Back to Malay One Last Time – Part II

-->Continujing from the previous post, regarding the fallacy of the Malay Theory of where Lehi landed.    2. All arrows you have drawn on the map are accurate for half of the year. Of course, it is a six month cycle—they are northeast winds (blow out of the northeast toward the southwest) for six months, and “southwest” winds (blow out of the southwest toward the northeast) for the other six months (this is not east to west)

 

These are just two of the many such maps with arrows showing the monsoon winds in the Indian Ocean and mainland. Both show the reversal from winter to summer monsoons, or northeast to southwest monsoons, and well labeled. None show only one direction

The map this reader submitted from the website he recommended, showing the same southwest summer monsoon wind direction as the map we have made and use, as shown above in the first two images. In all cases, the Summerr Monsoon blows out of the southwrest across the Indian Ocean and toward the northeast and onto the mainland

The following is taken from Yachtico (boat rental and yacht charter in Malay), it states: Sailing around Malaysia-enjoy boating in Malaysian Waters: Malaysia is a tropical destination. The climate is characterized by the monsoon and is hot and humid all year round. Temperatures are between 31 and 33 °C during the day, and between 24 and 25 °C at night…In the waters around Langkawi it is best to sail in-between November and April as this is a sunny and dry period, and the wind blows at 2 to 5 Bft from the northeast. From May to October it blows a little stronger due to the Southwest wind. Most rain falls between April and November, but compared to the east coast of Malaysia there is not a classic rainy season...The wind is up to 5 Bft from the southeast and it is often necessary to sail close to the wind when it blows parallel to the coastline. This should be considered when planning a cruise.” Note they do not list an east to west or west to east direction of wind at any time during the year.
    3. Tim Severin did it so we know it is possible. Tim Severin was under sail as a very accomplished seaman with a lot of experience, money behind him, and plenty of support systems, knowledge, vessels, etc. On the other hand…

Thor Heyerdahl in his raft, Kon-Tiki, which moved mostly by sea current, but also sail. Of course, winds drive currents so the two are interconnected

Thor Heyerdahl accomplished a drift voyage in 1947 as an inexperienced individual with a six-man crew, sailed from Peru to the Polynesian islands in the Pacific. Tim Severin in the Brendan Voyage had a crew of 20. In fact, when we talk about “Tim Severin could do it so we know it is possible” let’s put this in perspective: Babe Ruth hit 714 homeruns with 10,623 plate appearances in 22 seasons, beginning at the age of 19—7 of those years or about 1/3 of his time was in the “dead ball” era when homeruns were far more scarce (in the dead ball era, “home run Baker” the home run king, hit his highest two years of 12 and 11 homeruns in a single season and 10 homeruns three times for 96 in a 13 year career of 6,667 plate appearances); Hank Aaron hit 755 home runs with 12,364 plate appearances in 23 seasons, all in the “live ball era;” Barry Bonds hit 762 home runs with 12,606 plate appearances in 22 seasons. Only six players in the more than 142 year history of the game have hit 600 homeruns or more in a career. Only three have hit over 700. Yes, they proved it could be done, but that is a huge difference from the compared to the 15,213 players who have played the game of major league baseball. Stated differently, you cannot compare Tim Severin and his experienced mariner crew with Lehi and his family.
    Tim Severin, it might be understood, retraced Marco Polo’s journey while an 21-year-old undergrad in college; followed the routes of travelers on the Mississippi while navigating the length of the river by canoe and launch; built a leather boat and retraced the 800 A.D. 4,500 mile voyage of St. Brendan the Abbot from Ireland to New Foundland; sailed the Sinbad voyage, an 8-month, 6,000 mile voyage with a crew of 25 from the Arabian Sea to India; and sailed the Jason (Argonauts fame) Voyage; and ther Ulysses Voyage, from Troy to Ithaca in the Ionian islands; sailed the 5,500 China Voyage across the Pacific; and followed the course of the Moby Dick in the Pacific. The point is, he was a very accomplished and experienced seaman, navigator, pilot and boat designer with some 20,000 to 25,000 miles of sailing experience—a man to whome Lehi was hardly comparable.

Tim Severin on his many voyages had tools Lehi did not: sea maps, radio, sextant, drag security boats, compujters, charts, and very experienced crews—where is the comparison?

4. Boats have been blown ashore in Malay Peninsula for at least two millennia. Based on records available, in the first 100 years (1601 to 1700), of the 213 listed shipwrecks in that century, only two shipwrecks have been registered to have occurred on the Malay Peninsula (the Middelburg and the Nassau, both Dutch ships in 1606).  BTW, out of the 146 shipwrecks in the 1500s, there was a ship out of Malay (Santiago) that was shipwrecked in the Azores in 1587. As for general boats being washed ashore, this is highly misunderstood, since El Nino, tsynamis, and “laboon,” have hit the area time and again for the centuries, beinging havoc of wreckage and debris washing up on shore as long as people been there to see it. The legends of the Moken (Mawken or Morgan) people of Burma and Thailand along the upper Peninsula, who learn to swim before they walk, date back thousands of years and today part of the so-called “sea nomads” or “people of the sea” of Malay, Sumatra and Indonesia who have recorded and speak of severe weather conditions that result in such damage. As for “washing ashore,” this is not unique to the Malay Peninsula, but common throughout these 25,000 islands in this small area from the Andaman Sea to the South China Sea and southward toward Australia.

Drift wreckage, flotsam, debris, etc, moves where the currents take it—it has no ability to go elsewhere; therefore, the currents shown above would drive such wreckage into the Bay of Bengal if in the eastern area and into India if in the western area as the white arrows show

We should also keep in mind that both the west and east shores of the Bay of Bengal (and Andaman Sea) are extremely likely areas where something will wash ashore, just like the West Coast of America is and numerous other places. However, there is no recorded drift voyage washing ashore of boats on the Malay Peninsula from Arabia, since the vast majority of these would not bypass the India subcontinent in any eastward or northeastward movement of currents.
    5. I am not aware of any evidence that boats were blown from the Arabian Peninsula to Chile. Ever, in all of history. Can you provide one example? This is a ridiculous question. No one would know where a ship blown ashore along the Chilean coast would have come from—the Pacific is thousands of miles across. As for winds and currents blowing ashore, the Humboldt/Peruvian Current blows north and south along then west South American coast. The point where they blow ashore is Pint Elena just above the Gulf of Guayaquil in Ecuador and the flotsam that comes ashore along this peninsula is legendary and is assumed to be where the Jaredite barges landed.
    It should also be noted that while boats wash ashore along the Alaskan and West Canadian shores and northern America, that shipping in the North Pacifric is as major industry and there have always been people and boats there to be shipwrecked, damaged, or washed ashore. The waters along South America move northward from the Antarctic and the amount of shipping there is so minimal and the coastal shores so unpopulated that to have records would be extremely unusual.
(See the next post, “Back to Malay – Part III,” for more on this fallacious Malay Theory)