Out of the Doldrums. . .
In the age of sails, crossing the equator was a treacherous thing. You risked the extremes of squalls, thunderstorms and hurricanes or worse, no wind at all. More than one vessel spent days or weeks caught in The Doldrums, languishing in the sweltering heat of the equatorial sun, praying for a breath of wind. “Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge describes the Doldrums thus in
