Day 17 Position 15:49.75N 52:18.32W

Symatchmaker
Tue 9 Dec 2008 12:45
We have made excellent progress through the last 24hours - we are in very good ENE Trades blowing at a steady 15 to 18 knots and Matchmaker has now broken her own record of a days run; clocking up an exhilarating 220 miles! Whoop Whoop!!
 
Our destination is now 508 miles to the west - 60 hours sailing - the nearest land however is 3 miles below!  Oh, - what lives at the bottom of the Ocean and twitches?* - back to the blog;-  This land is some of the newest on our planet - it is fresh earth crust generated from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This new crust is growing out laterally from the ridge that Matchmaker has crossed during the last 4 days. This new crust is growing at a rate of 3 to 5 mm per year - (the rate of a human Toe Nail growth). We know this because each extrusion of new crust becomes magnetised with the then current Earth`s polarity when it cools. Periodically (across thousands of years) the earths polarity "wobbles" and sometime even flips to alternate poles. This effect creates a magnetic map - a bit like a bar code, that has an identical match East and West of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Measuring the "growth of the Bar code" indicates the rate of expansion of the Atlantic Ocean.
 
200 million years ago there was not an Atlantic Ocean - the continents of Africa and South America were joined -(Gonwandaland)  and the Amazon flowed Westward into the Pacific. The ARC would have been a very dififferent affair!
 
The Tuna was delicious - it was pan fried in a lime & corriander butter and served with rice and peas. The best fish yet and by far..

* A Nervous Wreck  ( ha ha hee hee ! )

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