Continuing from the last two
posts where both Nephi’s ship and the ships of 600 B.C. was introduced.
Following is further information on the three directional choices Lehi had away
from Bountiful to the land of Promise, and the reason we know which he chose
and the path of Nephi’s ship to the Land of Promise. The second direction Lehi
could have chosen was:
2) Southeast toward Australia. This is not a plausible route since it
crosses two opposite currents and wind systems of the Indian Ocean gyre. It
also crosses through the storm center low where currents tend to swing around
in a circular fashion, making crossing difficult if not impossible for a
weather driven vessel. The center of this area is also known as the
Madden-Julian Oscillation, which originates roughly every 30 to 90 days and is
considered the world’s greatest source of atmospheric variability, and drives
tropical weather and climate variations outward from the center, with cyclones
predominant in this central area.
Top: Tropical Storms continually
hit this area off western Australia; Bottom: Dust clouds many miles high blow
out from western Australia over the Indian Ocean, making this course extremely
dangerous and difficult to navigate
3) South toward the Indian Ocean. This is the direction the winds and
currents move off the southern Arabian peninsula—south into the Indian Ocean,
curving toward the southeast along the western curve of the Indian Ocean gyre.
This route would take a sailing vessel southward, past the western edge of the
central weather front mentioned above, and with the emphasis of the gyre, swing
the vessel toward the southeast and into the Southern Ocean, where the vessel
would pick up the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, a strong ocean current that
flows clockwise from west to east around Antarctica, and is the dominant
circulation feature of the Southern Ocean.
This current has been known to
mariners for centuries and called by them the West Wind Drift. The current is
driven by the westerly winds, known as the Prevailing Westerlies, and speeds up any voyages from west to east, while
at the same time making sailing extremely difficult from east to west. This was
the Clipper route, which took those early sailing vessels around three
continental capes, and allowed those clippers to set speed records in the late
1800s.
The Clipper ships were originally built to ply the tea trade and
passenger service to Java beginning in the 1843, and ended in 1869 with the
opening of the Suez Canal
The westerly winds, called the
Prevailing Westerlies, imparts a momentum to the West Wind Drift that is not
constrained by continents, but flows in a circular path completely around the
globe in this Southern Ocean. Once in the current, a ship moves swiftly in an
easterly direction south of New Zealand, across the Pacific and through the
narrowing Drake Passage south of South America. However, the northern portion
of this current is turned northward by the continental land mass and up the
western coast of South America. Nor is this northern part of the Southern Ocean
current colder than further north as one would suppose. The current is the same
temperature as the Pacific Ocean from December through mid-May at Balboa,
Oceanside, San Clemente, etc., in Southern California; and warmer year round
than the Oregon coast, Washington coast, and from Morro Bay northerward in
California.
All that is needed is a strong
vessel, for the current is strong and forceful, with winds up to 25 miles per
hour driving the sea, though they do not slam into the ship’s hull like
movement across waves and currents, and pushes the vessel forward, with a
strong wind behind that drives a sailing vessel more swiftly than any other
current on the planet—a current that brings the waters of
the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans together and carries up to 150 times
the volume of water flowing in all of the world's rivers. It is the only
current that flows completely around the globe, is considered the mightiest
current in the ocean, and the distance around the planet at the Southern Ocean is almost half the
distance around at the equator. Thus, any vessel traveling this route across
the Pacific would do so in about half the time.
Knowing this simplest route from
the Arabian coast to the Western Hemisphere, the Lord had Nephi build a ship
that would withstand the speed of this passage, a ship stronger than those of
his day, with a deep-V blue water design that would be unknown for another
2,000 years.
It is always interesting to find
Mesoamerican and other Theorists claiming Lehi sailed due east, through the
thousands of islands of Indonesia, across the Pacific and hundreds of more
islands, all within a tropical paradisiacal setting, stopping along the way to
replenish their supplies without Laman, Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael causing
any problems, though they were certainly of an ilk to do so. And not to mention
the fact that all the ocean currents are against this direction of travel all
across the Arabian Sea, through Indonesia, and all across the Pacific.
Driven forth before the wind means that the winds fills the sails from
behind and drives the ship forward
Personally, I have always thought
when Nephi said they were “driven forth before the wind,” that he meant it. And
for a sailing ship to be driven forth before the wind, it means, without
question, that the wind was behind them, filling their sails, and pushing them
forward through the water--a fact that substantiates the course of his ship in the West Wind Drift being driven forth by the Prevailing Westerlies. This "driven forth before the wind" would not be possible eastward through Indonesia and across the Pacific.
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