Day 4 • 29 June 2016 • Honolulu to Majuro

Traveling across the International Date Line is always an interesting phenomenon, and one is led to contemplate what “time” actually means. We began the day with a pick-up at our hostel at 5 am, Hawaii Standard Time (HST), which is 3 h behind Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) and 6 h behind Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). So far, so good. Keep this in mind.

After a rather extensive wait to go through security at Honolulu International Airport, we boarded United Airlines flight 154, the “island-hopper” service across Micronesia. This flight makes six stops (Majuro, Kwajalein, Kosrae, Pohnpei, Chuuk, Guam), which requires two sets of pilots due to the overall duration. Seats 1A and 1B are reserved for the extra set of pilots, and because they need to be able to sleep, these seats have an extra low recline that necessitates keeping Seats 2A and 2B empty as well—otherwise, the pilots would be reclining into the second row passengers’ laps! In addition, there are other weight restrictions, including the carriage of extra cargo and the short runways on these islands, that necessitate additional blocked seats to be able to fly a full-sized aircraft like a Boeing 737, and while this does not mean the plane is empty, it does mean it can never be totally full! This is the only flight that serves these islands, and it is in some ways a lifeline to the Central Pacific.

We departed Honolulu at 7.25 am and headed west for our 5-hour flight into the empty reaches of the Pacific. Well, not quite empty. There is first that International Date Line to consider, a line we crossed at about 10.30 am HST, and which instantly catapulted us into the next day. And when we landed, on time and without problems, we had not only jumped a day, but we came from several hours behind to being many hours ahead of the places we call home. It’s definitely odd from a time perspective, and it gives one’s jetlag a confused twist.

Thus, what appears to the body’s clock to be a single day on our travels is actually two, and this blog therefore continues, without an overnight, on 30 June. I arbitrarily considered anything until we stepped on land in the Marshall Islands as having occurred on 29 June.

The United Airlines island-hopper B737 at the gate in Honolulu at daybreak.

Saying goodbye to the island of Oahu, with Pearl Harbor visible in the center of the photo.

The map onboard the airplane shows the date line, and our approach from the east.

Here it is: the International Date Line. You can clearly see it in the center of the image. No, you actually can't. It is imaginary, and the U.S. military installations on Kwajalein Atoll, a large atoll that is part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands actually keep that atoll on the same day as the U.S. mainland. There is a Pacific Island country called Kiribati, which actually lies on either side of the Equator and on either side of the International Date Line, and they also keep their entire country on the same date, albeit in different time zones.

Flying into Majuro is, for many people, the first time they encounter an atoll. There is a lagoon surrounded by a narrow coral fringe, on which the settlement is built. That's the extent of it! It means that as you drive along the road you have ocean on both sides! One advantage: it's really hard to get lost driving.