Degrees of separation

I have talked about this before. Discovering that in Tromso the yard manager’s father had built and owned Norbu (the ship in which I first went to sea in 1966); learning that 3 friends of mine from unrelated corners of my past life were all cruising together this year in Big Jim’s boat; stumbling across “Mischief” in Palma – all these events make me wonder whether I’m not spiralling down in some Coriolis pool, or into a black hole. Either way, I am finding uncanny cross-references everywhere.

Yesterday, on the 2 hour ferry trip across to Morocco, I took my new iPhone for a run to research the origins of the Berber people. To my astonishment I learned that with mitochondrial DNA analysis, anthropological geneticists have discovered that the Berbers of Morocco and the Saami folk of the Arctic tundra are very closely related. I thought of that lovely Saami woman I met in Honningsvag and marvel that here in Africa she has such close genetic links with the ancient Berbers.

How did that happen, I wonder?

Arctic Norway

Morocco