November 4th, 2016

Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children

Number 90

The Bermuda Triangle

 

 Hello Everyone

Last week, l was telling you about legendary animals of the sea that some people said existed.

 

This week, l’m going to tell you about a very mysterious place. lt is called the Bermuda Triangle.

 

The island of Bermuda is a dormant (sleeping) volcano in the Caribbean that can be hit by Atlantic storms moving southwards.

 

The Triangle is within three imaginary lines that run between Bermuda, Miami (on the Floridian mainland) and the island of Puerto Rico, also in the Caribbean. lt covers about 4,000 square miles.

 

The Bahamas, and a lot of other islands in that sea, are positioned within the Triangle. This area holds more mysteries than any other place on Earth. Thousands of people have disappeared there over the years. Some people say that over that over 5,000 people have vanished altogether. Some people say that the number is just over 1,000.

 

There are so many strange stories about happenings within this triangle that scientists are baffled and they can’t quite agree on what is going on in this extraordinary place. The only thing they agree on is that the ocean probably plays an important part in the mystery.

 

The stories relate to mysterious disappearances of ships and aeroplanes. There have been many reports of people calling to shore on their radio saying that they were confused and didn’t know where they were anymore – and then they were never seen again. This could happen even when the weather was calm.

 

The legend really started in 1918 after the disappearance of the ship called USS Cyclops when 309 people were lost.

 

Once, a squadron of 5 US naval aircraft disappeared together on a training mission. lt is now known as the disappearance of Flight 19 and is one of the most famous stories about the Bermuda Triangle. lt happened on 5^th December 1945 in good flying weather.

 

People began to talk about supernatural influences at work – or maybe magnetic fields in mysterious electrical fogs that come out of nowhere and affect navigational instruments which cause pilots and sea captains to get lost – or maybe even alien abduction was at play!

 

ln this area there are fluke waves that appear from nowhere. They are 10 times the size of the waves around them. These are called rogue waves and can hit a ship with a huge force. This could explain why some ships disappeared without even sending out a distress call.

 

There are also hurricane force winds that come out of nowhere too – even on a day with blue skies.  They are called white squalls and will hit you without warning.

 

Some pilots have even talked about flying through weird spiralling clouds that created time warps. A time warp is when time changes speed.

 

The seas in this region can be very deep. One trench is five miles down! lt is the deepest place in the Atlantic. lt is difficult to find sunken ships in this area.

 

There are also strong currents that come up from the Gulf of Mexico and into the Atlantic. This is called The Gulf Stream and it reaches up as far as Britain. Very often when ship wrecks are found they are nowhere near where the ship first went down. This all adds to the mystery. Had the currents moved the ships to a different place after they sank?

 

Other people say that the reports have been exaggerated and it is just an area that is prone to tropical storms that come from nowhere and catch people unawares and before they can get safely back to port.

 

There are many riddles still to solve. Scientists believe that there are many strange and powerful natural forces at work in this area. Enormous currents and waves, underwater volcanic activity, magnetic storms and fog and maybe even space warps are all phenomena that they continue to study as they try to understand more about our world.

 

But most people that visit this beautiful part of the world have never had any trouble, and it is a fact that insurance companies don’t charge more for travelling there either!

 

The Bermuda Triangle – fact or fiction? You decide!

 

 

Bye bye everyone – don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!

 

Love and kisses

 

 

Salty Sam

www.christina-sinclair.com

 

 

 

Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week

 

Bob: Hey Bill, l went to the library to borrow some books so l could read more about the Bermuda Triangle.

 

Bill: Really? Which ones did you get?

 

Bob: l got…

 

The Worst Journey in the World by Helen Back

Terrible Nightmare by Gladys Over

and

Terror Stories by R.U. Scared

 

Bill: Do you really think it is a good idea to read those just before you go to bed Bob? 

 

 

Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.

Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com

 

Picture Gallery

 

Bermuda is the top of a volcano reaching up from the seabed

 

 Bermuda from the air

 

 The Bermuda Triangle is in the south west corner of the Atlantic

The Bahamas and Puerto Rico are in the Caribbean

 

 The Gulf of Mexico is where the Gulf Stream comes from

It travels through the Caribbean and up through the Atlantic to the west coast of Britain

 

 Flight 19

 

 Mysterious fogs appear from nowhere

 

 A rogue wave

 

 The sea is extremely deep in places: wrecks can disappear into these trenches and the sea currents are strong; they can move vessels that have lost engine power quite a long way

 

 But most people have a wonderful time in the Caribbean

 

 

      THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK

 

The project for you to make this week is a file to keep secret papers and diaries in.

Bill and Bob thought that they might start writing a diary because they thought it would be interesting to read when they were older and found it in the back of a cupboard.

There are many famous diaries that have given us insight into life as it was in certain periods of history.

You may have heard of Samuel Pepys and Anne Frank?

 

 

Well, Bill and Bob certainly have very busy lives; which means lots to write about in a diary.

One night they go to Beavers, one to swimming club and one to the library to choose some new reading books for the week.

They like playing football in the park and riding on their bicycles as well.

They have lots of hobbies.

They help with ideas for my blog.

They love going on adventures with their favourite uncle at weekends and in the holidays.

Then of course Miss Pringle gives them some homework to do as well.

 
They try to do their homework themselves without any help. As they said to their dad – if he gets it wrong, they will be the ones in trouble!

In the end, they decided that they were so busy having an interesting life they didn’t have time to keep a diary!

 

 

 

 

 
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Hobby Time

 

Did you have a good Halloween? Did you dress up for it – maybe as a witch?

 

So now you might be interested in this…   This is how you can make magic potions.

 
One of the important things that magic potions do is improve someone’s health. This is how you can make your own magic potions.

