More Island Silliness! [Humor?]

I know what you're thinking... if you've just read my excellent expose' on Portland Island (ref: Portland Cement is a LIE!) you're thinking to yourself: "Surely, O Pudgy But Studly One, there can be no more pretender islands of such dastardly repute as the just exposed Portland Island!" Well, you adorable little snot-nosed thumbsucker you, that would be an incorrect assumption.

I call your attention to The Isles of Scilly [aka Cornish: Ynysek Syllan; Norse: Syllingar; French: Le Isles de Jerry Lewis] made famous in the book Longitude by Dava Sobel, and the movie of the same name:

Scilly is famous for its danger to shipping and its many shipwrecks. The wreck of Sir Cloudesley Shovell's ship HMS Association and three others of his fleet in 1707 off the Isles of Scilly due to inaccuracies in navigation led to the establishment of the Board of Longitude and consequently the development of the method of lunar distances, and to the invention of the marine chronometer by John Harrison, the first reliable methods of determining longitude at sea.

Note: The role of John Harrison, the amazingly gifted clock maker, was played by the same guy (Michael Gambon) who is now portraying Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies, so you know this is serious stuff! (RIP Richard Harris)

So, now that I've laid all of this out, I'm sure my point is immediately obvious...

...

...

... (!)

Oh for God's sake, people! I'm saying that they have no business calling themselves the Isles of Scilly when their history is all about causing ships to be run aground due to the miscalculation of longitudinal position!

Here is the historical context: John Harrison invented an increasingly impressive series time pieces that maintained incredible accuracy--even whilst those devices were sitting aboard a ship that rocked continuously and unpredictably (depending upon wind and wave actions) AND endured significant variation in temperature and humidity as well. (I know exactly what you're thinking... detentes and bimetalic strips.  You are correct!) These "clocks" allowed ships to maintain a reasonable measure of time of day.  You might ask why it is so important to know what time it is when you're in the midst of a month-long voyage across a briny expanse.

Well, it goes like this:

1) If you know when it is high noon in England, and you're actually in England, you can measure the position of the sun in the sky overhead at that moment, you now have a reference point. (You don't necessarily have to do this at noon, but it does work best if you try it during daytime hours. For further explanation on that issue, please follow this link: "Stupidity for the Rest of Us", by Ima Dumass)

2) If you know what time it is where you are, you can also determine when it is high noon back in merry old England. (In fact, you can even keep your sea clock set on English time, which saves all sorts of challenging mathematics involving time zones and such!)

3) If you measure the position of the sun in the sky at your current location, and you take said measurement when it is high noon back in merry old England, you can determine how far east or west you are of the reference point you established back at number 1. (If you are still trying to follow the link provided in number 1, don't bother continuing with this article.)

Prior to Harrison's invention and refinement of these seaworthy time pieces, navigators on sailing vessels were essentially guessing as to where they were within the context of the huge ocean. Sure, they could gauge their latitude (extent of position north or south relative to the equator) based upon the position of the sun, or stars in the night sky (though even this was problematic during a stretch of cloudy days.) But as for longitude (extent of position east or west relative to some designated reference point) they were essentially guessing based upon the amount of time they'd been sailing in a given direction. Due to variations in wind direction and intensity, as well as shifting current (and, of course, the occasional sea serpent that just towed them in circles merely for its own entertainment) this method was highly unreliable.

But still you might ask: "Oh Wise and Wonderful One Who Bears the Lingering Scent of Limburger, why is this such a big deal?" It's a big deal because when you don't actually know your east-west position relative to things like continents, you also don't know your position relative to any islands situated away from continents. (You also don't know how close you are to falling off of the world, but that's a subject for another day.)

[Editor's Note: Right about now I believe that it would be very helpful to you, the reader, to provide a bit of useful geo-referencing within the context of this article.  As you are reading these words, you're about 3 clicks south of the lamp post in the woods, and a heckuva long way from the wardrobe in the study.  If I were you, I'd be calling for Aslan sooner than later!  map]

Let's look at an illustrative case: If, having departed from England to acquire rum and spices from the East Indies, odds are that you would eventually want to return to England. (People are just funny that way.)  Now, if all you know with any reasonable certainty is your rough position are north or south of the equator (your latitude), you're probably going to sail in the general direction that tends toward your destination. Let's say that you're departing from Jamaica, and you try to maintain a heading along your way back to England that is generally in the direction north and east. Eventually you will be at a point where you're either running along the eastern coast of Africa or Europe, or you'll be dodging icebergs in the north Atlantic.

What to do? Since you can estimate your latitude with some accuracy, you might just sail on your current north and east heading until you eventually reach the same latitude as merry old England, and then (assuming you haven't run aground in Africa or Iberia or, God help us, France) you can gingerly approach the motherland from the Atlantic.

So far, so good. But here's the catch: You can't see very much at night. (It's dark at night, and the water is dark as well. Dark Sky+Dark Water+Dark Island Reefs=Oh Crap!  Sorry if this was too much math.) If you mis-guess how far you are from England, you might sail into certain obstacles along the way, such as islands. Islands are above the surface of the ocean, which can make them a good thing when you've been at sea for a month, as long as you know where they are.  But, since islands are generally parts of underwater mountains, it's a reasonable bet that there are also some other mountains that don't protrude above the surface.*

As I was saying before I was interrupted by that asterisk, mountains don't always protrude above the water, and they often have unpredictable reef formations that project upward from the top of the underwater mountain. When ships sail into these underwater features, they tend to sink, and sink quickly. Add to this fact the absolute arrogance of certain ship's captains who challenged and even punished any cautionary comments from their pilot/navigator suggesting that the ship's position is not quite a close to home as the captain believes, and things get really ugly.

The Scilly Islands happen to lie on a latitude that is approximately the same of the coast of Cornwall, which was often where these ships were destined upon their return. The Scillies are also surrounded by the aforementioned reefs, so generally they are to be avoided at all costs unless you know exactly where you are in relation to them. Imagine going to bed believing that your ship is safely headed toward the homeport in Cornwall, and instead being awakened in the wee hours by the sickening crunch of the ship's wooden hull against a large toothy reef. Imagine moments later discovering that your chamber pot is floating past your face as you struggle to find your way out of your watery grave. And why did this happen? Because you were still a day or more west of where you thought you were! You hadn't yet cleared the dreaded Scilly Islands, you silly silly fool!

So now, at last, you have a sense of the absolute and total LACK of Silliness about the Scilly Islands!   I hope you understand the urgency of my expose'... that the completely silly notion of silliness in the Scilly Islands is just that... completely silly in it's unsilliness! It is absolute silliness to even suggest that there is anything remotely resembling silliness in the matter of the Scilly Islands! So please do what you can to stop the perpetuation of such silliness! Nothing could be sillier! I hope this expose' has helped to clear up a few misconceptions.

* This is an asterisk. I find it useful to employ these in the text of my articles from time to time. Thank you for paying attention. (Oh wait! I just remembered  something about the asterisk! I had actually wanted to include some ancillary information regarding islands as tips of mountains.  Here it is: Exceptions to this generalization are atolls** made from coral reefs, islands formed from floating trees and plants, and, of course, the huge floating island of plastic that is now larger than the state of Texas. This latter item was created by the industrialized nations of the world, primarily using post consumer materials that will outlast civilization, in the hopes that George W. Bush would actually mistake it for Texas upon leaving the White House. Sadly, that didn't happen.)

** Not to be confused with a**holes, which really have little or nothing to do with this discussion, so I'm wondering why you even brought it up... shame on you.