[Samoa] Chapter LIV: Showing what happened on the voyage across the antimeridian

Looking at the map below, it might seem that in flying from Fiji to Samoa we had travelled more than 30,000 kilometres westward, when in fact we had travelled about 1,000 kilometres to the east. Except that Fiji is located to the west of the antimeridian (the 180th meridian or line of longitude) and therefore traditionally mapped at the very eastern edge of the world, whereas Samoa is located to the east of the antimeridian, and therefore traditionally mapped at the

very western edge.

In truth, this is not the first time that we had crossed the antimeridian 0n this journey, for this longitude passes right in the middle of the island of Taveuni, Fiji --- probably the most accessible place where it passes on land (the others being Eastern Siberia and Antarctica) --- and it is even celebrated there with a special photo-op marker (which we didn't bother to visit).

The antimeridian is sometimes confused with the international date line, for the two follow somewhat similar courses, but the latter deviates significantly from the former in order to maintain date consistency within and between countries and territories. This is especially relevant in the case of Samoa, which lies hundreds of kilometres to the east of the antimeridian, but still has chosen (as recently as 2011) to be located to the west of the international date line.

Thus, when flying from Fiji to Samoa we crossed the antimeridian but not the international date line, and therefore, unlike Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout, we did not move back in time to the day before.

End of lesson. Class dismissed.