Tripping around the Globe

Today I thought I would write about something of interest to me.  I love globes.  I have a "relief" globe in my office that teaches me new things all the time.  When I play Jeopardy, one of my worst subjects is bodies of water and islands, the other one is Chemistry.  Let's talk about islands; the visual is much better than a Bunson Burner.

I would love to go to Polynesia someday, sailing on a windjammer.  But it takes so long to get there.  Now I know why!  It's really, really far away.  If you try to get there from Great Britain, it's probably not worth the time it takes to get there.

I now know Samoa and Fiji (and Bora Bora, but I can't find it on the globe) lie below the Equator, just north of New Zealand, and East of Australia.  I can't tell if they are actually in the Coral Sea, or the South Pacific Ocean, or maybe both.

The islands that make up Polynesia, including French Polynesia, were discovered by Captain James Cook, a British navigator, in the mid 1700s. He was all over the Pacific Ocean; The Hawaiian Islands being another of his "discoveries."  I don't like to think that an aristocratic explorer who comes upon a land mass, whether a continent or islands, actually DISCOVERS them.  After all, they were there all the time, with indigenous peoples who didn't think they needed to be found. 

Anyway, just above Australia lies New Guinea; surrounded by the Coral Sea, the Banda Sea, and the South Pacific.  I have friends who went there and got stranded because their "guide" left them for a few days on their own and forgot to pick them up.  They said they were in very dangerous jungle areas where they thought cannibalism was still practiced; along with "head shrinking."  Who knows?  I thought they were crazy to go there in the first place!!!

So, enough for now.  I will find another location I know little about and bring it to you another time.