As mentioned in the last post, we left Cape Town (Latitude: 33 degrees 54.20' S; Longitude: 18 degrees 25.38' E) on Monday morning (Sunday night for most of you). It didn't take long to get to Cape Point, and this is a photograph there from the ship. I have gone back to the February 20th post and added some photos, including one of Cape Point from land. As we approached Cape Point, seas became somewhat rougher, but we are all pretty good sailors now, and few people are experiencing the same discomfort we had at first.
I monitored our progress when we got near Cape Agulhas since I wanted to record our southernmost latitude and note the place where we entered the Indian Ocean. We were not near land at that point, but our latitude was 35 degrees 9.4' S and longitude was 20 degrees 53.6' E mid afternoon on February 23. From there we moved closer to the coast and although we did not see land again during daylight, John did not sleep very well and said the next morning that he had seen lots of lights during the night (our cabin is port side). And there were lots of lights to see from the port cities and towns along the southern coast, especially Port Elizabeth and Port Alfred. The continental shelf drops off dramatically from Africa which allowed us to stay very close to shore most of the day yesterday as we sailed up the east coast. We could see East London very well with binoculars and a number of other smaller towns and villages. The shoreline is very beautiful, the sea was calm, the weather was warm and sunny.
John and I went to lunch after his class and while we were sitting in the cafeteria, we looked out and saw very muddy water in the ocean -- something we have never seen before. There was a huge amount of it, and a buzz began as others saw it too. I told John it had to be where a river spills into the ocean, and indeed that's what it turned out to be. It is hard to describe the contrast between extremely muddy river water and the deep blue of the ocean, and I didn't get very good photos of it since I had to run for the camera and by that time much of it was beyond the capability of our camera to capture. We believe the river was the Mtamvuna River near Port Edward http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mtamvuna_River given the latitude at the time of 31 degrees 5' S. Many people reported seeing lots of dolphins along the coast, particularly near the point that the river spilled into the ocean. I expect dolphins would have been easier to see in the muddy water.
We continued along the coast, changing course away from the continent at 3:45pm yesterday, latitude 31 degrees 13' S, longitude 30 degrees 23' E as we move closer to Mauritius.
On Monday we had received an invitation to dinner with the captain and his officers, along with several other people. The dinner was last night and all of us met in the Faculty/Staff lounge at 7:30pm for drinks and hors d'oeuvres. Around 8:00 the captain and officers joined us, and a few minutes later we made our way to the dining room. Tables were set for a formal meal with 3 of everything -- forks, knives, spoons and glasses. Information about the two crews who work for Semester at Sea can be found at http://www.semesteratsea.org/our-ship/ship-management/. The captain on our voyage is Jeremy Kingston, Staff Captain is Mats Nelson, Hotel Director is Stephan Heuser, and Chief Purser is Angelito Untivero. We were seated last night with Mats Nelson, along with 5 other faculty and staff. Although we were all a bit daunted by the table setting, it was a very nice 5 course meal with lovely food and lively conversation. Mats is from Sweden, now married to a woman from Thailand and awaiting the birth of his first child. We had some questions about the operation of the ship, and he was happy to enlighten us on issues of taking on fuel, disposing of gray water, and the relationship of those two things (believe it or not!). He says this is the best group of students they have seen on Semester at Sea (and emphasizes they do not say this about every group), but that this group uses more water on board than any other group they have seen. It was a every enjoyable evening, although difficult for the people who are not night owls since it went on until 11:00pm. Since some people teach at 8:00am, and since we were losing an hour last night, this was a long evening.
Today seas have been a bit rough, but we are currently just south of Madagascar and making good time, having averaged about 27 knots all day. We will only be in Mauritius a day, arriving in the morning and leaving in the evening, and we need to re-fuel while there before the last leg to India.
Current time: 2312 Feb25 (but advancing another hour tonight)
Latitude: 27 degrees 21.86' S
Longitude: 45 degrees 31.77' E
Course: 73 degrees
No comments:
Post a Comment