I first learnt about the Doldrums as a child when I played a board game that was based on Sir Francis Chichester's successful attempt to singlehandedly sail around the world. He sailed the Gypsy Moth from Plymouth, England in August 1966 and returned after 226 days, having made one stop in Sydney Australia. The Doldrums is a low pressure area around the equator between two belts of trade winds. It has calm periods where the winds disappear and can trap sailing boats for days or weeks.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner made mention of the Pacific Doldrums: "All in a hot and copper sky, the bloody sun at noon, right up above the mast did stand, no bigger than the moon. Day after day, day after day, we stuck nor breath nor motion; as idle as a painted ship, upon a painted ocean."
I've been feeling in the doldrums lately - like a sailing vessel bobbing up and down on the ocean on a windless day. Maybe it's time to make a change (note picture taken from http://kids.earth.nasa.gov/)
1 comment:
Hi there, didn't know you were feeling this way. If there's anything I can do to help, let me know. Would you like a home-cooked dinner one of these evenings?
Re: tagging, you just need to reveal 5 things about yourself that your readers might not know. And tagging also means that you are supposed to tag others as well. But it’s a bit like chain mail so I feel it’s ok not to :-)
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