This entry is written by Debbie Thomas, co-chief scientist of Expedition 378. It comes from her Expedition 378 Odyssey blog, which can be found here.

Local Time: 1721, Jan 30
Location: 38° 47′ S, 177° 31’W

Remember how I kicked off the decade by skipping the first day? (if not check out my first post, I thought I’d kick off the new decade by skipping the first day). Guess what? I get that day back!! If you are following along with our location, you’ll notice that we just crossed the International Date Line. And NOTHING happened. However, tomorrow, (January 31st for us in timezone wonderland) when the clock turns from 2359 to 0000, we are going to repeat January 31st. Whah?

Several of the science party have argued for a January 32nd. I’m not going to manage those expectations…

Thank goodness I have left my computer clock set to College Station time, because my co-chief-weary brain will never be able to figure out the time difference once we relive January 31. And then as we head further east toward our final destination, we will advance the clocks one more time just to stay trippy in Timezone Wonderland. Would have made a brilliant Bowie song…

The irony that anyone who ever has sailed on the JR knows is that as the cruise progresses, it becomes incredibly hard to discern one day from another and we all joke about living in Groundhog Day. So repeating Jan 31 likely isn’t going to be all that trippy. But who knows, anything is possible on Expedition 378.

We did have an non-groundhog experience a few days ago (wish I could remember which day ago…) – our new best friends from the Timaru, NZ tug, the Hinewai, dropped off some supplies and upon departure wowed us with some donuts:

Until the next time, whenever that might be…

DT