Is the Narrow Neck the Key? – Part IV

Continuing from the previous post on the importance of landmarks, and how to find the location of the Land of Promise and understand the events that took place there.

Now, since we have eliminated the Kuroshio Current, and sailing through Indonesia, we are left with sailing southward away from the Arabian Peninsula. What we find in this direction, as we have written several times in our blog and books (see Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica), is a course southward on the Monsoons through the Sea of Arabia and into the Indian Ocean, where the South Pacific Gyre takes a vessel in a long curve to the southeast and into the West Wind Drift and Prevailing Westerlies of the Southern Ocean and across the Pacific toward South America.
    It might be helpful to know how the currents in the Arabian Sea flow, and especially how the sea between the Arabian Peninsula/India and Madagascar moves and what would happen to a drift voyage (a vessel “driven forth before the wind”) would be affected by those currents and winds.
    First of all, while this may be “Old Hat” to many of our readers of this blog, to new ones or those “die-hard” writers who think Nephi’s ship could have taken any route away from Bountiful, the monsoons (Trade Winds), which blow inland along a northeasterly track, from the sea into land, for six months of the year, blow outward, on a southwesterly track for the other six months. Stated differently, for six months of the year, an ocean-going vessel dependent entirely upon the winds (sails) and currents (hull movement through the water) would have extreme difficulty in moving out to sea for six months of the year, and an easy path into the sea for the other six months.

As the arrows show, six months out of the year the winds and currents blow in a northeasterly direction inland (toward the shore and into the land) and the other six months they blow out to sea in a southwesterly direction 
    Now, once off the coast and into the sea, which is where an ocean going vessel sails because it is easiest and safest (not along the coast), the ship would have been driven in a southeasterly direction by and with the monsoon “trade winds” in a southeasterly direction, more or less southward toward Madagascar where it would pick up the Somalia Current moving off the northeastern African coast, pushing the vessel outward (or keeping it) from moving in toward land. Along this track, the vessel would be affected by the southerly moving Madagascar Current (basically off the western edge of the clockwise moving North Indian Ocean Gyre (if the vessel drifted further east along this track, it would pick up this Gyre and the Leeuwin Current and be forced back into Australia because of Indonesian Throughflow).
    Now, moving along the waters between the eastern edge of the Madagascar Current just outside (west of) the western edge of the North Indian Ocean Gyre, the vessel would pass beyond the southern curve of the Gyre and be pulled into the southerly moving western edge of the South Indian Ocean Gyre, which is a counter-clockwise moving Gyre that would take the vessel into a south-easterly curve toward the south.

Passing Madagascar in the Indian Ocean (Red Arrow) Main Course; (Green Arrow) Move off course to the West 
    If the vessel were to have steered to the westward at this point, it would remain in the East Madagascar Current which runs into the Agulhas Current, a strong northward flowing current which would move the vessel back to the north and most likely, unless an experienced hand was at the till, into the passage between Madagascar and the African coast where the Agulhas/Mozambique Current flows southward and into the East African Coastal Current flowing northward. These strong currents moving northward along the African coast coming off the southern tip of the continent, and one in which many Atlantic coast landing advocates of Nephi’s ship and especially the Heartland, New England, eastern U.S., and Great Lakes theorists claim Lehi came from around Africa. Where this Agulhas Current meets the Benguela Current in the Atlantic Ocean is an area by the capes of Agulhas and Good Hope, which mariners have called the “Graveyard of Ships” for over three hundred years—a path which Lehi’s inexperienced maritime crew would have found an extremely dangerous place to sail and far beyond their capability.
    On the other hand, with Nephi’s ship picking up the counter-clockwise South Indian Ocean Gyre, the vessel would have sailed southwesterly into the Southern Ocean (from directions written on the Liahona) and into the Prevailing Westerlies wind (blowing toward the east at high speed) and the West Wind Drift current (moving toward the east at high speed).
    This would have been the ideal course, the easiest course, and in fact, the only course for an ocean-going ship in the Sea of Arabia to travel toward the Western Hemisphere.
    It is interesting that the Frederick G. Williams note on the sheet of paper with other important information regarding his role as the prophet Joseph Smith’s personal scribe, as well as the 2^nd Counselor in the First Presidency at the time, wrote in 1841 that this was the course Lehi took and landed where the currents and winds die down to allow a ship “driven forth before the wind to the promised land” to make land fall (1 Nephi 18:8-9) and that is as he wrote it: “The course that Lehi traveled from the city of Jerusalem to the place where he and his family took ship, they traveled nearly a south southeast direction until they came to the nineteenth degree of North Latitude, then nearly east to the Sea of Arabia then sailed in a south east direction and landed on the continent of South America in Chile thirty degrees south Latitude” (LDS Archive, Ms d 3408 fd 4.) 
    Should it be of any interest, Williams was the second scribe Joseph Smith used on his 1835-1836 Journal, following Oliver Cowdery and preceding Warren Parrish and Warren Cowdery. 
    As Venice Priddis wrote, “the fact that it was written on a paper with at least one revelation [D&C 7], suggests to many its importance and that it would be difficult to believe that it did not emanate from, or at least have the approval of, the Prophet Joseph himself” (Map and the Book, p63-64). Orson Pratt more than once referred to this landing “on the coast of Chile” (Journal of Discourses, London, Albert Carrington 1869, vol 12, p 342).

