Hey all
So last night Silbo completed another feat on his list, crossing the Tropic of Cancer. Named so because the Sun reaches its peak at the height of the astrological sign, Cancer (the summer solstice), the waters here are also some of the most productive in the world…
Tomorrow we point our nose towards Cape Verde, which translates to green head, for its immense productivity in the near by waters. In this area, there is a patten of strong upwelling events that occur which in turn cause incredible blooms because of the nutrients that are brought up from deep water. One of the causes of the upwelling are the strong winds that blow across the continent of Africa and off over the sea. These winds carry dust from the continent that is laden with Iron among other elements that are limiting reagents in primary production. So when the iron falls out of the air and mixes with the fresh nutrients from the deep water that has surfaced due to upwelling, the waters explode with life (as seen in the satellite imagery below)
This high level of productivity is bad news for Silbo as we will undoubtedly begin picking up hitchhikers on the sections of his hull that are less protected. Before we make our final cross towards Brazil, we should definitely try and get a team out to Cape Verde to make sure we are clean. It will be a long 4,500 km trip, and we will need to take every possible precaution if we are to succeed.
Finally, we have sent Silbo a new way point to the South west that we will begin pursuing. As seen in the RTOFS model, we have a nice jet flowing to our southwest that we want to take advantage of as we want to start making lateral progress to the west to set ourselves up with our flyby past the Cape.
Force Wind Sea & Honor
Nilsen and Antonio