Tuesday May 21, 2024 – At Sea between Tenerife and La Coruña
Another sea day which is always welcome. The hour got changed last night to be on European time (NY-6). We enjoyed three lectures, a pub lunch, some work and a good show – our regular routine at sea.
The first lecture was by Dr. Sandie Sowler on Whales and Dolphins in the North Atlantic. She forgot that there was a change of hours and had to be paged as all were waiting for her in the theatre. However, she rapidly got into the program and did a very good job. Her focus today was on marine mammals like whales and dolphins that belong to the order of Cetaceans. There are three mammal orders that contain marine mammals – Carnivora, Sirenia and Cetacea. Mammals can be described or have certain characteristics – they are warm blooded and breath air, give birth to live young, lactate, have three bones in the middle ear (maleus, incus and stapes or hammer, anvil and stirrup), have a neocortex region in the brain for higher cognitive abilities like language, memory and speech. Mammals of the order Carnivora (meat eaters) are – Polar Bears, Sea Otters, Seals and Sea Lions that live on land and sea, may have modifications of limbs for their environment and breed on land. The second order – Sirenia that consists of three varieties – Manatee, Dugong and the extinct Steeler’s Sea Cow. They are herbivorous, share an evolutionary origin with elephants, aardvarks and hyraxes, have front limb modifications and remain mostly in the water. The third order is Cetacea which are whales, dolphins and porpoises. Their entire life cycle is in water, their front limb is modified into a pectoral fin and the rear limbs and pelvis is completely lost. Whales are divided into two sub-orders – Toothed (that have teeth) and Baleen (feed on plankton where a large volume is taken into the mouth and using the tongue to squeeze the water through a sieve like structure, maintaining the plankton as food).
The second lecture was by the British Diplomat Keith Muras who was stationed in South Africa prior to Russia, and he spoke on “Searching for the Atomic Bombs that were made by South Africa”. Nuclear Bombs are made from highly enriched uranium (90% – U235). Uranium 248 is readily available albeit in a few key countries – Kazakhstan produces 39.4% of the world production, followed by Canada 22.5%; Australia – 10.1%; Namibia 5.9%; Niger – 5.6%; Russia – 4.8% etc. It appears that at some point South Africa was able to produce between 6 and 8 functioning nuclear bombs. However, they also have stated that these were deactivated at the time when countries were starting to limit / reduce the nuclear weapon stockpile. South Africa has stated that these non-active remains of the bombs are located near Johannesburg / Pretoria in Pelinaba East (Valindaba) and Pelindaba in the Circle Facilites (Advena). It was Keith’s job to determine the exact location and verify that they were there. He showed various, now declassified documents that he obtained, which apparently verify this.
The third lecturer was by Andrew Roberts on the topic – “Al-Andaluz – The Legacy in Modern Day Iberia”. During the time of the Persian Empire, c750 CE, which stretched from Kabul through the Middle East Arabia, Egypt and the Iberian Peninsula (basically the East, West and South Mediterranean Sea) with the northern part basically part of the Byzantium Empire, Iberia was called Al-Andaluz. It became part of the Umayyad Caliphate by the end of the 8th Century. However, the north of modern Spain were two independent kingdoms that were at war with each other – the Kingdom of Asturias and the Carolingian Empire, so Persia, did not intervene. Over the centuries, Iberia was divided about the 1/3 north and 2/3 south horizontally with the southern part being the Caliphate of Cordoba and the northern 1/3 divided (West To East) – between the Kingdom of Leon (modern day Galicia); Castile; Kingdom of Navarre; County of Barcelona and north of these the Kingdom of France. The moors (Arabic script) were slowly pushed out with the Kingdom of Castile being the dominant area in the north and west and the Kingdom of Granada in the south east by the late 13th century. The City of Granada fell to Christian dominance in 1492. All in all an interesting overview of the history and different influence over the Iberian peninsula. He concluded with the time of the modern dictator Francisco Franco Bahamonde (1892 – 1975).
The evening show was the superb – Lisa Marie Holmes who is an award winning Cabaret and West End vocalist that performed numbers from Shirley Bassey, Dusty Springfield, Diana Ross and more
Roger & Anne Travels 