It's about time

Going around the world on a ship plays havoc with the notion of time.  Going in a westward direction, as we are, means you lose a whole day, but you pick it up an hour at a time.  In the mad dash across the Pacific, we had three 25-hour days in a row.  (I waste the extra hour, every time.  I stay up way too late every night.  When we gain an hour, I stay up way, way too late.)

One casualty is times for sunrise and sunset.  Generally, you can count on the days getting a bit longer each day from the winter solstice to the summer one, and shorter each day the other half of the year.  But when you are moving through time zones, sunrise and sunset catapult around.  On days when the clock is moved forward or back, the sunrise time shifts a whole hour from the expected.

Days, too, are hard to account for when you are dividing the time into “sea days” and “land days.”  Saturday and Sunday are just names, not leisure time.  I refer to the calendar many times each day to confirm the date. I cross the days off, not in anticipation, but so I can locate “today.” 

I have a chart in my office that tells me when we are going to change our clocks.  I added a column to tell me what time it is back at home base.  I’m not calling; I just like knowing.

We’re traveling around Western Africa at the moment, and we were scheduled to change our clocks tonight, and again in three days as we approach Casablanca.  But not, as you might think, going back an hour heading west and forward an hour as we head back east. We were scheduled to go forward tonight, and then back.  I think the time changes may be related to observances of Daylight Savings Time rather than geographic location.

Rather than disrupt our sleep patterns twice for a zero sum change, the staff captain appears to have elected to tick to our own clock.  It’s a sensible decision, but it makes me vaguely uncomfortable to be out of sync, even if it’s out of sync with an abstract and arbitrary concept.

Ghana sits very close to the Equator, and they do not observe Daylight Savings Time.  All year long, sunrise and sunset are at 6:30.  You could set your clock by it.

In Ghana, the sun is the only thing that runs on schedule.