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Lexington - Captain Bob: Tonga



We are almost to Tonga. It is 2 a.m. boat time. We crossed the international date line recently so we need to discuss time keeping. The world has 24 time zones that are 15 degrees wide. Starting at Greenwich, England where the prime meridian is the zones are every 15 degrees. In Lexington, Kentucky we are 5 time zones to the west. Therefore when the sun is at noon at the prime meridian, it will be 5 hours earlier in Lexington. This is totally ignoring daylight savings time. The sun moving from east to west has 5 hours of travel to get over Lexington. This pattern continues until you get half way around the world to the international date line which ideally would be at 180 west and 180 east (same meridian). At that point the international agreement is that the day would change. Because countries that are on the line do not want to have part of their country in one day and part in another day, the line has been moved to 172 degrees 30 minutes. When we approached this line it was 14:00 May 31, 2017. After we crossed the line it was 14:00 June 1, 2017. When we refer to boat time, we keep the local time of the last port until we reach the next port so it is easier to calculate lapsed times and to have our radio roll call at the same time for all boats. We do not have to worry about everybody changing the time correctly. The main reference is GMT or UTC which is Greenwich Mean Time or Universal Time. Any local government can choose their own time depending on where they are in time zones ( every 15 degrees). This is where the time zones that we are familiar with come in. We have Eastern, Central and Pacific time zones that are arbitrarily set where governments want them. I have heard of a few places where it is near a timeline and a junction of two governments like an Indian reservation. There can be three different times in a short distance due to this. If all this sounds confusing, it is to a degree. I am not sure this description is exactly right. It is just how I understand it. Best wishes whenever! Bob



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