In addition to what has been
covered in the last three posts about the uniqueness of the west coast of South
America regarding Lehi landing around the 30º South Latitude, there is one more
unknown fact that would not have been known to Joseph Smith in 1829. And that
fact was not really discovered until many years later—and that is the currents
of the Southern Ocean that lead directly to the 30º South Latitude.
While this has been mentioned
here many times, it is not only an extremely significant part of movement on
the seas of a sailing ship, especially in 600 B.C., it is exactly what Nephi
wrote in his record about being “driven forth before the wind towards the
promised land” (1 Nephi 18:8). While Joseph Smith would have understood about a
sailing ship being driven before the winds, he would not have know what winds
and currents existed in the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Pacific and Southern
Oceans. In fact, this information was not clearly understood until the late
nineteenth century, and not even suspected until around the eighteenth century.
With China to the north and Australia to the south, India to the west
and the islands of the South Pacific Ocean to the east, the area of Indonesian archipelago is
scattered with 18,307 islands through which Theorists claim Lehi sailed
While most Theorists ignore this
simple, but clearly stated fact in Nephi’s account, and also what is known
today about these currents and winds between Arabia and the Western Hemisphere,
one can only wonder how these Theorists think the Lehi Colony traveled to the
Land of Promise. Mesoamerican Theorists glibly take Lehi across the Indian
Ocean toward Indonesia, through the thousands of islands of that area, then
into the South Pacific and through thousands of more islands toward Central
America, which would actually be
traveling against winds and currents
all the way!
As can be seen, the currents and winds moving through Indonesia, move
from east to west, which would place a sailing vessel moving from west to east
in opposition of these winds and currents
The problem is, they are so
convinced that Mesoamerica is the location of the Land of Promise, that they
give little thought to whether or not the Lehi Colony could have sailed from
Arabia to there in 600 B.C. in a weather ship with fixed sails that allowed the
vessel to be “driven forth before the wind.” However, to seamen as last as the
16th century, winds and currents determined where a sailing ship could
travel and where it could not. Before the North Atlantic Gyre was discovered by
Christopher Columbus in the late 1400s, no European sailing vessel was ever
able to broach the Atlantic Ocean westward beyond the Azores.
The Azores are 930 miles west of Lisbon Portugal, and were known in
1340 A.D., but not officially discovered until 1431 A.D.; The Canary Islands
(Fortunate Islands) are about 300 miles
off the African west coast, and were known to the Phoenicians, Greeks,
Carthaginians and the Romans in B.C. times, and “discovered” by Europeans in
1336 A.D.; Cape Verde is about 400 miles off the African coast (Dakar), and was
discovered by the Portuguese in 1456 A.D., but references to it might suggest a last
century B.C. period
This gyre is one of five major
oceanic gyres and stretches across the North Atlantic from near the equator
almost to Iceland, and from the east coast of North America to the west coasts
of Europe and Africa. The currents that compose the North
Atlantic Gyre include the Gulf Stream in the west, the North Atlantic Current
in the north, the Canary Current in the east, and the Atlantic North Equatorial
Current in the south. This gyre is particularly important for the central role
it plays in the thermohaline circulation, bringing salty water west from the
Mediterranean Sea and the north to form the North Atlantic Deep Water, and
overfall forms the Sargasso Sea, noted for its still waters and dense seaweed
accumulations.
The North Atlantic Gyre. The Canary Islands
are in the lower right of the gyre and, as can be seen, a ship leaving that
area would be driven across the Atlantic toward the Caribbean Islands where
Columbus landed. Also, ships trying to sail due west from Spain or England
would run headlong into these opposing winds and currents and never get out to sea
To what degree
Columbus understood this gyre is unknown, however, he did understand that down
around the Canary Islands the current turned westward, and once in the Western
Hemisphere, he understood that he had to travel northward to pick up the
returning current that traveled eastward, thus allowing him to sail to and from
the Americas. A lack of this knowledge kept the Europeans from traveling
westward into the Atlantic from the first period of sailing.
Theorists can make
claims that Lehi sailed this way or that, however, there were two things against
that—winds and currents. As an example, in May 1527, Alvaro de Saavedra
Ceron was dispatched with two ships by Hernan Cortez from Mexico to sail to the
Philippine Islands. After conducting his business there, Saavedra attempted to
sail back to Mexico, crossing the Pacific Ocean from the Philippines to Mexico; however, he failed at this because the currents and winds moved in the
opposite direction. He lost one ship, and after four years of failed attempts, died
in his final effort to cross the Pacific back to Mexico in 1531. His crew
finally sailed in the opposite direction with the winds and arrived in Mexico
from the east.
The winds and currents move westward across the Pacific from Mexico to
the Philippines making Saarvedra’s westward trip an easy voyage; however, in
trying to return, Saarvedra could not buck the winds and currents as he headed east
in numerous attempts over a four year period
When these Theorists claim Lehi
sailed through Indonesia against all these winds and currents in a ship built
for deep-water sailing and not simple coastal navigation, it would simply be
impossible to accomplish in 600 B.C., and would go against Nephi’s claim that
they were “driven forth before the wind.” In addition, to claim Lehi
island-hopped across the Pacific through Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia,
which by the way, contains a total of 25,000 islands, is another foolish
concept. First of all, the initial area to be covered would be the islands of
Melanesia, which are more compact, with distances of only five to ten miles between
most, and few having as much as sixty miles between. One might wonder, seeing
these tropical paradise islands of Melanesia, with constant temperatures between 70- and 80-degrees, pass by every few
miles that Laman, Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael might not want to rebel once
again, take control of the ship, and turn into one of these islands.
Arrows show the wind direction across the Pacific. Note how the
location of the islands mentioned all show an east to west wind direction,
which drives the current even more westerly on a more even basis
The point of all this is simply
that when someone begins discussing a location of the Land of Promise, one
should consider all the other factors involved in the possibility of Lehi
sailing to that location based upon the winds and currents that would have driven
Nephi’s ship “forth before the wind.” After all, saying something is not the
same as it being possible to accomplish. Nor can one rely upon old trade routes
since trading vessels were mostly flat bottomed, coast vessels, lacking the
strength of design and building methods to withstand the waves and high seas in
the deep ocean.
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