And hotter still! The sea was like a millpond today, very unusual from what we have seen of the Pacific. Even when there is no wind, there is often swell. But not today! We secured our loungers beside the Riviera pool and settled in with our books. It was great to be just a couple of steps from the pool for frequent coolers.

At lunchtime our pool became ship central as there was a large bbq and cocktail party centred around it. Normally, these would be held in the more central Crystal Pool but this is not very user friendly at the moment. It has a retractable glass roof and this roof was closed when we left Wellington and headed around the cyclone. Unfortunately the roof can only be opened when the ship is in port - no idea why - so this central pool is like a hothouse now the weather has turned warm again. A few people do sit in there but they are all in some sort of torpor!!!

Anyway, it was a really nice bbq and one of the chefs created an amazing ice sculpture - a Red Indian. He had to work fast, maybe 15 - 20 minutes. It would have been mission impossible at the other pool LOL. A brilliant job, very clever. We had a Polynesian guitar/ukulele band playing around the pool which made it all very tropical.

No islands visible today but we were around 300 miles south east of Pago Pago, American Samoa at lunchtime. We will arrive there tomorrow morning at 8am.

In art we painted a fishing shack on a rickety wooden pier, a scene from Akaroa, New Zealand. It was really quite intricate with lots of support poles, ropes, tyres and small boats quite apart from the rickety corrugated hut. Didn't really like mine that much. I think I made the hut too big for the pier. Still, I could never have produced it a couple of months ago so am pleased with progress.

By the time we came out of art we were in some sort of tropical cloudburst. It was absolutely hammering down and visibility was very low. The rain was like someone had turned a hosepipe on. No doubt it will clear later on. Samoa is an incredibly wet place by all accounts and we can expect heat and rain tomorrow.

Saw a really great film tonight. About Time, with Bill Nighy and a whole cast of UK film favourites, directed by Richard Curtis. A really lovely feelgood sad-happy film that I thoroughly urge you to get hold of and watch. A great take on the realities of time travel.

And talking of time travel, today is the day that we will live twice! When we go to bed tonight, we turn the clock back 24 hours as we cross the International Date Line again, this time from west to east. So we have lived Wednesday 18th March and when we wake up tomorrow we will live it all over again with a fresh start. I was trying to work out in the cinema whether, if you flew back and forth over the date line, you could elongate time altogether and I'm sure this cannot be so, but I'm too tired now to work it out.