Friday  February 28th ,  2014

South Atlantic Ocean – the ITCZ - off  Brazil – STILL!!! ,   1 08.0S 43 42.0W 

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

We have been flying along for the last few days. A following wind, AND  1-2 knots of FAVOURABLE current, we covered 660 miles in the  three days after we turned north west along the South American coast. The weather has been good too, 15-20 knot winds from abaft the beam with clear, starry nights although with a waning moon.  At this rate we will arrive in Tobago two or three days earlier than expected…..

Wednesday night saw the last of the moon – tonight there is no moon at all.  No moon would be no problem if the stars  were out (the use of the subjunctive here heralding a change . Ed)  but other forces are at work.

Equatorial Transit

We crossed the Equator  around 11.00AM 27 February.   It is customary for those who have not previously crossed the Equator to pay homage to King Neptune.  In days of yore, that involved the senior non-officer on the ship playing the role of Neptune in a ritual demanding all sorts of (what we might now call) forfeits from those of the crew who had not yet been initiated. The nature of those  forfeits depended (as ever in life) on how well you got on with the guy concerned. 

Approaching the Equator, I surveyed the crew about their most recent Equatorial passage (in the certain knowledge that Peter and I last crossed the Equator on Valentine’s Day, 2012).  Rudi was silent.  And might he well have been,  because Peter and I then discussed all kinds of ingenious forfeits from the  amusing to the malevolent.  In the event we decided we would all join in the celebration and simply drink some Fizz. 

Avid Bloggers will realise that ‘Roger the Cabin Boy’  must have been “On Watch” at the time and thus (it might be said) we marked his passage with a bottle of Champagne?

Inter Tropical Convergence Zone  (‘ITCZ ‘)

There are high pressure systems in the centre of every ocean and so it is that there in one over the North Atlantic, (the Azores High), and one over the South Atlantic.  The gravitational effect of the Earth turning every day causes these to rotated in opposite directions.   The gap between them is an unstable area of moist air of low pressure known variously as the “Doldrums”, the” ITCZ” or the Horse Latitudes (so named because it was at those latitudes that ships languished and ran out of water for their horses – so they threw the horses overboard and kept the remaining water for the crew). The weather in this area is unsettled. Squally, occasionally thundery and quite often windless. 

THE ITCZ sits around the Equator between 5^o  North and 5 ^o  South moving up and down with the vagaries of the weather.  Right now it is about 150 miles wide and it  arrived where we were late yesterday afternoon; we are passing the night with no moon, no stars and thus no light. We are not missing out on everything though because it is chucking it down and the boat is getting a good wash down.   For the time being we still have wind and continue to make good progress.

Erratum

My post bag has been overflowing with helpful input from our readership. Suggestions have been made that it is not only my History education that is lacking – my geography or geology education could do with brushing up  too!  I guess it just goes to illustrate the difference between optimists and pessimists.

A pessimist said (Inland Excursion 20/2/2014):  “Tites go up and mite come down”. An optimist would have said:  “Tites come down and mite go up”! 

It seems the Optimists can  have it their way -  so that’s alright, isn’t it?