‘On shore sometimes people ask me: “Isn’t that boring, weeks on end just to see the sea”. If you regularly follow our blog, I hope you realize that it is anything but boring. If not, then I can not blame you of course. The real soul of the sea is sometimes difficult to pass on to someone who has not experienced firsthand. Life at sea is fundamentally different to life on shore, it is a world apart. Life on board itself, you might still be able to understand reading our blog. But the sea itself, that special wet element, I will try in a few sentences to shed some more light on it for you.What does one see all day? The sea is like a mirror, so the clouds are reflected in the sea. At lower latitudes, in the trade areas, there is often a blue sky and therefore a blue sea, with here and there, sometimes tenuous, sometimes volatile and sometimes threatening cumulus clouds. On somewhat higher width, the clouds are determined by the high and low pressure zones and the associated cold and heat fronts. These often provide the most amazing skies with low and high clouds, rainbows, fog, halos and other phenomena. Then of course there are the elements like the moon, the sun, the stars and planets which leave their impression, color and mood behind in the sea.

The winds create a special map above the sea, they push the clouds around in seemingly whimsical patterns, which actually follow predictable laws of nature. The direction of the trade winds in the Northern Hemisphere North East and South East in the Southern Hemisphere. In more temperate latitudes the depressions follow one another, their route depends on the stationary high-pressure areas. The normal direction of this depression is East North East in the Northern Hemisphere and East South East in the Southern Hemisphere. The wind in the depressions rotates counter-clockwise, again in the high pressure areas in a clockwise direction. In the Southern Hemisphere it all reversed. That winds determine the texture and shape of the water. Sometimes smooth as a mirror, gently rippling with foam or flying over a vast landscape of water evenly hills. Sometimes sleek, sometimes flat.

Then there are the countless marine animals, flying fish, tuna, seabirds, Portuguese warships, sharks, whales, dolphins to lost grasshoppers and more. The manmade impressions, as litter, buoys, driftwood but more plastic, oil and close to shore rigs and windmills. On the English channel lots of shipping, while on the ocean sometimes no ships to be found for a week. Yachts, bulk carriers, coasters, container ships, tankers, naval ships, fishing boats and some windjammer. Finally there are the imaginary phenomena, just between the ears, on dark nights which appear at high fatigue: cracking, mermaids, the Flying Dutchman, Neptune and who knows what else …

Three weeks at sea boring? Don’t think so! Come and try yourself and board on the Tres Hombres and: boring = money back!

Ahoy,
Jorne Langelaan’