TOTAL MILES TRAVELED ON SAIL to SEE EXPEDITION: 25,225 NM
THE LAST PASSAGE
Total Miles traveled on last passage – 2020 NM
Miles traveled using SAILS – WIND POWER ONLY:1446 NM
Miles traveled using both SAILS & ENGINES together: 555 NM
Miles traveled using ENGINES – FOSSIL FUELS ONLY: 19 NM
Ship Sightings: 5 - Deepsea Stavenger Oil Drilling Platform, Fishing Boats, Diamond Mining Boats
Animal Sightings in Pacific Ocean: African Fur Seals, African Penguins, Common Dolphins, Harbor Porpoise, Albatross, Gannet, Terns
SCIENCE SIDEBAR: Are dolphins and porpoises the same thing?
People use the term dolphin, porpoise and whale to describe marine mammals belonging to the scientific order Cetacean (from the Greek work ketos, “large sea creature”), and often use them incorrectly. Whales (Cetacean) are divided into two group’s baleen whales (Mysticeti) and toothed whales (Odontoceti). The main difference between them is that baleen whales have baleen and two blow holes while toothed whales have teeth and one blow hole. Dolphins are toothed whales and the largest dolphin is the Orca (generally mistaken for a whale due to its name killer whale). A related family to dolphins are Porpoises. People often confuse dolphins and porpoises. It’s plain to see how easy it is to mix-up many dolphin and porpoise species: they have similar characteristics including size, color and behavior. Believe it or not, the Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals points out, porpoises and dolphins are “as different as horses and cows or cats and dogs”. What are some differences you see in the photo below?
VOS Reports Filed: -- VOS weather reports were filed with NOAA on this passage through our satellite communications. The photos below show how we collect the weather data and enter it into the computer.
Average Air Temperature: 78f/ 24.3c
Average Sea Temperature: 71 f/ 21.8 c
Strongest Wind: Over 35 Knots (knots are a wind measurement of Nautical Miles per hour)
PASSAGE NOTES:
Heading out of Cape Town along the east coast of Namibia towards St. Helena Island felt special. Not only were we accompanied by many dolphins and fur seals along the way, we had the entire Atlantic Ocean crossing ahead of us! Leaving Cape Town rewarded us with a great panorama of Table Mountain, visible even after hours away out to sea. Shortly after leaving Cape Town we also caught sight of the giant Deepsea Stavenger Oil Drill Platform (118m x 96 m x 17m). It looked like a giant octopus when we passed it within only 1 NM distance on our starboard side.
The trip got a bit more exciting as we approached Lüderitz, Namibia. It is a very windy area and we watched the wind strength go from 20 to 40 knots very quickly. We only had a small amount of sail up but it was very hard getting it down when a line wrapped around a light on the mast. The crew all jumped to action and we got the sail down after Emma used a knife to cut away the stuck line. Still, it was hard to get anchored once we were in the harbor because the wind was still blowing so strong. We finally did get the anchor down and it stuck well. We sighted several mining boats and wondered what they were mining for (see details below!). We took the dinghy to town to check in with immigration.
Lüderitz is a former German colony in the middle of the desert. The next city is 450 miles away. The whole area around Lüderitz is owned by the Namibian Government and used for diamond mining, the most profitable business in the area next to fishing. The Namibian Government controls the diamond market price, by limiting supply. Around the coastline and the surrounding desert are millions of diamonds. The whole diamond industry was built up around a clever marketing strategy, promoting a must-have engagement ring and “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” campaign. A raw, mined diamond has almost no value at all. The high price comes after a complex value chain of cutting, forming, and polishing. A raw diamond leaves Lüderitz with a value of around $100 but it can be valued at up to $100,000 at a fancy jewelry shop in Paris or London.
As the diamond industry brought wealth to the area, another town called Kolmonskoop was built a couple of miles outside of Lüderitz in the early 1900s. We had the chance to visit the town via a tour and learned more about the history of the town and diamond mining and trade in the area.
People lived in Kolmonskoop until the 1950s, but now it is a ghost town in the middle of the desert. It was interesting to learn how people got supplies such as food and water in the middle of the desert. The water for the town was brought from Cape Town to Lüderitz by boat and then to Kolmonskoop by train. Another interesting fact is that the town had a hospital big enough for all residents. We visited the hospital and other buildings such as the bakery, an ‘Ice-Maker“-house and simple living houses. The desert took over a couple of the houses, having sand blown in the doors and windows, making it a great set for pictures.
Returning back to Lüderitz we shopped for food supplies and spent another night in the harbor. In the morning, we cleared out with immigration and made the boat ready to leave towards St. Helena.
With an anticipated 10-Day passage ahead of us we left Lüderitz on the 16th of December at 12.30 pm. We saw some fishing boats in the night. Marty, one of the crew, commented in the Logbook - “A Tale of Two fishing boats - they moved, we moved - Game of Chess.“ At sunrise the next day we saw a large albatross and 8-10 common dolphins swimming around our boat at noon. The next day we got to see more fur seals and dolphins, had a flying adventure with our drone (almost lost it!) and generally beautiful sailing weather. Emma and Molly got lots of school work done and everybody worked on Secret Santa gifts (details below!).
