On March 25th the first Volvo Ocean Race boats passed Nemo's Dot. What is this place and why should it be known?
Where does the name come from?
The furthest point from land is the South Pacific Ocean and is also known as Point Nemo or «Pole of Inaccessibility».
No, it's not named after a striped cartoon fish.
In fact, the point is named after the captain Nemo, a character Jules Vernovsky Book «Twenty thousand lee underwater» - not a cartoon in s«earch of Nemo».
Don't hope to find a souvenir shop there.
You see, Nemo Point is a point in the figurative sense, the land is not observed there - it's just a place in the ocean, away from the nearest land for 2688 km (or 1450 nautical miles).
And even this land is not accessible.
This is Dussy Atoll, the northernmost of the Pitcairn Islands. It is uninhabited and consists of a strip of land in the shape of the letter «C», barely two kilometres in diameter.
Don't forget to look upstairs!
If you pass Nemo Point at the right time of day, you'll be closer to ISS astronauts than anyone on earth. You'll be about 400 km between you.
And again, about the name
From the Latin Nemo is translated as «no man» (or no «one»), which perfectly describes how deserted this part of the world.
Let's go back to the '90s.
In 1992, Croatian-Canadian research engineer Hrvoje Lukatela used a computer program to calculate the Nemo point. He believed that since the land «is three-dimensional», this point should be equidistant from the three nearest coastlines.
Make sure you don't forget the map.
The Nemo Point is located at coordinates 48°52′S 123°23′W. Any firefighter might want to visit.
Source: Volvo Ocean Race
