Stealth Journeys with the Steam Mapper

Chapter 25: MYKA'S Family Vacation

"Yes, it was an interesting experience, for sure.   We traveled first to Greenland, which as you know is eighty percent covered by an ice cap four kilometers thick.   That's nearly two and a half miles thick, but global warming is causing the ice cover to melt, and quicker than ever, too. Maybe one day Greenland will actually be mostly green!   Anyway, the silver lining is that it is getting easier to access Greenland's mineral resources.   Greenland is the world's biggest non continent island, having 840,000 square miles, and it is still a territory of Denmark but has a population smaller than most mid-sized towns.  Its life expectancy isn't so hot, maybe because it has a high suicide rate, which may be because of severe social problems.   I hope it has improved since I was there.  It really was depressing."

"As we sailed on, we experienced a mesoscale eddy.   I had never heard of this type of physical oceanic occurrence before.   This type of turbulence is an underwater storm gathering in the depths of the sea.   Just as air is a turbulent fluid, and can result in cyclonic spins, water can spin creating great oceanic gyres.   Some are known as Irminger Rings.   These on average measure 30 miles across, and because of their density, they may continue their spin for months at a time. The spin may be sluggish, but the power water coils can transport up almost two trillion cubic meters of water, bringing along all of the debris and vegetation floating within the underwater storm."

"I learned more about currents, and eddies and gyres, when I read a book about a really strange event that happened back on January 10, 1992, near the International Date Line.   A ship called "Ever Laurel" was being operated by the Taiwanese Evergreen Marine Corporation.   It left Hong Kong on January 6th, loaded with many kinds of cargo.   When it arrived to the Port of Tacoma on January 16th, it came to light that twelve giant shipping containers disappeared during hurricane-force winds and 36 foot high waves back on January 10th.   I can remember this date because one of my closest in age cousins was born on that very date.   For years, every birthday included a rubber ducky as a present.   You see rubber duckies were a big part of the story."

"Among the tossed overboard items were 28,800 "Floatees"- children's bath toys- rubber duckies, beavers, frogs and turtles.   More than a decade later, these toys were reappearing on shores, faded out from drifting many, many, many thousands of miles all over the globe. Scientists were inspired to use these "markers" to learn more about the amazing current system encircling our planet.   Beachcombers and scientists began reporting findings, some true and some not."

StLF cut in.  "The Floatees story reminds me of a book Mom read to me when I was little.  It was called Paddle-to-the-Sea.    It was one of her favorites when she was little.   Paddle, a carved Indian in a canoe, traveled the currents from a river in Canada feeding into Lake Superior all the way to eventually making it through the St. Lawrence River to the Labrador Current to the Grand Banks, taking four years.   And then the carving traveled aboard a fishing boat to France, before being sent home to the Nipigon country, where it was reunited with the boy who carefully designed it, carved it and painted it.   The beautiful illustrations in the book, showed the canoe to be about sixteen inches long, with painstaking details done in oil paints.   A very early action figure toy, I would say!  I don't think I could have made something so special and then launched it.   Anyway, the journey was very descriptive and "Paddle" made a lot of friends along the way.   I don't remember the author's name but it was strange because the first and last names were the same.  Oh, and there were two other travel adventure stories by the same author.   Seabird, about an ivory gull, and another story about a real turtle traveling from the source of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico."   It was about the longest that StLF had spoken nonstop when in conversation with MYKA.