-international-date-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=14869","title":{"rendered":"Two December 8ths\/Crossing the International Date Line"},"content":{"rendered":"

The First Saturday – \u00a0December 8, 2018 – Apia, Western Samoa<\/p>\n

Apia, the capital of Samoa, is on the western side of the International Date Line so when we cross the imaginary line tonight, we\u2019ll have another December 8th. \u00a0The Amsterdam was at the dock early in the morning and passengers were getting off by eight o’clock. \u00a0Jeff and I commented that we still felt the ship rolling although it was tied to the pier.<\/p>\n

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Half an hour later, Captain Eversen\u2019s voice came over the ship\u2019s loudspeaker telling us that a strong wind was pushing the ship off the dock. \u00a0For safety reasons, he said the ship had to leave the pier immediately. \u00a0There were about fifty passengers still on land and tenders would pick them up and bring them to the ship. \u00a0We watched from the balcony as the ship\u2019s thrusters were engaged and the ship slowly moved sideways.<\/p>\n

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The Amsterdam crept away from the dock and motored into the bay and then we sat there all morning waiting for marooned passengers. \u00a0We learned later that two of the lines on the dock had snapped before we pulled away.<\/p>\n

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As the ship waited in the harbor, I went on the top deck and took a few pictures of Apia. \u00a0I was a little disappointed that I couldn\u2019t explore Apia, but relieved that we weren\u2019t stranded on the island.<\/p>\n

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After several hours, a tugboat appeared and guided the ship out through the narrow inlet. \u00a0It wasn\u2019t a deep water port like Pago Pago and the reef was very close to the channel. \u00a0Captain Eversen said we would take a \u201cscenic route\u201d around the big Samoan island and arrive at Pago Pago, American Samoa early \u201ctomorrow\u201d – our second December 8th.<\/p>\n

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The weather was hot and sticky and very windy; rain clouds gathered on the horizon all day. \u00a0Later there was a heavy tropical downpour.<\/p>\n

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The Second Saturday – December 8, 2018 \u00a0Pago Pago, American Samoa<\/p>\n

By early morning the Amsterdam arrived in the capital city. \u00a0By the way, it\u2019s pronounced \u201cPango Pango.\u201d \u00a0The dock was lined with shipping containers and looked a lot like the last two ports. \u00a0Jeff went ashore in Pago Pago to do a little shopping. \u00a0He got back to the ship just in time to avoid a torrential downpour.<\/p>\n

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Polynesian men wear wrap \u201cskirts\u201d of different fabrics and colorful patterns. \u00a0The \u2019skirt\u2019 was part of the uniform on the security guard in the photo below.<\/p>\n

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The dining rooms and Lido Buffet were decorated with red, white, and blue lights and streamers because American Samoa was the first American port we entered. \u00a0It looked like a Fourth of July celebration.<\/p>\n

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We left Pago Pago harbor in the evening as the sun set and rain clouds swept over the hills. \u00a0The port of Pago Pago is a very well protected deep water harbor.<\/p>\n

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Having two December eights was weird, but might be fun if it was your birthday and you could have two birthdays! \u00a0The ship cruised out into the vast South Pacific Ocean. \u00a0We had five sea days ahead of us to reach the Hawaiian Islands. \u00a0So we hunkered down and hoped for calm seas and lots of shipboard activities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The First Saturday – \u00a0December 8, 2018 – Apia, Western Samoa Apia, the capital of Samoa, is on the western side of the International Date Line so when we cross the imaginary line tonight, we\u2019ll have another December 8th. \u00a0The Amsterdam was at the dock early in the morning and passengers were getting off by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruising","category-samoa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14869"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14871,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14869\/revisions\/14871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}