Getting Out of Hand – A Reality Check

No matter how much we discuss this with post after post, page after page, graph after graph, experts comments after experts comments, showing the currents and winds in the area of the Sea of Arabia and north Indian Ocean (north Indian Ocean meaning north of the equator), we have a reader who has written numerous rebuttals and criticisms but can only provide two basic images showing Community “Earth Wind Map” as his support.

 

This is what he last wrote:

    “This article is about the Malay theory, and it makes a claim that is incorrect. Namely, that it is not possible to ride the winds and the currents from Oman to the Malay Archipelago. I have provided sources to show how this is wrong. It is possible to ride the wind and currents from Oman to the Malay Archipelago. But for some reason, you insist it is impossible. I keep hammering away because you keep repeating this untruth. I do read what you write, but that doesn't mean I must agree with it. If you continue to say that the winds and currents lead from Oman to Chile and do not lead to the Malay Peninsula, I will continue to correct your error by posting these two links:”

Now this is very important. His two links are: 
•https://earth.nullschool.net/#2016/05/22/0000Z/ocean/surface/currents/orthographic=-290.46,-3.98,633/loc=53.621,13.213
•https://earth.nullschool.net/#2016/05/22/0000Z/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-290.46,-3.98,633/loc=91.138,0.240

Wind Currents: Keep in mind that in the animated drawing that this Reader refers to, the white lines in the ocean are moving from left to right, bottom to top, in other words, in a northeast direction. It would be impossible for a fixed-sailing vessel “driven forth before the wind” to cross those currents and sail against them to the southeast—we repeat “Impossible” in a drift voyage or wind-driven voyage

Drift Currents. This drawing, again animated with moving lines, shows a west to east movement along the equator, typically known as a counter-current, and like all counter-currents is extremely weak

Now, once again, this is a critical issue here. So let’s take a look at these two supposedly “proof maps” shown immediately above. The first, the “Wind” map, shows what we have said time and again, that these currents flow to the northeast across the Sea of Arabia and slam into the west coast of Pakistan and India. First of all, these currents flow in that direction between the coast of the southern Arabian Peninsula (Oman) to about the 4º north latitude, which is a distance of about 820 miles from the area of southern Oman where the Salalah Plain exists and from which Lehi would have departed by ship.
    That is 820 miles! That is about the distance from Logan, Utah (41.7) N) to the Mexican border  around Nogales (south of Tucson) which is about 31º degrees north latitude.

As can clearly be seen in this blow up of the Reader’s image “Earth. Nullschol.net” that the thick dull white lines are arrows that move northeast in animation. One can see, to sail across them to the southwest to pick up currents that circle around the southern tip of India, it would require sailing 820 miles across and against these winds and currents—something Nephi’s ship could not do. The ship couldn’t do it, didn’t matter what expertise was on board. The ship was “driven forth before the wind” not into it, against it, etc.

This means that Lehi would have had to travel against winds and currents for over 800 miles to reach a current and wind that would circle around the tip of India. And then that current would be flowing almost north (north by northeast) into the Bay of Bengal.
    How could a drift voyage, “driven forth before the winds” manage to go where the winds did not go? It could not have done so. The only way it could have managed a movement toward Malay eastward on the counter-current at the equator was to have been launched at the equator around Hybyo in Mudug, Somalia, almost 1100 miles due southwest of Salalah!

 Moving from Oman southward toward the counter-current would be covering a distance of between 1250 and 1500 miles from Oman, depending on how straight a course against the winds and currents you try to take

However, launched from Arabia means sailing between 1250 and 1500 miles against the winds and currents in a southwest direction from Salalah in order to get to the equatorial counter-current which flows weakly eastward toward the center of Sumatra.

It should also be noted that the currents flowing around the southern tip of India and southern extremity of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) where these waters find an outlet, that these currents become formidable on account of their velocity and extent (Alexander George Findley, A Directory for the Navigation of the Indian Ocean with Descriptions of its Coasts, Islands, Etc., Richard Holmes Laurie Publishing, London, 1866, p102; Findlay was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society). This means that any vessel rounding India, between Kanyakumari and Colombo, would be drawn into the 100-mile long Gulf of Mannar, Palk Bay and Palk Strait…

…and into the Bay of Begal on a straight line northward directly into the coasts of Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma), not the Malay Peninsula, or if coming from the south, into Thailand  (not Malay).

Yellow: Around India; White: Around Sri Lanka; Lt Green: Blue: Up from the South; Orange: From west toward south; Dk. Blue: From east to south

Around Sri Lanka (Ceylon) with the current (west to east) would be caught in a very strong current, far stronger than any vessel “driven forth before the wind” could alter, which also means that such a vessel, even if it could get around India, would be caught in this current and swept into the  Bay of Bengal and drawn into the Bangladesh through Upper Thailand shores (Not Malay).
    Now, please, persistent Reader—these are your figures, your map, your directions. Pay attention to where they go and stop telling us that this is a west to east drift voyage for Lehi!

    Thus, to any intelligent being, these two maps show exactly what we have been saying in this blog since its inception and our first article about the so-called Malay Theory—a false theory from the beginning, fostered on an unsuspecting membership, who is either unfamiliar with the area or not interested in looking into the possibilities that Nephi tells us in the capability of his ship. As stated in an earlier post, every General Authority and President of the Church who has spoken on the subject in this and the past century have stated quite clearly that Lehi landed in the Western Hemisphere, which precludes Malay! All the evidence to that fact is so overwhelming that to continue to argue the point is either ignorance or obstinance.
So let’s be realistic about this and just give it a rest!