Today another day at sea and it was an overcast and rainy day. As a matter a fact it was a gloomy day. We are right in the middle of a frontal system which we ran into late yesterday afternoon. We should run out of it by tomorrow as the weather for the Cape Verdes… read more of “30 Nov. 2014: At…”
Today we have been sailing along the coast of middle Africa along the SW corner. And by 19.00 hrs. we passed the town of Monrovia, after which the Country of Monrovia is named, The next well known city is located more towards the north is called Freetown, in Sierra Leone and thus it will take… read more of “29 Nov. 2014; At…”
We are sailing North West and although it is more North than West, it still means that every day the sun rises a little bit later. We also went over the Greenwich Prime Meridian. Thus we entered another time zone which meant that last night we put the clocks back one hour. As a result… read more of “28 Nov. 2014; At…”
Today we reached a highlight of our cruise which gave everybody the possibility to walk in four quadrants within a minute. North Western half, North Eastern half, South Western half and the South Eastern half. At 3 pm we reached Point Zero. The crossing of the Prime (Greenwich) Meridian and the Equator. As you can… read more of “27 Nov. 2014; At…”
Slowly but steadily we are nearing the equator but what is more exciting is also the Greenwich meridian. The captain is going to attempt to get 00.00 N/S & 000.00 W/E on the GPS so that the ship is exactly on the equator and the zero Meridian at the same time. Getting to the main zeros… read more of “26 Nov. 2014; At…”
Today is our first day of that long haul all the way along the West side of Africa. The area that we are now in, close to the equator, is known to sailors as the Doldrums. The area of very little wind. It is caught between two area’s of trade winds and as a result… read more of “25 Nov. 2014; At…”
By 7 am we were docked in Luanda. This place has always been an important port for the region and even Holland America ships were calling there in the 1960’s. While HAL was not really an “African” specialist, then it was mainly the export of local products, now it is used mainly for off shore, due to oil… read more of “24 Nov. 2014;…”
Then suddenly it got warmer around the ship in early evening of last night. One would expect that it would cool down after dark and it did, but not that much. This sudden change was caused by the fact that the ship left the colder Benguela current and entered the warmer Angola current. We are getting… read more of “23 Nov. 2014: At…”
