Far Out Man!

The crew of Emily Grace is way out there! As in we are mighty close to the one place on Earth that is the farthest away from any land. I googled that fact before we left the Galapagos and, sure enough, it's a spot in the Pacific Ocean. The actual spot is called Point Nemo or "The Pacific pole of inaccessibility" and we passed somewhat north of that position. But since they document that Point Nemo is 1670 miles from the nearest land and we were 1500 miles from nearest land, I'm claiming that we are close enough. This area is 8,650,778 square miles of ocean and is larger than the entire former Soviet Union.

I will attest that there is not much out here. After the first couple of days at sea where we dodged some long line fishing boats, we have not seen any other boats, planes or any signs of man. We have seen leaping dolphins, cruising whales and more stars than we thought possible, but no sign of man. I had heard that there is an area of floating trash somewhere out here the size of New York and are particularly happy that we have not seen that or any trash at all.

We are all well and our little ship is still putting along. We are whittling away at homeschool lessons, reading books, watching movies and cleaning the dead squid and flying fish off the decks in the morning. Emily spent one day re-creating some of our Galapagos friends in bend-a-roos.  Enjoy!

The Pacific Ocean is not as passive as we had envisioned. We have had several days of mixed 10 to 12 foot swells coming from both the south and southeast and it has made for an uncomfortable ride. The wind is still on our port beam out of the south and we were expecting it to be from the east by now which would make it almost directly aft. We have only seen a few light rain showers and no squalls or big winds to speak of. The winds are mostly steady in the 13 to 18 knot range with a few hours now and again up to 25 knots. We certainly don't feel in any danger since our ship is taking it all in stride. Although the crew does not feel seasick (and are not taking any seasick medications), we are a bit lethargic and ready to make landfall. We were collectively looking for the floating Dominos pizza takeout shop, but we have not seen it yet. Kim did make two tasty pizzas one night and mine topped with George's famous Soupy really hit the spot.

Tom
Posted via SSB