The Islanders Read Free Page B

wholly recreational or artistic, but as she travelled more she began making connections that were part inspirational, part delineative and interpretative, part social or anthropological, part mythological. For a while she made recordings of folk narratives and songs, and she kept detailed notes about the various different island patois in use.
    She later wrote a two-volume work called Islands in the Dream: Undercurrents of life in the Archipelagian Neutral Zone , based on her notes and sketches. Although this was intended for an academic audience, a shortened version which followed a few years later became a mainstream title which sold strongly year after year. It permanently established her reputation and provided her with a solid income for the remainder of her life.
    By the time the book was selling well, Muy had moved to the island of Aay. She spent the first twelve months observing, measuring and recording the geophysical nature of the island, as she had in other places. Her discovery about Aay was that its unique position and subsea geography place it directly adjacent to the two main oceanic currents. It is these that create its characteristic microclimate.
    Muy noted that to the north and west of the island flows the warm current known as the N ORTH F AIAND D RIFT , while to the south and east is the cold current called the S OUTHERN O SCILLATING S TREAM .
    These two oceanic currents are both parts of the global ‘conveyor belt’. The Drift gains its warmth from a long circuitous passage through the tropical and subtropical regions of the Midway Sea. After passing the Aayian arc it separates into two channels, the smaller one continuing through the equatorial regions of the Midway Sea, but the larger and slower branch turning northwards and bringing a temperate climate to the southern areas of many countries on the northern continent.
    The two channels are eventually reunited in a deepwater area of the Southern Midway Sea, the remainder of the warmth being released in a zone of intense storms. The current then becomes known as the Southern Oscillating Stream and passes through the icy oceans that surround Sudmaieure, where the salinity is much lower than average due to the amount of fresh water entering the sea from glacier calving.
    Regaining salinity, the Stream moves slowly on towards the far side of the globe. It gradually sinks towards the deep ocean floor, passes far beneath the smaller of the two warm branches, then at last turns through a gyre and heads north towards the shallower stretches of the Archipelagian Midway Sea. It is still significantly cooler than the surrounding waters as it passes close against the Aayian arc of islands. Beyond Aay it turns east to meander through the main concentration of islands, tempering and cooling the more extreme aspects of the tropical latitudes, while starting to regain some heat for itself.
    In this way, the island of Aay is uniquely impacted by two oceanic drifts, to the north and south, one warm, the other cool.
    The currents were of course known to local people before Muy carried out her research – crude depictions of them appear on fishing charts that pre-date her birth by several centuries – but it was she who made the connection between the currents and the variety of winds that vent across the island all year round.
    As well as the mild trade winds, moving in steadily from the north-east and south-east, Aay receives irregular winds from every quarter. Two major winds prevail, each brought in by the energy of the underlying ocean current: a rain-bearing breeze from the warm north-east, watering the land, enriching the forests and filling the lakes and rivers, and a cooler, fresher wind from the south-west, raising high the surf on the northern beaches, ripening the crops, sweeping protective cumulus from the skies and parching the summer streets and resorts.
    When these winds meet, most often at night, violent and spectacular electric storms play around the