Tora and I will cross the international date line this autumn. Even though it’s just a made up line, crossing it leads to some interesting phenomenons.
The Tuesday we’ll never experience
Depending on the direction you travel in, crossing the international date line will add or subtract a day from the current one. If you travel eastwards you get to enjoy the same day twice, in other words a very long day. We, on the other hand, are travelling westwards and will therefore turn the clock 24 hours forward when crossing the line. Since our flight departures in the evening we will cross the line around midnight. The outcome of this is that we take off on the 14th of November and land on the 16th. Tuesday 15th is a day we will simply never experience. If anyone fears Friday 13th, this might be the ultimate way of avoiding the day.
Even though our flight is bit over 15 hours we will, at least according to the calendar, spend three days in the air, 14th, 15th and 16th of November.
Sunrise and sunset
When you skip a day you also skip a sunset and sunrise. Usually the number of sunsets you have seen should correlate to your age, but in our case it’s one less; however, this is not unique for the international date line. If you travel around the earth really fast you can experience more of them as well. For instance astronauts on the International Space Station sees 15 sunrises and sunsets every day.
You can be in two days at the same time
Okey, this is not entirely true. Fiji belongs to one time zone, but if you draw the date line as a straight line at 180º it will pass through the Taveuni Island in Fiji. This enables you to stand with one foot on each side of the line, being in two days at the same time.
3 days on the same day
Most people are familiar with the international date line as the magical line where the clock is moved not just one time zone, but a whole day. However, the line is far from straight, zig-zagging all over the place. This means that the world is actually divided into time zones from -12 to +14 instead of +12. Confused? The reason for this is that there are countries located across the international date line. Kiribati is one of those countries, and a strange phenomenon arises: Because one of the archipelagos is a whole day ahead of the other archipelagos, it will be Saturday there when it’s Friday elsewhere, and Monday when it’s Sunday elsewhere. Since they have a regular 5 day workweek from Monday to Friday, work related communication between the archipelagos can only happen 4 days a week, when the whole country is within the working week. Instead of moving the working days for some areas of the country, they decided to move the international date line instead, ensuring that the entire country would differ by maximum two timezones instead of a whole day. The result was the creation of the timezones +13 and +14.
As if this was not confusing enough, it creates an even stranger phenomenon: When it’s 10:30 GMT time on a Monday, it will be 00:30 on a Tuesday in Kiribati and 23:30 on a Sunday in Niue. That’s three days at the same time.
The Monday Samoa got to experience twice
We “lose” a Tuesday by crossing the international date line this autumn, but Samoa got to experience a Monday twice, without moving anywhere. Due to trade with the US it was agreed in 1892 to move the date line so that Samoa would be on the other side. The result is that they had to repeat a day, and Monday the 4th of July lasted for 48 hours. 29th of December 2011 they changed their minds and moved back from -11 to +13, and 30th of December 2011 is therefore a date that has never occurred in Samoa. That’s one Friday less and an early weekend. Not to mention that they got to celebrate new years eve 24 hours ahead of their neighbour island, American Samoa, being located a mere 71 km away.
Have you ever crossed the international date line and experienced something out of the ordinary? Let us know in the comments 🙂
