"Joe" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Jun 2, 7:04 am, "barret bonden" wrote:
Flew over Brest, Isles of Scilly, Cork, and on over the Atlantic coming
home
from Spain on Wednesday . Some clouds, but no major weather; the
entrance
to the English Channel looked calm, but from 32,000 feet over the
Atlantic I
could see, every five or ten miles, "small" patches of white water that
endured for between 10 to 20 seconds. I've seen this before from the
air,
but really don't know what to make of them, as I've never done an
Atlantic
crossing in a small boat. I assume these are random breaking waves;and
if I
could see them from more than 5 miles they must be rather large; what
would
happen to a 40 foot boat there ?

Again , the vast majority of the ocean looked calm, and there was no
storm
activity, just these scattered small patches of white water.

Could be shallow spots .

Joe

There are a number of 'shallow' spots out in the Atlantic where underwater
mountains exist but 'shallow' is a relative term and you would be looking at
depths of say 90 metres where the local average would be about 1500 metres.
In really bad weather these might show but in weather where the majority of
the ocean was free of white waves I would be more inclined to attribute
these white patches to local variations in wind velocity