albatross, rainbows and sunset...

Ship time is currently 2310 although we will be advancing one hour tonight. Our current location...
Latitude: 27 degrees 25.09' N
Longitude: 178 degrees 29.90' WEST! (we crossed the date line around 1830 at about 28 degrees latitude)
Course: 121 degrees

We will be passing south of Midway Island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_Atoll or http://www.midwayisland.com/ shortly -- Latitude there is 28 degrees 12' N and Longitude is 177 degrees 21' W.

Today has been a very exciting day at sea. It was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine and we have albatrosses following in our wake waiting to see what the boat churns up in the way of food. These are smaller birds than were seen by some near South Africa, but are still quite large with a wingspan of seven feet. There are two types, Laysan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laysan_Albatross and black-footed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-footed_Albatross, and we have seen both. There were a dozen or so off the stern today and this is one of the many times I wished I had invested in a better camera for this trip, but I did get a bit of video below.

A little later this afternoon I was in our cabin looking out the window and could see nearby a storm with some interesting clouds. I went to the port side deck near us to have a closer look and take some photos, and as I watched, rainbows began to appear. The photo is not nearly as beautiful as the sight was, but maybe you can get the idea. There was a double rainbow that changed as the ship moved through. At one point the bottom one arced all the way across the sky, but I could not capture it on our camera.

Once the rainbows faded I walked to the starboard side of the ship where I knew I could see the sunset. A fellow traveller was there with her camera and mentioned that she was still trying to see a "green flash" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_flash at one of our sunsets. I had never heard of this phenomenon and asked her about it. She gave me a brief explanation. Later she and I were at another event where someone else on the ship said that she had seen the green flash tonight. I guess I will have to look for it now!

Tonight my friend Maggie Thomas performed with several of the drama students in the play "The Persians" by Aeschylus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persians. When I had talked with her earlier today Maggie seemed quite anxious about whether they were ready to perform, but I was quite impressed tonight with all the performances. An action-packed day -- time for bed!