At Sea
On this expedition, we, the guests of National Geographic Endeavour, are traveling from the south end of the Atlantic to the North; starting in the screaming sixties, through the ferocious fifties, and now here we are in the furious forties. These names were initially bestowed upon these latitudes in the early days of exploration, marked for their highly changeable and sometimes extreme weather, and although times and methods of exploration have become more advanced, these more primitive names have stuck.
Today we sail amidst lumpy seas, as we are approaching a front. Fronts in meteorology are the leading edges of air masses with different density. When a front passes over an area, it is characterized by changes in temperature, moisture, wind speed and direction, atmospheric pressure, and often a change in the precipitation pattern. The front we face is a cold one. The colder air, being denser, wedges under the warmer air, lifting and cooling it, causing the formation of puffy, cotton-ball-type cumuliform clouds. Moving twice as fast as warm fronts, cold fronts usually result in velocity changes in winds, creating vertical movements of air and in some instances can set off atmospheric disturbances such as rainshowers, thunderstorms, squall lines, tornadoes, and snowstorms ahead and immediately behind the front, but ultimately the new air mass is drier and cooler than that which it is replacing.
At Mid-day, just as the cold front passes, we witness a dramatic change of wind and sea: in a blink of an eye, the wind switches around 180º, and the considerably bumpy seas began to calm.
Endeavour sails onwards towards Tristan da Cunha, and no doubt we will continue to encounter wind, waves, and weather. But just the same there is something about being at sea, to be completely surrounded by Mother Nature and all she has to offer, good or bad, that continues to excite and mystify us on our journey.
On this expedition, we, the guests of National Geographic Endeavour, are traveling from the south end of the Atlantic to the North; starting in the screaming sixties, through the ferocious fifties, and now here we are in the furious forties. These names were initially bestowed upon these latitudes in the early days of exploration, marked for their highly changeable and sometimes extreme weather, and although times and methods of exploration have become more advanced, these more primitive names have stuck.
Today we sail amidst lumpy seas, as we are approaching a front. Fronts in meteorology are the leading edges of air masses with different density. When a front passes over an area, it is characterized by changes in temperature, moisture, wind speed and direction, atmospheric pressure, and often a change in the precipitation pattern. The front we face is a cold one. The colder air, being denser, wedges under the warmer air, lifting and cooling it, causing the formation of puffy, cotton-ball-type cumuliform clouds. Moving twice as fast as warm fronts, cold fronts usually result in velocity changes in winds, creating vertical movements of air and in some instances can set off atmospheric disturbances such as rainshowers, thunderstorms, squall lines, tornadoes, and snowstorms ahead and immediately behind the front, but ultimately the new air mass is drier and cooler than that which it is replacing.
At Mid-day, just as the cold front passes, we witness a dramatic change of wind and sea: in a blink of an eye, the wind switches around 180º, and the considerably bumpy seas began to calm.
Endeavour sails onwards towards Tristan da Cunha, and no doubt we will continue to encounter wind, waves, and weather. But just the same there is something about being at sea, to be completely surrounded by Mother Nature and all she has to offer, good or bad, that continues to excite and mystify us on our journey.
