05 Oct. 2015, At Sea.

Today we are at sea, sailing between Malaga and Ajaccio on  Corsica where we will be tomorrow. We are happily moving along with a speed of around 17 knots and that is the fastest we have been going for a long time as the previous ports were so close together that we basically had to put the brake on the moment we left. Navigational highlight of the day was passing at 6 pm. Mallorca at a distance of about 7 miles on our portside. The whole route is made up of two straight lines, hence being 7 miles south of the largest of the Balearic Islands. The straight line simply caused that distance to occur. Then at 8 pm we should be abeam of Menorca a little further to the north and passing it at a distance of about 6 miles.

Cruising towards Ajaccio. This depth chart. the deeper the blue, the deeper the sea.

We still have some traffic around us; tankers and containers ships that are coming and going from the Strait of Gibraltar and also to and from ports on the North Western side of Italy. Ships from Marseilles and Barcelona are mostly sailing between the Spanish main land and the Balearic Islands, staying on the other side of Mallorca and that makes the life of the navigators a lot quieter. Everybody converses at the area I described yesterday.

Although are still having a gentle breeze blowing, it is now indeed a South Westerly wind and we saw the sky go brownish, a clear sign that there is sand in the air. I heard the Bo ‘sun already cursing as it means more deck cleaning and this very fine sand is not so easy to get rid of as it has a high “clinging” factor. A changing wind is the first sign that the weather is changing but as we are sailing east and the change in weather comes from the West, it will take a little time before it is catching up with us.

Behind us things are already happening and to the north of us as well. There was rain today in Malaga and on the south side of France they had torrential rains, causing severe flooding with several fatal casualties and there is the danger of more to come. For us the wind seems to be reasonable but Ajaccio is forecasting chance of showers and Livorno is looking like rain all day as of this moment. When I think about it, every time I went to Livorno it either rained or it was sizzling hot. So people saw the tower of Pisa in the rain or they wished they could have seen it in the rain as it was so warm.

Although I do not have much of a chance to look outside as I am mostly cooped up in the ships training room, there seems to be more wild life out there. For years the Mediterranean Sea was considered a Sea devoid of much life but now I see lots of porpoises or dolphins and I think I even saw a fin whale yesterday or a whale with a similar dorsal fin and that would mean that the Med is getting cleaner again.

We have West Med. Cruises and we have East Med. Cruises. What is missing are pure Centre Med. Cruises.

A long time ago the area was dry land, when the west side near what is now the Strait of Gibraltar was closed off. When the sea water finally spilled in, it had a large area to fill as the dry land was criss crossed with deep valleys. The average depth of the Med.  is 1500 meters (4900 ft.) but it can go much deeper. In the Ionian Sea near Greece the Calypso Deep is located which measures 5,267 meters (17,280 ft.) I wonder what that would look like if it had still been dry. Quite a deep valley to drive down to with the car. (And then having to go that 170000 ft. back up again)

Take the whole Mediterranean layout into a cruise perspective and we see that cruises follow the contours of the Sea. West Med cruises take place in the ports of the West Basin and East Med cruises take place in the East Basin. I have not yet seen a cruise which just circles the Ionian Sea which is the 3^rd basin in the middle although it is not officially named so.  The Ms Rotterdam is doing the same thing. Until October 16 she remains in the West Basin area and then after the 16^th. she moves south and will eventually end up in Istanbul and beyond.

Tomorrow we are in Ajaccio, the capital of  Corsica. We are scheduled to dock there at 10 am. and then stay there until 6 pm. Weather will be a bit of luck on a string. Pull and it might rain all day, do not pull it and it might be sunny all day.  It all depends how fast this extensive rain system over Western Europe moves and whether it will tip more to the north or not.