One Love & El Nino

Location - Peru Coast, Pacific - 11 21 S, 079 38 W

The last time I was in this area, in September end, I had written a post about the El Nino current . To refresh the info, the El Nino current is a current that has started flowing only over the last few years and is a southward warm current that overpowers the cold northward current that stays here the rest of the year.

Its called El Nino, because it occurs around the last week of December and when it does flow, it brings in huge amount of fish for the fishermen. El Nino translates as "Baby Jesus".

By some cosmic coincidence I find myself in the same location at Christmas. I am happy to say that the El Nino is not flowing this year. I can report that the current is still northerly, but at a much lower rate. For my part in the fight against global warming, I have switched off the Air con of the vessel for the last two days.

The picture above is of the fishing vessel "One Love" in the small city of Lome in the small country of Togo in the huge and fascinating continent of Africa. Its a beautiful name and I hope they catch a lot of fish.

Equator crossing

Location - Coasting Ecuador, Pacific - 00 08 S, 081 10 W

We crossed the Equator a little before noon today. At the Equator, one minute of Latitute equals one nautical mile. So as you can see from the position, I an currently eight miles south of the big line already.

For those who have read the novel by Roald Dahl, The BFG (big friendly Gaint) tells Sophie that he always likes to go south because its feels like going down hill. I feel much the same way! :)

The picture above is of a cruise ship taken from the Mambo beach of Curacao in the evening. As this is the peak tourist season there, Cruise ships come practically everyday, spending the day at port and nights at sea, hopping from one Island to the
other like sunbirds.

Old Lome Port

Location - West Coast Africa

This is all that remains of the Old Lome Port these days. Lome still isn't that big a port. It would probably be as big as Ballard Pier in Mumbai. The only real traffic in Lome is of the container ships, which come here in surprisingly large numbers.
As the chap driving me along explained, the main export here is timber that is stuffed in containers.

As he explained, these people cut trees & mint gold. He looked accusingly at me and said " And you know what, all these people, they are Indians?"

Hey if I'm to take collective responsibility, let me have some money too!