Monday May 20, 2024 – At Sea between Tenerife and La Coruña, Spain
After 3 consecutive days visiting 3 of the Canary Islands we were glad to get a couple of days at sea.
The first lecture was Kevin Muras, the diplomat who spoke about his time in Russia at the British Embassy.
Jacob Smirnoff, the Comedian is attributed as saying – “In the Western World, history is fixed, the Future is Variable, in Soviet Russia the Future is fixed, History is variable”; as well as – “In America you can always find a party, in Soviet Russia, the Party always finds you”.
He amused us with various stories some of which he had heard from other people and others that he had personally experienced. One such story involves the New Zealand Chargé D’affairs at the embassy as the ambassador had left, who decided to have a scavenger hunt type party. The KGB Agents were all tied directly to a specific individual or family or at most a specific country / embassy, on which they were to spy. So when the New Zealand man decided to have this party, with individuals from various embassies, he got all of the various people to dress up in costume and had the couples exchange partners for the evening so when the cars went off in different directions, the KGB agents following them didn’t really know who they were and why they were different countries together. So, for example the French KGB agent didn’t know whether he was to follow the car that had a French man and an American woman or should the American KGB Agent be responsible for following them. They could not figure out how that worked, totally confusing the KGB.
Another story involved he and various people from the British Embassy went off cross country skiing for the day. At one point some of the younger slimmer members of staff, decided to cross a frozen lake and ski through the woods on the other side. The KGB Agents that were following them were all much heavier so at one point the extra weight caused the KGB agents to cause a crack in the ice and they were in the frozen lake trying to get out, with those that were following continued on to the other side of the lake. The British people, decided to return and help the Russians out of their predicament. Some 15 minutes later the Agents were back with dry clothing following them through the woods.
A final story was when he was stopped while driving a car by an authority who demanded to see his papers. He pretended not to speak Russian, so “played dumb” (pretending to not know what he was saying) This went on for a while and the agent was becoming increasingly perturbed. So Kevin once again said “I don’t speak Russian” and started on a monologue, explaining the rules of cricket. Eventually the Agent stopped him and said in perfect English – “ Mr. Muras, I know you speak perfect Russian and by the way, your explanation of cricket, is very poor”!!
The second lecture was by Andrew Roberts the engineer, who spoke of “Navigation – It’s about Angles, Lines and Times”. When the early Cartographers / Geographers and ocean navigators got together, realizing the earth was round, they created a mechanism of latitude, parallel lines around the globe that start at the Equator denominating that as 0 and ending at the North and South Pole at 90 degrees. By using the Polar star in the Northern Hemisphere and the center of the southern cross in the southern hemisphere, both lying directly over the respective North and South Poles, mariners can take a reading using a sextant, pointing at the star and measuring the angle then at another spot, say the following day at exactly the same time, then, seeing the relative angles one can work out exactly where one is on a latitude basis. One degree of latitude represents the angle between the center of the earth and the point on the surface of the earth above or below the central Equator. If you were standing in the center of the earth and looking straight out on the Equator, that would be 0 degrees and if you were looking straight up or down, that would be at right angles to the Equator sighting, thus at 90 degrees. There are five key latitudinal lines – the Equator at 0 degrees; the Tropic of Cancer (north) and The Tropic of Capricorn (south) each at 23 degrees 26 seconds; and the Arctic and Antarctic Circles each at 66 degrees 34 minutes – thus dividing the hemispheres into 1/3rd’s. (www.timeanddate.com). With regard to Meridians of Longitude starting at the North and ending in the South Pole the lines vary in width. The key however to this early navigation system was that the “Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude)” was fixed using the relative capitals of the countries making the map. It was not until relatively recently, that Greenwich was chosen as the universally accepted 0 degrees longitude. The main issue for these early sailors, was how to measure accurate time as this was mainly done by pendulum clocks, the pendulum in stormy seas did not operate correctly. Eventually, a British clockmaker made several designs with the prize of 20,000 UK pounds, the initial ones being large (H1-H3 in 1756) and eventually the size of a watch (H4) in 1761, which tests were run, but the prize was never awarded as it was deemed that the clock and its use in navigation correctly was “just pure luck”.
The third lecture was by Will Carling who was the captain of the English Rugby team. He was the youngest captain at age 23 and the longest serving. During his captaincy, the team went from a 20% winning cycle to and 80% winning on average. A very humble chap who explained how he found out that he had made the team and then a year later was asked to be the captain. He explained that the key was to get to know the ins and outs not only of the opposing side, but also to know the English Rugby team members and what made them work, what their issues were and how to motivate them. A very wise way of leadership.
The Captain’s noon watch comments indicated that we had travelled some 325 nautical miles since we left Tenerife and average speed of 17.7 knots and still have 702 nautical miles to our next stop at La Coruña, Spain.
The afternoon was spent in meetings for Roger and teaching an English class for Anne all by zoom, followed by the Captain’s cocktail party, dinner and the excellent show by the Motown group – The Flyrights – 3 London lads doing a high energy Motown music.
Roger & Anne Travels 