Day 9 to FP – A Free Hour

:lat=-9.99:lon=-107.44:
Time: 2320UTC, COG 240T, SOG 7.0kts, Distance Remaining: 1781nm

Since we've been sailing westward, we have been noticing something interesting. Every evening, the sun sets a bit later. Depending on the distance we covered over the previous 24 hours, she would go down 5 to 10 minutes later every day. Not being a fan of our 12 hour nights, I remarked "Oh, look, the days are getting longer here as well. Sweet!" To which Mark, in his dry manner answered "This is because we are traveling more west". Ah, that makes sense, of course, but usually, one doesn't travel slow enough to actually see the changes in the sun´s behavior day after day. Usually, people take a plane to a different time zone and just adjust the clock whenever they arrive. For us, cruisers, it doesn't quite work that way. Not on a long voyage like this one; it would mess up our schedule. Our days and nights would be well off after a while.
Based on the sun setting about five-ten minutes later every day and the average daily distance of 130 miles covered by Irie, today was the day to change our clocks. We set them back one hour and just like that we created an extra hour in this day (of course, we are not adding the hour to our already everlasting night!). We're enjoying every minute of it. :) So, generally speaking, every 1000 miles (wow, one third of the trip done!) traveled means setting the clock back an hour. At sunset we'll start all over again for 1000 miles, get another hour as a present in a week or so, and do it once more after that, before we arrive in French Polynesia. Let's hope we don't get to that date line very soon, so we can savor our extra time without having to give it all, and then some, back yet!