February 16th and 17th
Remember I was commenting on how empty of traffic the South Atlantic is? Sunday morning I looked off my balcony and there were three tankers in a row. Wait, There were four. No, five. No...in the end I counted 13 and then a few more appeared on the horizon. A convoy? No, they weren’t going anywhere. Apparently that area is a parking lot for empty tankers, for most were riding high.
Also, around dawn Sunday morning we passed a beacon to starboard. Buoys are attached with chains to an anchor and bob a little with the swells. Beacons are firmly set into terra firma down there and do not bob. This was a stationary beacon. So I surmised that the ocean was quite shallow in that area, and yet we were out of sight of land. It would be easy to anchor empty ships there, whereas it would be unfeasible where the water is deep.
I would guess that the continental shelf extends way out into the ocean there. So at lunch I checked a nautical chart displayed near the Lido buffet. The depth is only about sixty or seventy feet despite that we were many miles offshore.
When you think about it, if you own an oil tanker that you are not using at the moment, where in Heaven would you park it? Anchoring in or near a port is expensive. Out here beyond the limit, however far that is, the seafloor is all God’s. And God does not levy moorage fees.
Once we passed that parking lot, the sea became empty again. I’ve not seen a vessel since.
Ah, but I have seen pelagic birds! There was a long blank space in my life list where the albatrosses, petrels, and shearwaters abide. In the last two days I have seen the black-browed albatross and three kinds of shearwaters. I’m jazzed!
Seas are heavier now, the swells four or five meters instead of two or three meters, and overcast skies. The sky is as troubled as the sea, with several layers and intermittent rain. Monday morning there was cloud-to-cloud lightning and showers. I suspect we’ve left the balmy tropics behind. I anticipate that sooner or later I will be vomiting my dose of Dramamine, but it will be well worth it.
After all, albatrosses!