The horse latitudes are a great disappointment. No horses, dead or alive, no seahorses either. Yet there should be enough weeds in the Sargasso Sea for the latter to hide in. No weeds nor Kraken either to trap our keel. In case you wondered where the name Sargasso came from: to the Portuguese sailors it looked like a grape variety from back home called Salgazo. With their natural penchant for foreign languages the English corrected that to Sargasso, which we all agree sounds much better. The waters of the S. are 10pc saltier thn the already very salty Gulf Stream. Salty water is heavier than fresh or less salty water. so you may have thought that the sea level might be depressed here. Wrong, its the opposite. The sea level is about 1m higher here than at the edges of th S.Sea. The North Atlantic Gyre, that is the Gulf stream and its branch tht does not reach the UK but curves southward past the Canaries constitute a gyre that turns the sme way your bathwter turns when you pull the plug. For lack of a big plug it just piles up (only half joking).
We are still making good progress. The ripe bananas have all been consumed but some green ones are just turning yllow. Most tomatoes have also gone and so have the apples. Keep your fingers crossed that we reach the Azores b4 scurvy fells four brave mariners.
