Off The Net For Awhile -- November 17, 2019

Most important Bakken posts so far this morning:

• the incredible CLR Carus wells in Cedar Coulee;
• the initial production data for wells coming off the confidential list this week; and, 
• the wells coming off the confidential list this week by day/date.

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For The Granddaughters

How did the Cape of Good Hope get its name?

Boa Esperança in Portuguese.

boa = good

esperança = hope

From various sources:

In 1421 the Far East was cut off from western Europe, literally overnight.

First, in December, 1421, the overland route to China and the Spice Islands -- the great Silk Road running from China right across central Asia to the Middle East -- had been blocked when the Ottomans surrounded Byzantium. In that same climactic month, on 6 December, the Mamluk Sultan Barsbey seized power in Egypt and nationalized the space trade.

The effect of the two events was to ruin the merchants who had controlled the spice trade, seal Egypt's borders to international trade and sever the sea route through the Bosphorus to the western end of the Silk Road.

With the canal linking the Red Sea and the Nile (completed in the tenth century) collapsing and unusable, all land and sea routes to the East were now closed to Christians.

A new ocean route to the East had to be found.

When the "forefront of Arika" was discovered and successfully rounded, the Pope said there was "good hope" that a new sea route to the East had been found. 

So, there you have it. The Cape of Good Hope.

For extra credit, what is the southernmost point of Africa?

Cape Agulhas, the "Cape of Needles." About the year 1500, it was noted that the direction of magnetic north (and therefore the compass needle) coincided with true north in this region.

Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa, is about 90 miles east-southeast of the Cape of Good Hope.

And finally, the name of the two currents that "meet" and turn from each other at Cape Agulhas: the warm-water Agulhas current from the east, and the cold water Benguela current from the Atlantic. The oceanic meeting fluctuates between the two capes.