The Seabourn Odyssey is today celebrating Easter in the same time zone as Honolulu.  The ship is around a 1000 miles south of the equator, while Honolulu is 1472 miles north.  Interestingly enough, we were cruising north from Cairns all the way to Samoa, but began moving slightly south to American Samoa, and will be at sea for three days on our way even further south to French Polynesia.  When we get to Papeete in a week, we will be 1212 miles from the equator.  We will then be west of Honolulu, latitude-wise, 2740 miles from Honolulu, and will cruise northward toward Lahaina, Maui. I can articulate about Easter, but have only done this a dozen times, so will write this Sunday on  Polynesian Gods . But, of course, their are  water deities  all throughout the world, although many watch rivers and lakes. Congo has 14 of them. Egypt has 11.  Did you know Osiris was originally a god of water? Greece has 52, including Poseidon, Olympian god and king of the sea gods. Rome had only 7, with, o

We left the Independent State of Samoa, once known as Western Samoa until 1997, yesterday, crossed the international dateline at 10PM last night, and are now in American Samoa.  At one time they were like Hawaii.  Then came the Germans, British and USA.  Around the same time that the U.S. annexed Hawaii in 1898, wars broke out in the greater Samoa islands, and in 1900 those three countries split up the islands.  The result was the U.S. gaining the eastern islands and Germany the western ones, with the UK getting the rights to Tonga and some other sites from Germany. In World War I New Zealand seized control of Upolu from Germany, at the request of Great Britain.  Came the Spanish flu in 1918, killing 20% of the total population, including 30% of all adult men. What remained were 38,000 Samoans and 1500 Europeans. Samoa has two main islands, Upolu and Savaii.  They make up 99% of the 201,000 population,  I made a short visit to the capital city of Apia on Upolu. Samoa is a member of the