Thursday August 3, 1922

Lat: 5° 2’ N. Long: 3° 32’ W. 276 Miles travelled.

 We reached Grand Bassam this morning. Far away from the coast earlier in the day we passed a little tiny canoe with one occupant – an African. The canoe must have been about 10 feet long and yet I am told they go up to 10 miles from land into the Atlantic. They are said to be the smallest ocean going craft in the world. Certainly it looked almost like a cork as we passed it!

Three boats paddled by Africans came out to us as we anchored in deep water some distance from the shore. Each man had a paddle looking like a large arrow with a very broad head. The appearance of the boat as it approached (the Paddlers arms and paddles all seemed one) was that of a huge spider crawling on the water!

The passengers who came on board and those who left were transported to and from the little boats in a wooden pannier using the ships tackle (crane) just as luggage and mail bags are hoisted!

There were two English boats lying off Grand Bassam. I think every group of ships we have seen so far has included one or more British ships in its number. It gives one a peculiar pleasure to see a distant ship flying the English flag – and fortunately these ships are plentiful in all the waters of the world.

“…the merchant fleet of the British Empire totals 11,135 ships,

with a gross tonnage of 22,058,112 tons.

the ships of the rest of the world only total 22,372

 with a gross tonnage of 43,108,126 tons. So that one

in every three ships met on the Ocean is British.”

“There are always about 1,000 ships

Of the British register traversing the

trade routes at any given moment and

these trade routes have a length of

                                       80,000 square miles” 

               - Excerpts from two news clippings

We are now sailing in the equatorial waters known as the Doldrums. This region was much dreaded by sailors in the old days before steam ships were known because sailing ships were sometimes becalmed for days or weeks in a perfectly helpless condition.

This is a dull day, with grey sea and leaden sky almost the same colour. There are no waves and the surface of the sea is quite smooth except for the undulations of the Atlantic rollers which heave up and down. One can quite imagine what dread these waters running along the equator had for the ancient mariners. With our steam driven propeller we cannot understand what travelling meant to them in those days. Far out at sea in this belt of water the wind has practically no direction (except upwards!). As we are really fairly near land (though we cannot see it) we enjoy the cool air produced by the land and sea breezes previously mentioned (July 29) while the coal fires send us further onwards.

Indeed we are steadily steaming off the map! At the point where we cross the equator (i.e. 0.0° of latitude) we shall be almost exactly on the Greenwich meridian of longitude 0.0° .

The view from "nowhere"

Thus our “address” will be 0° Lat, 0° Long. The depth of water in this region is 20,000 feet (3000 fathoms). In other words we shall be nowhere! This is the only spot on the Earth of which this can be said, so we are really very privileged in visiting this on our first ocean trip.

“Now a sounding of 3000 fathoms requires seventy-five

minutes for its accomplishment, and the approximate

time of descent will be thirty minutes. The Imagination

grasps more readily the tremendous significance of such

a depth as the wire runs out steadily and rapidly, minute

after minute, for half-an-hour; while the seventy pound lead

plunges downwards from the lambent blues and greens

of the surface waters to the black depths below; while it

passes through a magic world

‘…where the branching coral hives

Unending strife of endless lives;

Where, leagued about the ‘wildered boat,

The rainbow jellies fill and float;

And, lilting where the laver lingers,

The starfish trips on all her fingers’

Thus, the spirit of true romance inspires even such a prosaic

proceeding as sounding the oceanic depths, where strange

creatures flit through the black darkness by the light of their

own phosphorescence; where reigns a stillness like that of the

farthest depths of space, untroubled by the thundering

tempest overhead; where even the dominion of man is still

in evidence, in the stretch of the submarine cable which links

two continents together, hung in catenary curves across the

hollows, or lying half-buried in the ooze of the oceans bed.”

- Excerpt from news clipping.

So far it has been nothing like so hot as I expected. At present it is considerably cooler than much of our home summer weather. There is, however, a moistness in the air that makes one feel perpetually more or less “sticky” – apart from this we have had practically nothing that could be called “trying”.

The clocks are forward another half an hour today.

On a long journey as ours is – 6 weeks or more – we come up against the question:

Why?

Why bother?

Why come?

Why care at all?

The last 3 pages of the Jungle Book (Kipling) suggest a key to the answer (ch. On Her Majesties Servants). It is a Kings Command that Christianity to a man “carries on” with the work, ones not to reason why. It is also a desire – a longing – of a heavenly father that this thing should be done and it would be mean not to.

It is also the word of a Gentleman of the strictest honour: We must go on.