Dream Guide

Church's Diary 3

The snow finally stopped and the sun came to the sea again. Although it is winter in the southern hemisphere, if you stay in the sun on the deck, you may still burn your skin. But Anderson is fishing there again, which he does year-round, and he doesn't have any skin allergies.

We left Fitzroy Port and sailed east-north. Mr. Robbins asked me if I knew anything about Maria Theresa Cay and Ernest Legouvé Cay. I have heard that those two places are legendary ghost islands. Verne wrote about Maria Theresa Cay in several of his novels. Oh, it seems to be called Tabor in his writings, and it is a beautiful island. In fact, it is just a small coral reef that was first discovered by a whaling ship. It is said that some earlier European navigators also discovered these islands and recorded their coordinates.

But in the past fifty years, the navies of New Zealand and the United States have searched this area of ​​​​the sea on a large scale and found nothing. The average water depth there is more than 4,000 meters, the deepest is more than 5,000 meters, and it is large enough to contain the entire Australia. ocean basin.

However, legends about ghost islands continue, but like the water monster in Loch Ness, the UFO over Mexico, and the lizard people in the mineral swamps, many people claim to have discovered them again every year, but no one takes their words seriously. .

In my sailing career, I have passed through that area twice, but I have never seen any ghost islands. If all those who see miracles are God’s favorites, then I must not be one of God’s favored people. So I am not very optimistic about the results of this trip, but I will not say it in public. As a captain, I must do my job well and maintain an optimistic attitude.

I said to Mr. Robbins, Sir, I feel like we are going on an adventure rather than a scientific expedition. I have never seen a scientific research ship loaded with advanced instruments just to go to an uncertain place.

Robbins said you are right, we are going to explore, and not just ghost islands, we are going to more mysterious places and do more interesting things.

I wonder what interesting things can happen at sea. Did these scientists get a treasure map and there is a huge sunken ship there? But in a large basin, even if there is a sunken ship, it is impossible to salvage it!

At this time Anderson came over with his fishing rod, heard our conversation, and interjected, "Interesting thing?" Is there anything more interesting than fishing on the vast sea?

Robbins laughed loudly after hearing this, nodded repeatedly and said, yes, Anderson, you are absolutely right, fishing is the most interesting thing.

His laughter was infectious and Anderson and I laughed.

Stephen Robbins is the captain of this scientific expedition mission. The crew members all respect him, including the scientists on the same ship. Even Mrs. Larry, who has always been cold and frosty, is polite to him. But he never puts on airs. Not only is he not difficult to deal with, he is also easy to talk to. He is a complete gentleman who makes people fall in love with him as soon as they meet him. He is always gentle when he speaks and walks leisurely.

Every time he came on deck, he always said, Ladies and gentlemen, what a beautiful day! When he meets a lady in the passage, he will always step aside, put his hand on his chest, bow slightly and say, Hello, beautiful lady! Although there are only two women on our boat, Mrs. Larry and her assistant, Miss Alice.

Mr. Robbins is very able to get along with the team members and sailors. Just like today, he and Anderson discussed sea fishing for most of the day.

I admire his versatility very much. He is not only a scientist, but also very familiar with everything on the sea. Sometimes I think he is a better captain than me. But he was very modest. He said that what he knew was all learned from books, and that real ocean navigation still relies on professional people like us.

I asked him about the cold drifting snow. Snow is obviously a common phenomenon, so why did he find it unusual.

Robbins said that the North Island of New Zealand, especially the Port of Auckland, is already in the northernmost corner. It does not snow much, and it has not yet reached the coldest period. Moreover, cold current clouds usually have signs and do not appear suddenly. Only when strong cold air passes through warm sea areas and the difference between the air temperature and water temperature reaches more than 10°C, the warm and moist air masses on the ocean surface are forced to rise, and the lower atmosphere is warmed and humidified, causing instability in the low-altitude atmosphere, and cold current clouds appear.

And as a common meteorological phenomenon, meteorological satellites can accurately predict it through cloud images. However, neither the New Zealand Meteorological Service nor the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which had been communicating with the research vessel, issued a warning before we set sail. The key is that this snow is a bit heavy and should not appear in this location in the southern hemisphere at this time. The Pacific Ocean east of New Zealand is too vast. Due to the large specific heat capacity of sea water, the cold wind blowing from Antarctica has long turned into a gentle warm wind before it reaches here.

Mr. Robbins' face looked a little heavy at this time. He said that you are the captain and you should know some things, so I can tell you some of the things I know. While we were stranded in Fitzroy Port, I got in touch with experts from the Bureau of Meteorology. They told me that the cold current snow clouds we encountered first appeared about 1,500 nautical miles east of New Zealand, that is, Not far from the destination we were going to, the cloud disappeared from the satellite cloud image and then suddenly appeared in the sea near the North Island of New Zealand.

I said please forgive me sir, I didn’t understand very well. Do you want to say that the snow was supposed to fall in the sea area where we were going, but it suddenly fell in the place where we stopped yesterday?

Robbins nodded and said, you understand correctly, this is a very strange phenomenon. This cloud is like a ghost. It was formed in a warm spring-like place in the Pacific Ocean with a temperature of 15 degrees Celsius. It seems to have passed through a wormhole as it drifted westward, bringing it to the North Island of New Zealand, which has cooled but is still very warm. There was a heavy snowfall. As you said, this snow should have fallen on the sea fifteen hundred nautical miles away, or it came from somewhere else, because such clouds should not have appeared there.

I was stunned. Although I am not a scientist, I have been sailing scientific research vessels all year round and interacting with various scientific workers. I can boldly say that I am one of the people who understands science best among ocean captains in the world. But Mr. Robbins' account was clearly beyond my comprehension.

I asked him what this meant?

Stephen Robbins looked at the horizon in the distance and said, I'm worried that the place we are going to is undergoing some huge changes that we don't know about, and the results of our trip will become unpredictable.