{"id":2269,"date":"2023-03-21T13:11:07","date_gmt":"2023-03-21T20:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/?p=2269"},"modified":"2023-03-21T13:11:10","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T20:11:10","slug":"nautical-terminator-doldrums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/nautical-terminator\/nautical-terminator-doldrums\/","title":{"rendered":"Nautical Terminator – Doldrums"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ever feel like you\u2019re \u201cin the doldrums\u201d\u2014 where everything seems bleak and colorless, and there\u2019s nothing you can think of that sounds like fun? Yeah, me neither. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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          The\nword comes from the old English dol<\/em>\nmeaning dull. Appended to this is the suffix drum<\/em>, which is believed to have been borrowed from tantrum. As\ntantrums are fits of anger, doldrums are fits of dreariness. The term was used\nin this form by the nineteenth century, so in 1824 when Lord Byron referred to\na ship as being \u201cin the doldrums\u201d in \u201clight and baffling\u201d winds, he was noting\nthe ship\u2019s forlorn behavior, not its location. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          The\nfirst time the doldrums were connected to a specific place in the ocean was in The\nPhysical Geography of the Sea<\/em>, 1855, by the estimable Matthew Maury, whose detailed\nresearch formed the foundation of pilot charts: “The ‘equatorial doldrums’\nis another of these calm places\u2026 a region of calms and baffling winds.” But\nthis seems to have been the result of a misconception on the part of someone\n(not Maury) who, when told a ship was \u201cin the doldrums,\u201d thought this was a\ngeographical area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          The doldrums are now the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a\ntitle that is infinitely less poetic than its predecessor. The ITCZ consists of\na band of light wind north of the equator that varies in latitude and width according\nto the season and any old whim that occurs to it. Many try to avoid it when\nsailing, and marine forecasters will give you a good guess about just where to\ncross it at its narrowest. Of course, by the time you sail to that spot, it\nwill be the widest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          I\u2019m going to buck the crowd and put in a word for the\ndoldrums. The wind has ceased, and you\u2019re alone in a vast, primordial\nwilderness far from the chatter of civilization. It wasn\u2019t easy getting here. The\nocean is quietly resting, though you sense the uncanny power of her languid\nundulations born of distant, violent storms. In this desolate and dreamlike domain,\nyou can read, contemplate, and swim in perfect serenity and solitude. Your cup\nand plate sit calmly on the table instead of unsociably flinging themselves to\nthe cabin sole. The sunset beams across the anvil tops of thunderheads a\nhundred miles away. Soon enough, you\u2019ll be in a city with all the normal folks.\nWhat\u2019s the hurry?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever feel like you\u2019re \u201cin the doldrums\u201d\u2014 where everything seems bleak and colorless, and there\u2019s nothing you can think of that sounds like fun? Yeah, me neither.           The word comes from the old English dol meaning dull. Appended to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nautical-terminator"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2269"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3285,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269\/revisions\/3285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}