17 APRIL 2007.
POSITION: 29 15N. 043 03W
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 267 miles – 24hrs
WIND: Very light WSEly
WEATHER: Cloudy and mainly fine.
NEWS:
Just when we thought the fish had all gone we caught 3 more dorado, releasing one of the smaller ones and filleting the rest for the freezer. The bigger of the two fish that we kept weighed 26lbs so we are well stocked now. Penny is starting to complain so we now have the lines in until we suspect that we are in “Tuna Territory” (from past experience this usually just south of the Azores).
There has been a huge swell running and with this very light breeze from almost dead astern we are rolling quite a bit which is uncomfortable and makes sleeping difficult. We have seen 4 ships in the last 24 hours and also a couple of birds – petrels we believe.
The area between the trade winds and the roaring forties up north is the Azores high pressure system and there is usually very little wind. In the old days the sailing ships would get becalmed, sometimes for weeks, which gave this area the name of “horse latitudes”, as they would have to kill the horses on board due to lack of food. The high pressure in mid ocean is surrounded by a clockwise current (Gulf Steam to the West and North and Canary Current to the East) so it is like a gigantic whirlpool and 20 years ago all the floating garbage would end up here in the middle. We would see a lot of plastic, old ropes and anything else that floated and had been thrown overboard from both ships and yachts. These days I am happy to report that there is a marked difference and we are now seeing just the occassional bit of flotsam. Yesterday we passed a 50 gallon drum and a bright red milk crate, as well as various bits of polystyrene, but generally not much. We have also seen quite a few derelict fishing floats over the past few days, several with radar reflectors on them and suspect that these have broken free in some distant waters.
All is well on board as we make good progress towards Gibraltar.
PHil Wade
