Blogs from North Atlantic, Atlantic, Oceans and Seas

I switched to another boat in Mindelo. It was a 40’ sloop from the 1970’s, very old and not really maintained. I found out that as long as you have some kind of sail and can point the boat, the wind will pretty much blow you across and you will hit the Caribbean no matter what. It’s one of the easiest ocean crossings in the world. It’s just a matter of how fast you want to get across. If you want a nice and calm easy sail and not too fast, stay between the 12th and 14th parallel. If you want a faster and rougher ride, go anywhere between 15th and 17th. Below the 12th, you risk not having much wind and be stuck at sea for too long, unless you have ample supplies. Above 18th, ... read more

Sep 30, 2011 to Jan 13, 2012 nautical miles travelled: 150 Gibraltar to Rabat, 450 Rabat to Grasiosa, 27 Grasiosa to Puerto de Naos, 18 Puerto de Naos to Playa Blanca, 95 Playa Blanca to Las Palmas, 870 Las Palmas to Mindelo (Sao Vicente), 2200 Mindelo to Guadeloupe total: 3810 nautical miles (30 days of sailing)... read more

Up early for an 8:00 am seaweed wrap & massage - 2 hours of heaven. Then up to breakfast and started playing “golf” for most of the day. Veteran’s Day celebration and memorial on board today – 2 minutes of silence, wreath in piazza and memorial service this afternoon. Drinks before dinner with Barb & Gary and dinner with the gang. Watched 2 World Champion Ballroom Dancers do 2 dances. Nothing else going on and time goes back again tonight. Let’s see what tomorrow has in store for us – Captain said we could have high winds and rough sea.... read more

My family and I are headed to St. Thomas in the British Virgin Islands on 08 Aug 2012. I'm still in the planning stage now. I have booked air fare and hotel accomodations, but still need to make dinner & daily excursion reservations. Stay tuned for an exciting trip!... read more

Two days left. That’s it. We had some great plans for the last few days, trying to fit in a few more samplings before it’s all over. But the CTD had other ideas. It broke down just before our 100th cast, so we can’t sample the water like we used to. We do have on-deck experiments that need to be sampled, and we’ve pumped water from various depths and gave them a go, but it’s not the same. So yesterday was fairly quiet, and instead of starting to pack, we had a lazy afternoon, celebrating Yoav and Assaf’s birthday in ease. I guess all endings make you think of the both the past and the future, and this one is no different. I’ve been thinking a lot about our experiences in the past month and in ... read more

3rdJuly It’s another beautiful morning here at 61oN 33oW, just off the coast of Greenland. The Arctic Circle is at 66oN, so we're not too far off. Since we set sail about 17 days ago, we’ve been warned that we're in the North Atlantic, so stormy, cold, wet weather is to be expected. In the past few days, however, we hear “this just isn’t right… It’s never this nice for so long in the North Atlantic”. In fact, we’ve been very lucky, and have had magnificent weather most days. There have been a few cold, windy and grey days, but even those weren’t too bad. We were supposed to encounter a storm on Sunday, but we travelled north and it stayed put, so we missed it. Instead, we had the most amazing day. The sky was ... read more

Day 12 It’s just over a week and a half since we left Ponta Delgada, and we are settling nicely into a routine. We are traveling back and forth from areas of suspected high biomass, to areas we think have been infected by viruses, sampling along the way to see if we can catch the interesting stuff. If you take a look at the route the Knorr has sailed in the past few days (http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=8581) you'd probably think we have a problem with the navigation system, or that someone on board has a drinking problem. But no, all it is, is us trying to find 5 micron cells inside an ocean. But we are starting to see very promising initial results, so we're modifying our sampling and analyzing regime accordingly. Between sampling and experiments, ... read more