The next day, Saturday 16th April, we awoke to an annoy voice beaming over the tannoy system: “This is your captain speaking! Good morning everyone. Unfortunately we regret to inform you that due to strong winds and bad weather we will not be able to stop at Dravuni Island today, and we will instead proceed onwards towards our next stop of American Samoa.”

To miss a day on the beach was a shame, of course, but Fiji had recently been hit by a major cyclone and I had to respect the captain for not wanting to take a chance on this one. It was a good job I'd already cycled in Fiji the day before, but, oh no, I hadn't got my country-sign photo in! “Quick, Dea, get up!” I cried out, jumping out of bed and grabbing a pen and some paper and hastily writing out 'Fiji' and a 4 and a 7. “Let's go, Dea, let's go, quick.”

We hurried up to the top deck where I was relieved to see we were still within sight of some Fijian islands. I quickly grabbed hold of a Filipino waiter who was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and, telling him he looked suitably Fijian, placed him before us and asked some nearby guests to snap a photo. It was one of the best:

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Now that we weren't stopping in Fiji, Saturday the 16th of April became a rather unremarkable day at sea, during which we did very little. Dea rested, I administered eye-drops, we watched a movie, ate some food, that kind of thing. Then we went to bed.

We awoke on the morning of Saturday the 16th of April. “If the captain had any kind of sense of humour,” I said to Dea, “He'd announce on the tannoy that we aren't able to stop in Dravuni today.” He didn't, of course, because this wasn't the same Saturday the 16th of April, but a different one. As we were crossing the International Dateline we got the very special experience to live the same day twice. It really felt like a great opportunity. An extra day at life, what could be better than that? So Dea rested, I administered eye-drops, we watched a movie, ate some food, that kind of thing. Then we went to bed.