In the 1800's a Portuguese sailing vessel was heading to Brazil. The schooner got caught in the doldrums of the Atlantic Ocean-a dreaded fate of no wind for weeks that could be fatal to ship and crew. The trip had taken longer than expected and they were precariously close to running out of water. All onboard were getting severely dehydrated and they were still hundreds of miles from port.
Just as the commander began to realize they weren't going to survive another day with the water left on board, the aft lookout spotted another clipper. But since neither had the wind to sail closer to the other, the two sloops had to resort to their naval flag system to communicate.
The captain of the troubled vessel commanded the flagman to hoist the message, "We're out of water. Do you have water?" Immediately, the second ship signaled back, "Drop your bucket right where you are!"
Well, if the skipper and helmsman weren't so weak from dehydration, they'd have laughed themselves off the deck into the Atlantic. "What could they possibly mean?" wondered the captain, as he ordered the signal man to repeat the first desperate plea, "We're out of water. Do you have water?" Shockingly, the second ship flagged back the same enigmatic reply, "Drop your bucket right where you are!"
Now distraught and upset, the captain cursed under his breath, "How could they joke at a time like this?" Again, he directed the crewmate to flag the same frantic appeal, "Do you have water?"
Incomprehensibly, the second sail ship responded with the same unfathomable, seemingly pitiless reply, "Drop your bucket right where you are!" Perplexed and out of options and sanity, the captain of the distressed vessel declared to his one of his men, "What the hell. Just do what they say. Drop your bucket right where you are!"
So, in the course of a now historical discovery, the Portuguese sailor found that when he drew his bucket back up from the placid sea, the bucket was filled with fresh drinkable water!
You see, the volume of flow of the Amazon River flowing into the Atlantic is so great that the river current carries fresh water hundreds of miles out into the ocean, saving this crew-and hundreds more over the years to come-from certain death from the doldrums and dehydration.
Eugine Loh, 938Live, MediaCorp Pte Ltd
