April 11, Approaching the European Continent.

This day we had the calmest weather possible. The sea was like a mirror with just a very low lazy swell rolling in from the North. A great way to end a crossing. Most of the day we sailed in deep, deep water again, on average with 15000 ft. under the keel.

This changed in the late afternoon, when we passed the Gettysburg Seamounts. These comprise basically out of two very steep mountains that rise up from the deep to almost the surface of the ocean. According to the nautical charts they stop at 20 meters or 60 feet under water. I am always a bit apprehensive to believe these sort of soundings in the middle of nowhere and I do not like sailing over them, “just to see” if the soundings were indeed correct. So we keep our course line well to the south where the water is much deeper. Late in the evening we entered the Gulf of Cadiz, which is basically just another name for the end of the North Atlantic Ocean where it hits the Portugese shores. Cadiz is located in Spain, just to the south of Portugal.

Here we see a bit more traffic. Traffic coming from and going to the Straits of Gibraltar cross on a straight course through the Gulf of Cadiz rounding Cabo Sao Vincente to the North of us. Cape San Vincent is the most south western point of Portugal and the traffic lane bends around it. To regulate traffic, a Vessel Traffic Separation System has been established, to keep north and south going traffic apart. This is a safety measure, as in the past not all ships kept due distance of each other and, or, tried to cut the corner so tightly that it endangered other ships. There fore a sort of dual lane highway has been established that guides all traffic in a proper way around the Cape at a fair distance. The International Maritime Organization has established these traffic separation schemes in a lot of area;s in the world where there is dense traffic.

Tonight will also be our last hour forward of the crossing. This is about the only negative part of an Ocean crossing Eastbound. Between Florida and the European mainland we loose six hours in total, so most nights there is an hour forward. Westbound is the opposite where we gain an hour each night. An hour extra sleep, or an hour extra party time, depending on your preference. For the coming days we will stay on West European summer time, until we come to Dubrovnik, there we have to go forward one more hour.