Sailing in the area where we are now, one has to take care a lot about the time zones. They are really crazy.

We still have board time “Tahiti/Cook Islands”, which is UTC-10. As soon as we reach Kiritimati, which is east of Penrhyn, the time zone is UTC+14. An example: We have now 0500 on board, which is UTC-10, thus UTC+14 is 0700 but already the next day.

This had to do with the location of the group of Gilbert Islands, in which the Tarawa Islands lies, which is the “capital island” of the group of Kiribati Islands and it is located west of the 180 deg meridian, thus is in the UTC+ area. Exactly it is UTC+12, which is geographically correct. Because the Kiribati group extends to over almost 2000 NM in East-West direction and wants to have somehow reasonable time differences in one country, the Line Islands to which Kirimati belongs have UTC+14 h. The Phoenix Islands in between the East-West extension of the group of Kiribati Islands, have thus UTC+13.

Therefore, we will now change board time to UTC+14 also we are just at 157 deg W.

In the Samoa Islands there it becomes even more funny. I’ll write about it when I’m there.