We were aboard the cruise ship for two days in Hawaii, followed by five days at sea, then two days in French Polynesia, one each on Tahiti and Mo’orea, the subjects of my last two posts.

After leaving French Polynesia, we were at sea for seven days before ultimately seeing land again, that is, the north island of New Zealand, 5,226 miles distant from our start in Honolulu.

You might think there’s nothing to see at sea for such a long time. You would be mistaken. And while it is true that we did not see any land, other vessels or marine life, the ocean and skies of the Pacific change constantly, a never-ending rotation of color and texture.

Here’s a typical day at sea in the South Pacific. Now you can see what we saw:

And an ordinary morning greeting:

You guess what this one is. Sunrise or sunset? Could be either.

All right, I’ll tell you the answer. The photo above is a sunrise. All of the above photos were taken from our balcony on the port side of the ship as we sailed south.

Sometime on Friday, October 18, we crossed the International Date Line, approximately longitude 180°.

When we woke the next morning, we were informed it was Sunday, October 20. We simply lost Saturday, the 19th. Don’t worry, we’ll get it back when we fly home to the U.S.A. in a couple weeks.

We sighted land Sunday morning, the north island of New Zealand. You can just make out the highland to the right of center in the photo, below:

Crossing the International Date Line led to some confusion. Our son’s, Trevor’s, birthday is October 22. We called home to wish him a happy birthday, but it turned out it was still the 21st where he lives in Arizona. In fact, as I write this post, I am one day ahead of readers in the U.S.A. or Europe.

We were docked at Tauranga by noon Sunday and told we would depart Monday afternoon for Auckland, our final destination.

The ship’s original itinerary included a stop in American Samoa for a day, with only one day scheduled in port at Tauranga. But the visit to Samoa was canceled by the Captain “for weather reasons,” which he has the right to do, in his discretion. Too bad, I was really hoping to visit there, home to the most remote U.S. National Park, the National Park of American Samoa, It’s supposed to be spectacular.

At any rate, we contented ourselves with a stroll along the water in Tauranga. We have been here before, back in 2003 with our kids when they were still kids.

There were a few surfers out on the other side of the peninsula, including one guy on a hydrofoil surfboard (left) who was able to catch waves the regular surfers could not.

From Tauranga, we moved during the night to Auckland, where we disembarked for an early flight to Queenstown on the South Island. Our real adventure is about to begin.