 
(Remember that you should always use magic for good purposes!)

 
You will need a selection of fruit juices and ideally a selection of soft fruit as well – if you use fruit you will need some kind of blender which you will need to ask permission to use.

 
lf you are using fruit pieces, you will need to discard any stones or pips and peel or skin that you would not usually eat – liquidize only the flesh of the fruit.

 
So the way you blend your juices and fruit pieces is up to you.

 
When you experiment you will create different colours and tastes – if you create a magic potion that you particularly like, make a note of the ingredients you used in a notebook you can label ‘Book of Spells’.

 

 

And here are the magic potions that Bill and Bob have created. They used their mum’s cold press juicer to make them.

They promised you the recipes in Blog Post 85.

All the recipes make two small glasses, so if you want to make more juice, you can just double up the ingredients.

 

ROCKY BAY SUNSET

 

Juice a large can of pineapple chunks

Then juice a small punnet of strawberries so that the red juice sits on top of the yellow

 

LlQUlD GOLD

 

Juice the following ingredients:

 

250g frozen mango chunks (leave to defrost before you juice them)

Three oranges (with their skins removed) cut into chunks

 

POND WATER

 

Juice a large tin of pineapple chunks

Then add the seeds and flesh of three passion fruits into the juice

 

BOG WATER

 

Juice the following ingredients:

 

A large handful of spinach

A large tin of pineapple chunks

Three soft, ripe kiwi fruits (you don’t have to take the skins off)

 

TADPOLE SLlME

 

Juice the following ingredients and then add a teaspoon of honey to the juice:

 

Four oranges (with their skins removed) cut into chunks

Two soft, ripe kiwi fruits (you don’t have to take the skins off)

 

DRACULA’S DELlGHT

 

Juice the following ingredients:

 

250g frozen pitted cherries (defrosted)

250g raspberries (fresh or frozen ones that have been defrosted)

Three apples cut into chunks

 

And now a note about spirulina; if you don’t know what this is, l will tell you.

 
Spirulina is a kind of algae that is cultivated especially for humans to eat in fresh water ponds. lt is very nutritional and contains a lot of protein that vegetarians and vegans can eat.

People buy it from health food shops as a dry powder to add to juices.

But it has a strong taste that some people may not like. lf you are one of those children that don’t like the taste of it, you can hide the taste in a strong drink like chocolate or coffee milk shake. lt will change the colour of it to a lovely, yucky, dark greeny-brown but the taste won’t spoil the milkshake. You only need to use a small amount; maybe less than a teaspoon.

 
By the way please don’t try drinking real pond water!

*And if any of your friends are allergic to things like strawberries, then don’t put strawberries in their drink.

 

 Are you getting enough fruit?

 

 
BLOW MY FOGHORN!!! 

 

 
PLUS

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lt’s the Weekend!

 
HOW TO MAKE A SECRET BERMUDA TRlANGLE FlLE

 
This is a file to keep your secret notebooks and diaries in!

This file is made out of one sheet of plastic canvas 26.7cm/10.5inches x 34.3cm/13.5 inches. If you want to make a bigger one for sheets of paper or bigger books, you will need to buy more sheets of plastic canvas and then make one what ever size you want it to be.

This file is covered in bright, tropical colours but you can use any colours that you like. It matches the desk set Blog Post 43.

You could use just two colours or many colours; they could match your bedroom colour scheme or you could match a kitchen colour scheme so that the file can be used to store scraps of paper that can be used for shopping lists.

 

 

Measure your shapes before you start cutting. Run small pieces or yarn along the cutting lines so that you can plan everything out before you start cutting.

Smaller pieces are more comfortable to hold in your hands as you stitch.

There is very little wastage but keep the discarded corner to make something else later. The tiny strips can be used to make fences on a model railway.

The model makers’ maxim is ‘never throw anything away’!

 

SIDES = 57 holes by 38 holes

BASE = 57 holes by 11 holes

ENDS = 38 holes by 11 holes

 

Click on the link for a PDF cutting pattern

 

90. Secret Bermuda Triangle File

 

Trim the panel edges so that they are smooth.

 
Use these pieces as templates to measure out your lining. The pieces of lining should be 7-10mm/⅜-½ inch larger all the way around to give you a seam allowance. 

1. Working from the bottom edge of your canvas pieces (sides and ends) each time, work a pattern of 7 diagonal stitches in your base colour (white) from top left to bottom right over a square of 5 holes (9 squares down and 14 squares across on sides and 9 squares down and 2 across on ends) leaving no gaps
2. Working in the opposite direction, cover the bottom right corner with 4 stitches using the top colours (orange, green and yellow)
3. Run a line of diagonal stitches in the base colour (white) along the tops of the sides and tops and sides of end pieces.
4. Cover the base of the file with base colour squares and add the top colours how you would like them to be. Work a line of diagonal stitches along the long sides of the base.

 
Using over-sewing stitches sew the canvas pieces together in the following sequence:

1. Bottom of sides and bottom of ends to base
2. Sides to ends (up along the corners)

Finally, sew all the way around the top edge of the file using over-sew stitches and white yarn.

 
Poke two ends of a length of ribbon (1 metre) through two holes at the top of one side. Then repeat the process on the other side. Knot the ends to secure.

 
Sew the lining up as follows:

1. Long sides of base to bottoms of sides.
2. Bottom of ends to ends of base.
3. Sew sides to ends sewing up from the bottoms of the sides each time.
4. Turn the tops under to neaten and sew along the top of the lining to the top of the file to secure in place hiding the knots in the ribbon as you go.

The right sides of the fabric should be on the inside of the fabric box that you are making.

 

 

 

 

 

Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.

It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.

Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.

©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015

 

 

 

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