Lat: 36:49.0' N : Long: 011:15.0' W. - Saturday, 19th July, 2014 in North Atlantic, en route with 269 nm to Gibraltar.

Sulana's Voyage
Alan and Sue Brook
Sat 19 Jul 2014 13:47
Lat: 36:49.0' N : Long: 011:15.0' W.

Saturday, 19th July, 2014 in North Atlantic, en route with 269 nm to Gibraltar.

Just before we left Sao Miguel and Ponta Delgada, Jason got a call from Molly in the Oyster office in Newport, R.I. USA. This was to ask him (and me, for my permission to 'steal' one of my crew!) if he would be interested in taking on the job, with Rachel, his girlfriend, of charter Skippering an Oyster 62 I knew, called "Mistress Mallika". The job was for an immediate start and it was clearly going to be a superb step up and forwards for Jason and Rachel. Just what the doctor ordered, in fact!

So there was no hesitation from me in agreeing he could leave Sulana early. The main part of his crewing job had been done, viz. in helping us cross the North Atlantic to the Azores. What is left to do is interesting, but not so challenging, we hope! I wish Jason and Rachel all the very best. I am sure it will be a great job for them.

Further more, the flights back are direct, quick and easy from Sao Miguel to Boston, because of the huge number of Azorean Immigrants returning for holidays from the USA to the islands where they were born some 60 -70 years before.

Apparently a large number of Azores citizens were granted emergency immigrant status by President J. F. Kennedy when Capelhinos, in the Eastern end of Faial, blew up in a major volcanic eruption. It covered all of Horta and Faial, as well as much of the whole island chain with ash and dust back in the '50s. The Azorean people remain very, very grateful to this day, of course, as much of their pasture land was coated under a thick layer, so all the cattle died, the grass temporarily no longer being either accessible or edible.

So we are now sailing Sulana once again with just three of us remaining on board, viz. myself, Nelius and Will. This  means I will have to do night watches again!

As at 14:00 (now ship's time is UTC +01:00) we are sailing a bit high of our course, aiming to pass just North of a large underwater seamount, called Ormonde, part of the Gorringe Ridge. The twin seamounts here rise incredibly to just 20 m below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, some 200 miles off the Spanish coast before the Straits of Gibraltar. I say 'incredibly' with a very careful choice of words, as it is to me, incredible that there are two peaks just at scuba depth beneath the surface out here, when the bottom of the ocean floor, not two miles away from them is at 5,000 m!!!

I expect it has all been very carefully researched already, but I can't help just casually wondering whether or not we are actually sailing over the top of ancient Atlantis? Did the top blow off an ancient pair of islands out here just three or four millennia ago? Has it been checked out? Mind you, any buildings or man-made artefacts, if any there are, will have had a very long way to fall down that steep a slope, once it did blow!