On our second day at sea we caught a big Dorado (Mahi Mahi) and had wonderful fresh fish the next few days. Another day a tern landed on Elcie and rode along with us for a full day. Moonlight, the ship's cat, kept a very close eye on him. His cat instincts make him very aware of birds. Fortunately, he didn't bother the tern who flew away later that day.
Along the way, we crossed over the Greenwich Mean Line (or Prime Meridian) which put us back in the Western Hemisphere. Our longitude readings would now end in West for the rest of the voyage home. The Greenwich Mean Line goes through England so to mark the crossing, we had a proper English Tea, fancy hats required. We hung the British Flag as a backdrop.
SCIENCE SIDEBAR
Greenwich Mean Time or GMT is the clock time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich ("Grin-itch"), London. It is the same all year round and is not affected by Summer Time or Daylight Saving Time. GMT was originally set up to aid naval navigation when travel around the globe started to open up with the discovery of the “New World” (America) in the fifteenth century.
When the sun is at its highest point exactly above the Prime Meridian, it is 1200 noon at Greenwich. GMT is still widely used as the standard time against which all the other time zones in the world are referenced. Every 15° longitude represents one hour's difference in time: (24 x 15 = 360, the degrees of a circle). You can work out the time at every location on earth if you know how many degrees it is east or west of Greenwich. The Greenwich Meridian (Prime Meridian or Longitude Zero degrees) marks the starting point of every Time Zone of the time zone map.
CHALLENGE QUESTION:
If noon (12pm) in Greenwich, what time would it be in:
Los Angelos, California
Reykjavik, Iceland
Brisbane, Australia
Cairo, Egypt
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Beijing, China
Getting up on Christmas Day, we got rewarded with the sight of land less than 20 NM away. We celebrated Christmas morning underway on our approach to St. Helena by opening some stockings and eating a delicious breakfast. Emma had made homemade English muffins the day before. On the toasted English muffins, we had Richard’s poached eggs, topped with some fresh spinach that I had frozen in South Africa and Elena’s hollandaise sauce over it all.
Shortly after noon we reached James Bay, communicated with the harbor master, and were especially excited to hear about what the island had to offer. Stay tuned for the next logbook entry for our adventures on St. Helena's...
We spent the rest of Christmas Day celebrating on Elcie with pasta and salmon, our Secret Santa gifts and homemade Christmas cookies. Some cookies were made with a special Elcie cookie stamp that Elena’s brother made for us using a 3-D printer.
CULTURAL SIDEBAR: Secret Santa Gifts
One of our favorite Elcie 'family' traditions is making a gift for one other person aboard. These are simple homemade gifts made with whatever we can find aboard. It is the time, effort, and creativity of the person giving the gift that makes it so special! Examples include a potholder with the embroidered recipe for Capt. Richard's famous crepes, customized socks, and hand-decorated lures sure to catch the next amazing fish!
Happy Holidays from the Elcie crew!
WHERE WE VISITED: Lüderitz, Namibia
Population: 2,324,000
Area: 318,261 Miles / 824,292 Sq Km
Main Town: Windhoek
Type of Government: Namibia gained independence from South Africa in March 1990. Namibia is now a parliamentary democracy with a multiparty system.
Currency: Namibian Dollar, South African Rand
Language: English, Afrikaans, German, indigenous languages
Highest Point: Konigstein 8,550 ft / 2,606 m
Climate: desert, hot and dry
Economy: natural resource mining
Major Exports: diamonds, copper, gold, zinc, lead
Natural Hazards: droughts
Country Flag:
Interesting Facts:
Old Sand!
The country gets its name from the Namib Desert – one of the world’s oldest deserts. No one knows exactly how old it is but scientists have identified that sand has existed in the desert for over a million years.
Few people...lots of cheetahs!
Namibia is one of the least densely populated countries in the world. It has a population of about 2.5 million in a country that is twice the size of California. Of 233 countries, only 4 have a lower density (population/sq km; World Bank 2018). The low population makes it an excellent place to see wildlife, including the world’s largest population of free-roaming cheetahs (~2500-3000).
"The Skeleton Coast" - What's in a name? The name was coined by John Henry Marsh as the title for the book he wrote chronicling the shipwreck of the Dunedin Star. Since the book was first published in 1944, it has become so well known that the coast is now generally referred to as Skeleton Coast and is given that as its official name on most maps today. The Skeleton Coast is the northern part of the Atlantic coast of Namibia and south of Angola. The indigenous Bushmen of the Namibian interior called the region "The Land God Made in Anger", while Portuguese sailors once referred to it as "The Gates of Hell". The cold Benguela current running so close to the Namibian coast line, pushing the cold air into the arid heat of our Namib Desert, makes this a uniquely harsh environment, littering the coast with a variety of skeletons, both animal and ship.
