As we head west and around the Horn of Africa, we set our clock back an hour Saturday evening, gaining an extra hour of sleep (not... it just means awaking an hour earlier). I was out for my morning walk by 5:30 AM and had the pleasure of watching the full moon set and the sun rise.
This photo of the moon was taken about 10 minutes prior to the sunrise photo below.
On Sunday, I got to experience the same phenomena. There were fewer clouds this morning and I got a nice photo of the moon. This was taken with my phone camera, I was surprised at how well it turned out.
There being little to report, I thought I would tell all of you kind readers about a little-known Island we visited today.
This interested me, but I realize most people don't share my interest in geography, maps, radio and computer software. You might ask what these topics have in common? Well, the answer is Null Island. This is a location I am sure my ham (amateur radio) friends have never received a QSL card from. It is also a very unique geographical location that few have visited and a useful deposit for lost computer data.
The following paragraphs are taken mostly from Wikipedia, which give a description of Null Island much better that I could. If you are interested in learning more, continue reading. If not, I certainly understand, and you may close the page.
Null Island is the location at zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude (0°N 0°E), i.e., where the prime meridian and the equator intersect. Since there is no landmass located at these coordinates, it is not an actual island. The name is often used in mapping software as a placeholder to help find and correct database entries that have erroneously been assigned the coordinates 0,0. Although "Null Island" started as a joke within the geospatial community, it has become a useful means of addressing a recurring issue in geographic information science.
In terms of computing and placename databases, the coordinates for Null Island were added to the Natural Earth public domain map dataset c. 2010–2011, after which the term came into wide use. Since then, the "island" has, through fiction, been given a geography, history, and flag. Natural Earth describes the entity as a "1-meter square island" (11 sq ft) with "scale rank 100, indicating it should never be shown in mapping". The name "Null" refers to the two zero coordinates, as null values (indicating an absence of data) are often coerced to a value of 0 when converted to an integer context or "no-nulls allowed" context.
The location is used by mapping systems to trap errors. Such errors arise, for example, where an image artifact is erroneously associated to the location by software which cannot attribute a geoposition, and instead associates a latitude and longitude of "Null, Null" or "0,0". As reported in January 2018 by Bellingcat, other data mapped to the location include activity events from the Strava fitness-tracking app, apparently mapped to the location due to users entering "0,0" coordinates to disguise their real locations.
The point on the Earth's surface defined as Null Island is located in international waters in the Atlantic Ocean, roughly 370 miles off the coast of West Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea.
The nearest land to Null Island is a small islet 354 mi to the north (4°45′30″N 1°58′33″W) that is part of Ghana. The nearest point on the mainland is Achowa Point between Akwidaa and Dixcove, both in Ghana.
The depth of the seabed beneath the coordinates is around 16,210 ft.
In case you would like to know what Null Island looks like, I took this photo for you.
As we neared Null Island, the captain struggled to get to the exact spot. With wind and ocean currents, he had a difficult time maintaining the position.
Below is my Geo Tracker screen shot of the ship path.
This screenshot shows my best effort in marking our position.
The screenshot above shows my position (on my veranda, midship on the port side) as 3.9 seconds N Latitude which would be about 400 feet North of the Equator. The .2 seconds W longitude would place me about 20 feet west of Null Islands coordinates. This is not too bad considering the ship's GPS is located on the bridge approximately 150 feet aft and 30 feet to my right.
I realize this is much more information about Null Island than you ever expected to need!
We have to set our clocks back one hour again tonight, which will be the last time before reaching Cape Verde. Then we will have to start moving the clock forward, I think two times for Morocco.
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