Thursday  February 27th ,  2014

South Atlantic Ocean – off  Brazil – STILL!!! ,   0 30.0S 41 42.0W 

Today's Blog by David (Time zone: UTC – 3.0)

The sun passed overhead  to the south of us at lunchtime. What’s funny about that? .. I hear you say.  It happens to you every day, I know, but for the last two years, since February 2012, the sun has been passing to the north of us.   So this is a big change, a milestone on the journey home.

As it happens, the sun has been passing to the south since Tuesday, but today was the first time I noticed it.

So, now you have thought about it, you have spotted that we are still south of the Equator – so what gives?  Well,  so is the sun south of the Equator at this time of the year. This “Declination” is not a measure of ones propensity to ‘Say No’ or decline an offer.  Rather the Declination of the Sun is a measure of the amount by which the sun Is above or below the astronomic equivalent of the Equator.  It is expressed in degrees and minutes. At the moment the sun’s declination is about 8 degrees south. So now we are north of 8 degrees south, the meridian passage of the sun is to the south of us!

Glad that’s all cleared up then…..