The Oceanic Bridge

So I decided to begin exploring the coastlines of Brazil and West Africa to see what was out there in the ocean. I downloaded Google Earth version 5 and clicked on Brazil and began zooming in and out. I am also examining the coast line of West Africa closely as well. Perhaps "The Oceanic Bridge" could island hop until it reaches West Africa-like somehow make Cape Verde a stop along the way.

Did you know there are research buoyes that are strewn about the ocean that capture condition information about a given spot in the ocean? I didn't, but this information is informative for me to get a sense of what the ocean conditions are in the middle of the Atlantic. For example, approximately 812 miles east of the city of Belem is a buoy named Frevo, which tells me that the air and water temperature at 6AM this morning at Lat: 4.00N, Lon: 38.00W was approximately 82.1 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, I was able to count atleast 13 buoyes that are scattered across the Atlantic Ocean between South America and the Western part of Africa. Very, very cool is a tool called Ruler (found in the Tools menu) that gives you the ability to select two points to create a route/line and get a reading in miles of that route. For example, the estimated distance from Sao Luis, Brazil to Dakar, Senegal is approximately 2,183.04 miles and requires the crossing over the Ceara Terrance, the Equator, the Gorini Seamount, and the Sierra Leone Fracture Zone.

This short exploration has got me thinking about weather conditions, seasonal weather patterns, coastal stability and protected areas, the ocean floor, jurisdictional issues, just to name a few....