Reply #51: The Middle of Nowhere is...

[Hissyspit]

Nemo means nowhere ... so if you are at Point Nemo you will be in the middle of Nowhere. (Funny, I could have sworn it was in South Carolina...)

Q) What place on earth is the farthest from land? — Mike McNeilly, Portsmouth, NH

A) Like many escapists before you, the locale you seek is Point Nemo, a watery coordinate in the South Pacific so dubbed by Hrvoje Lukatela, of the Calgary, Alberta, software company Geodyssey Limited. To pinpoint Nemo (named for the headstrong captain in Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), Lukatela input some ten million map points into the company's Hipparchus program and "found the one whose distance to the closest point on land is the maximum." That spot turns out to be 48"52'32" south, 123"23'33" west—or exactly 1,670 miles from each of three landfalls: Maher Island, off the coast of Antarctica; Ducie Island, 325 miles east of Pitcairn Island; and Motu Nui, right next door to Chile's Easter Island.