Φωτογραφίες

We were more or less over the Tonga islands and close to the border with Western Samoa during the travel between Auckland and Rarotonga (Cook Islands), in the Southern Pacific.
It was the sunrise, but it was also the moment when we crossed the International Date Line (as the tv-monitor of the plane remembered us!).

We leaved Auckland on a Monday and we arrived in Rarotonga on a Sunday!

We choose that direction of our Round the World travel excatley to have one day more of vacation! In the opposite direction we had lost one!
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The International Date Line (IDL) is an imaginary line on the surface of the Earth opposite the Prime Meridian which offsets the date as one travels east or west across it. Roughly along 180° longitude, with diversions to pass around some territories and island groups, it corresponds to the time zone boundary separating +12 and -12 hours GMT (UT1). Crossing the IDL travelling east results in a day or 24 hours being subtracted, and crossing west results in a day being added.

The first date-line problem occurred in association with Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. The surviving crew returned to a Spanish stopover sure of the day of the week, as attested by various carefully maintained sailing logs. Nevertheless, those on land insisted the day was different. Although now readily understandable, this phenomenon caused great excitement at the time, to the extent that a special delegation was sent to the Pope to explain this temporal oddity to him.

For a large part, the International Date Line follows the meridian of 180° longitude, roughly down the middle of the Pacific Ocean. However, because the date to the east of the line is one day earlier than that to the west of the line, the line deviates to pass around the far east of Russia and various island groups in the Pacific, no country wanting to have – at least during ordinary daytime hours – its citizens functioning on two different dates. Thus, the two largest deviations from this meridian both occur to keep the date line from crossing nations internally.

In the South Pacific, the dateline swings east such that various islands administered by New Zealand (which lies west of 180°) are on the same date with New Zealand.

The International Date Line can cause confusion among airline travelers. The most troublesome situation usually occurs with short journeys from west to east.

For example, to travel from Tonga to Samoa by air takes approximately two hours, but involves crossing the international date line, causing the passenger to arrive the day before they left.
This often causes confusion in travel schedules.

From Wikipedia

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