MackSolo Team Update – Day 128 ✈️ 🌍
He did it! He did it! Yesterday Mack flew to #socorro, Mexico 🇲🇽, his second #antipodal! Woohooo!!! 💪🎉🥳 From now on, anyway home, is the right way home! He is free as a bird on the choice of his #route now!!!
Why is this such a big deal? Well, to achieve a #roundtheworld record (any #rtw record: whether hiking, cycling, on pogo-sticks, a raft,...) #Guinness requires to pass via two antipodal points on Earth. Practically, it means that if you were to pierce a skewer through an orange 🍑, the point in and the one back out would be your two antipodal points. Mack chose a point over the sea near Rodrigues Island (close to Madagascar) and an opposing point in Mexico near Socorro Island.
Reaching the #antipodals is a major and challenging part of any RTW record in general. For a cyclist or hiker, f.i. it might be tough to find two land antipodals that also make sense (71% of the Earth is water, and only 29% is continent or islands 🏝). Pilots🧑✈️and sailors 🚣♀️ are not restricted to land mass, so that part is easy, but they are dealing with a different challenge: reaching two antipodals on a circumnavigation can only be done by crossing the equator at some stage or another. This means, crossing the often challenging and turbulent Intertropical Conversion Zone (the ITCZ, pronounced "itch"): the area where the northeast and the southeast trade winds converge, mostly characterized by vigorous thunderstorms 🌪🌊, often scattered over large areas. Not exactly ideal when ✈️ #flying... nor sailing 🛶... 😬
After taking a well deserved rest day in #PuertoVallarta, #Mexico, Mack will now be leaving the #pacificocean and this major part of his #worldrecord attempt behind. Apart from the Transatlantic crossing over Greenland and Iceland the most challenging legs have now been done ... The Team is starting to breathe again 😅.
Now just for FUN. A follower's suggestion:
👉 What's the antipodal of your city?
For Brussels -> Waitangi, in the Chatham
Islands, in New Zealand. And you⁉️
Give it a go on this #antipodean finder and let us know what weird and wonderful places you have found!
