At Sea, Mid-Atlantic Ocean
This was the first of what should be five days at sea, as we leave the Macaronesian Islands behind us and begin our voyage from the Old World to the New World. We are following in the wakes of the great 16th century Portuguese explorers and taking the shortest route between the two worlds, which is essentially a southerly course from Cape Verde to eastern Brazil.
It’s worth noting that the Atlantic Ocean is the world's second largest ocean (after the Pacific Ocean). This huge body of water stretches about 10,900 miles (17,500 km) from the Arctic Ocean to the Southern Ocean, and covers about 36 million square miles (93 million sq km). This equates to one fourth of the Earth's ocean area and 17 percent of its surface area. The widest part of the Atlantic Ocean, located between Mexico and Spain, extends about 5,500 miles (8,800 km), and the narrowest part, located between Brazil and West Africa, measures about 1,800 miles (2,900 km). We now find ourselves within the Northeast Trades, which blow steadily from Africa to the Caribbean between 5° and 30° N latitude.
Conditions today have been wonderful…and very conducive to a day of relaxation after our eventful days in the Cape Verde Archipelago. Partly cloudy skies gave us a nice combination of brilliant hot sunshine interspersed with cooler, shady moments of respite. Not a lot of marine life was seen, but we did get a glimpse of some Fraser’s, or short-snout, dolphins…a species known to inhabit open ocean environments, as well as three rarely seen pygmy or dwarf sperm whales. We were also entertained occasionally by flying fish during the day, with one unfortunate individual accidentally coming aboard, thereby giving us a chance to marvel at its spectacular design.
The blueness of the ocean in this part of the world indicates the water is very clean and clear, since sunlight can penetrate deep into the water column unobstructed by suspended particles. This beautiful color can be explained by the fact that the longer, lower energy wavelengths, i.e. reddish hues, are absorbed after a short distance traveling through water near the surface, eventually leaving only the higher energy wavelengths of the color spectrum, i.e. bluish hues, visible to our eyes.
We continued with our lecture program with David Barnes talking about the life of Charles Darwin, who traveled this exact same route aboard HMS Beagle some 170 years ago. Jim Kelley explained how surface currents and winds work about the globe, something of great importance to our predecessors who relied upon winds to get about the world’s oceans. Kate McKeehen, our talented professional artist, operated another workshop to help the budding artists on board. Howard Zeiderman, of the Aspen Institute, oversaw some spirited discussions about our seminar readings concerning early interactions between Europeans, Africans, and Amerindians. Dinner was a fun-filled barbecue set up outside on the Aft Deck (see Photo A), complete with all the trimmings, including fresh tuna purchased yesterday at Fogo Island and a sushi bar (see Photo B)! Kim Heacox finished up the day with an impressive show of his incredible photographs taken during this voyage (he must have a really good camera), and he gave us more insights into how the rest of us can produce better photographs.
