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Total Run:
699
Nautical Miles from Puget Sound's Blake Island
Total Average Speed: 5.92 Knots
Hours From Departure: 118 Hours
Distance To Go This Leg: 483 Nautical Miles to Long Beach re-fueling
Estimated Time Of Arrival: 8:00 a.m., Tuesday, September 21
Wind: North-Northwest at 25 Knots
Seas & Swells: Combined at 12 Feet
Barometric Pressure: 1017 Millibars
Air Temperature: 56 Degrees
Visibility: 10 Miles
Skies: Broken Overcast, patches of Blue Sky
Present Course: 147 Degrees, Capt. Ogaard has adjusted BB-62's course to
conform to the more eastward coastline of California from Point Arena to San Francisco Bay
and beyond to the Santa Barbara Channel, the entrance to the ports of Los Angeles and Long
Beach, where the Sea Victory will take on more fuel for the longer voyage to Panama next
week.
Sea Floor: The depth of the ocean beneath us now is between 1,720 and
1,758 Fathoms, or 10,320 and 10,648 Feet. Between New Jersey's position and the
coastal Point Arena are the underwater geological formations identified as Navarro and
Arena Canyons. These readings are based on the charts Sea Victory uses throughout
the journey, published in Washington, D.C. by the Department of Commerce's National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Ocean Service, Coast Survey. Position: "The Big J," or as U.S. Marines on
Vietnam's DMZ called her in 1968, "The New Jersey Hilton," is presently towing
well, according to Captain Ogaard. She is 47 Nautical Miles West-Northwest of
California's Point Arena in Mendocino County.
The town of Fort Bragg is located just to the North of
Pt. Arena, but it's not the same site as the better-known home of the U.S. Army's 82nd
Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Water, Water Everywhere ...
As Hurricane Floyd became Tropical Storm Floyd and began
moving back into the Atlantic off the coast of Maine, it left misery up and down the east
coast, judging from California radio news reports monitored on the Sea Victory.
In our the Pacific Ocean position, there is also plenty
of water, from horizon to horizon, but fortunately at this writing, it remains contained,
and is offering USS New Jersey a comfortable following sea tow so far.
Sailors in the past on the New Jersey, or mariners
anywhere sailing the Pacific, must have always been moved by this vast body of water's
immensity. The Pacific is the world's largest ocean, comprising 64-Million Square
Miles with an average depth of 13,215 Feet.
In fact, the surface of the earth itself is mostly water.
Oceans or seas cover 70.8% of the earth's surface. Ranked by size, these are
the 10 largest:
1 - Pacific Ocean, 64,000,000 Square Miles,
average depth, 13, 215 Ft
2 - Atlantic Ocean, 31,815,000 Square Miles, average depth, 12,880 Ft
3 - Indian Ocean, 25,300,000 Square Miles, average depth, 13,002 Ft
4 - Arctic Ocean, 5,440,200 Square Miles, average depth, 3,953 Ft
5 - Mediterranean Sea, 1,145,100 Square Miles, average depth, 4,688 Ft
6 - Caribbean Sea, 1,049,500 Square Miles, average depth, 8,685 Ft
7 - South China Sea, 895,400 Square Miles, average depth, 5,419 Ft
8 - Bering Sea, 884,900 Square Miles, average depth, 5,075 Ft
9 - Gulf of Mexico, 615,000 Square Miles, average depth, 4,874 Ft
10 - Okhotsk Sea, 613,800 square miles, average depth, 2,749 Ft
These references were included in the book, "The
Ocean Almanac" by Robert Hendrickson, 1984, Doubleday, New York, NY, which Sea
Victory Second Mate Mike Poirier provided to us for review. It is likely that USS
New Jersey cruised through parts of all ten, with the possible exception of the Okhotsk
Sea, bounding Russia inside the far western North Pacific.
To conclude our notes on hurricanes heading back to sea,
it may be interesting to note the names we may hear before this journey has ended.
The National Hurricane Center, an agency of NOAA, referred to in our chart readings above,
publishes a list of names it will use for each hurricane or tropical storm of the season,
in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Names designated for any storms through the remainder of
this season in the Atlantic following Floyd will be Gert, Harvey, Irene, Jose, Katrina,
Lenny, Maria, Nate, Ophelia, Philippe, Rita, Stan, Tammy, Vince and Wilma.
In the eastern Pacific, within New Jersey's general
course of travel to Panama, the designated names for 1999 are: Adrian, Beatriz, Calvin,
Dora, Eugene, Fernanda, Greg, Hilary, Irwin, Jova, Kenneth, Lidia, Max, Norma, Otis,
Pilar, Ramon, Selma, Todd, Veronica, Wiley, Xina, York, and Zelda.
Submitted by Bob Wernet onboard the Sea Victory.
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