Day 111 Dock Cape Town

A Convergence of Oceans
Jutting into the ocean from the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Point is often demarcated as the meeting point of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. But another rocky headland in South Africa lies even farther south on the continent, and according to the International Hydrographic Organization, the international agency that sets standards of surveying and nautical charting, the oceans converge here, at Cape Agulhas.
Identifying an invisible border between oceans might seem arbitrary. But to hydrologists, the line is quite detectable. Here, the warmer waters of the Indian Ocean's Agulhas current and the colder waters of the Atlantic's Benguela current converge. One way to imagine this confluence is to think of the cold water as a shield that turns the warm water back on itself. Of course, this is a simplistic way of describing a complex exchange in which the currents do in fact mingle with each other. The complex give-and-take relationship between the oceans is illustrated further by the tendency of the line to shift seasonally-often as far west as Cape Point. Of course, this latter point might make any layperson believe that the border between oceans is, well, fluid.
But there is more to consider. Vast underwater forests
of a cold-water species of kelp stretch east all the way from Cape Point, ending rather abruptly at Cape Agulhas, thus proving the latter as the easternmost reach of the Atlantic and the westernmost of the Indian Ocean. And so it is that, rather surprisingly, seaweed provides the final assessment.
Due to 25 mph winds we are stuck in our slip and we were not allowed to get off the ship. We had lunch with Heather and Jon and watched Barbie after dinner.Leggi altro