Whether one wants to accept Frederick G. Williams as writing something credible on the sheet of paper, the fact of the matter is that the course of the ocean currents and winds leads a vessel down through the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean into the Southern Sea, and across to the Western Hemisphere. It is the shortest, fastest, and simplest route from that area to the Western Hemisphere available by known sea currents and winds for a sailing ship “driven forth before the wind,” as Nephi twice claims his ship was driven upon the sea (1 Nephi 18:8,9).
    As the vessel was being “driven forth before the wind” eastward across the Southern Ocean south of the Pacific Ocean, this circumpolar current that circles the globe at high-speed, reaches the narrowing point of Drake’s Passage where the current passes between the continent and Antarctica and on across the Atlantic. As it nears this point, the South American shelf forces northward the northern edge of the current up along with what is called the Humboldt Current (Peruvian Current) along the west coast of Chile.

Left: (Red Arrow) Coquimbo Bay at La Serena where the speed of the current drops to from 5mph to 0mph, in the area of the doldrums allow a sailing ship to move out of the current and toward shore and into the Bay—This is the only Mediterranean Climate in the Western Hemisphere other than Southern and Central California; Right: Moving up the Humboldt Current, the speed of the flow drops incrementally from around 25mph to almost zero, right at Coquimbo Bay, then picks up again beyond the 30º south latitude back up toward 25mph as it continues on the South Pacific Gyre
     Having once recognized that this route is basically the only route open to a ship so driven by the wind upon the seas, and not propelled by diesel engines, or even tacking capabilities that allows a ship to be maneuvered upon the ocean currents to some degree, then we turn to a logical landing sight. It is amazingly co-incidental that at the 30º south latitude, along the Chilean coast, the winds die down and the current subsides to almost non-existent from its previous high-speed course along the Southern Ocean and then northward up the Humboldt Current of South America, until it reaches the 30º south latitude where the winds and currents die down to almost nothing adjacent to the what is now Coquimbo Bay at La Serena. This area is one of the very few landing sites possible along the Chilean-Peruvian west coast. If the vessel does not turn in and land here, it will continue to move along the Humboldt Current which, beyond this point, picks up speed again, from 0-5 mph, to 5-10 mph, 10-15 mph, etc. and swings back out into the Pacific Ocean from the Peruvian Bulge and continues on the South Pacific Gyre and heads back across the Pacific toward Indonesia.
    The point of all this is to show, that picking the Narrow Neck of Land as the key issue is not the key issue at all. Nephi tells us how he sailed across the ocean by being “driven forth before the wind” and that means in maritime terms and era, of a fixed sail with wind behind it and subject to the direction of the wind which also determines the direction of the ocean current that drove Nephi’s ship.
    This is the fallacy of picking a place and just saying Lehi sailed there. Nephi tells us how he sailed there and if we are going to believe him, then we have to accept the fact that course he took was the course of the winds and currents, which are quite specific and, by the way, match exactly the course Frederick G. Williams so succinctly stated.