30 Year Great Lakes ice decline

A study of the Great Lakes shows that ice cover has decreased by 71% in the past 30 years.

1st Boat around the Horn - Volvo Ocean Race

The French boat - Groupama is first around Cape Horn.  Now they can head north to warmer weather.   The American boat Puma, led by New Englander Ken Read, was 10 miles behind them.
Telefonica has rounded the Horn, tucked into the shelter of an island, and set to working on their repairs.
All others struggling with repairs.  Fifth place Abu Dhabi drilled 20 holes in the hull from the outside to bolt into place a reinforcing plate to deal with delamination of the hull  1,500 miles from Cape Horn they're on their own.

Broken boats and bodies as Volvo leaders approach Cape Horn

The leaders are a day from Cape Horn but the carnage is great.

The French  Groupama and the American Puma boats are in the lead after 11 days.

Telefonica is 3rd but will stop at Ushuaia for bow repairs.

Camper is sailing slow and heading to Puertto Montt on Chile's west coast for repairs.

AbuDhabi is sailing slow to assess hull delamination damage

Sanya returned to Auckland for repairs and is a board a ship bound for Savannah for repairs before resuming racing at Miami for the trans-atlantic leg to Lisbon.

Race Tracker - to see them on a map!

Louisiana Oystermen Still Struggling Two Years After Oil Spill | USA | English

Louisiana Oystermen Still Struggling Two Years After Oil Spill | USA | English:
Video HERE


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After the storm - Ventura

Nancy took some beautiful shots today along the beach in Ventura.
 
 

James Cameron Now at Ocean's Deepest Point

Bottoming out.  7 miles below the sea surface in the Mariana Trench  - the deepest place on earth.  Solo.
James Cameron Now at Ocean's Deepest Point:



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30 knots - under sail - in the southern ocean

This is it - downwind in the southern ocean.  30 knots and 7 meter waves.  Five boats heading east.  One, Sanya, limping back to Auckland with a broken rudder and a hole in the back of the boat.

I Still Don’t Believe Mets’ Owners “Knew” - George Vecsey

The great Times sports writer George Vecsey has been around New York baseball for a long time.  He has s somewhat sympathetic view of Messrs. Wilpon and Katz.  I don't know them.  I think they"should have known" that their good buddy Bernie Madoff was a creep: doesn't character show when you see people up close and over a long period of time?  
But I am nonetheless inclined to agree that greed blinded them - the Madoff constant (high) rate of return was rationalized: and they put themselves and their families at enormous risk - and, ultiamtely, great loss. - GWC
I Still Don’t Believe Mets’ Owners “Knew” - George Vecsey: "I think I am old enough to recognize a stricken look.

That is what I have seen on the faces of Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz in the past two years. They are of my generation – although a tad more wealthy – and I think I can tell the look of two people who felt betrayed by a friend. They have seen ruin and even death up close, to people they know.

Now they have settled their case, and perhaps they and the Mets can move on. Or not. But I come to this stage still unconvinced that Wilpon and Katz “knew” Madoff was cheating.

My belief is not based on their including Sandy Koufax in the Madoff web. That’s just one small piece of it.

I have read documents filed by the trustee, listing all the accounts held by Wilpon and his brother-in-law, Katz. The accounts are in the names of Wilpons and Katzes and other people clearly related to these two partners. The next generations, living mostly in favored suburbs of New York. "

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Defend the Magnuson Stevens Act - and our wild fish stocks

From NRDC Switchboard

For the first time in a generation, fish populations are getting healthier – science-based management and rebuilding requirements have led to the recovery of 23 fish species since 2000, according to NOAA Fisheries. This list includes popular fish like New England sea scallop, which comprises the second most valuable commercial fishery in the country, and summer flounder, a favorite for recreational anglers and local seafood markets in the Mid-Atlantic.

And it’s all thanks to the bipartisan, 36-year-old Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the law that’s helped to bring America’s marine fish populations back from the brink of collapse.

That law, however, is under attack right now by fishing lobbying groups that have organized a rally in Washington, D.C. today.  Preserving the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) is the most effective way to keep fishermen fishing by ensuring that enough fish remain in the sea to spawn the next generation. 

In fact, recreational fishing trips have actually increased since the major conservation provisions were added to the law.  In the Mid-Atlantic, for example, the number of recreational angler trips increased by nearly one-third (from 15 million to nearly 20 million trips) from the 1990s, when popular fish species were depleted, to the 2000s, as fish species were recovering to healthy levels.  Most interestingly, while the number of fish permitted to be brought ashore was restricted to allow populations to recover, the overall number of fish caught (including those thrown back) kept increasing along with the growing number of fishermen. 

Peter, Nancy & George near the Russian River

i/a 2007?

Spring break

CLICK images to enlarge

Volvo Race restart: Auckland to Brazil Leg 5

 This is what the lads have to look forward to in Itajai, Brazil.  But it will take 19 days +/- across the south Pacific into the southern ocean then up the coast to Brazil for the six Volvo 70's.
Auckland start video HERE.

Volvo Ocean Race PUMA claim second 24-hour distance award

It sounds like a blast.  A 24-hour run of 527.8 nautical miles has earned Rhode Islander Ken Read’s PUMA team the IWC Schaffhausen Speed Record Challenge award for Leg 4 of the Volvo round the world race.  And it helped them to a 2d place finish on the 5,200 mile, 19 day Sanya, China to Auckland, NZ Leg 4.  But in a Bangor Daily News syndicated piece Read spoke candidly about the price his team paid for their northerly run to high winds and a good sailing angle.  
Pounding for days in close reaching conditions is like living inside a drum as you try to rest in your pipe berth.  And then you get to go topsides to a firehose plane.  Read - 50 years old - has been through hell.  Dismasted in the South Atlantic, loaded aboard a freighter at Tristan DaCunha - the most remote inhabited island on earth  - Read's Puma team is 4th out of six .  How competitive is this race? Approaching Auckland the top three boats were in sight of each other.  A week's rest and then they head for Cape Horn.   I'll keep you posted. - GWC
Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012 | PUMA claim second 24-hour distance award:

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Harmon's Downeast Crabcakes - since 1923

Contains Crab, Wheat, Egg, Soy.  OK, a little mayo, some butter, green onion and mustard, vinegar, salt and Old Bay seasoning, that old reliable bit of zing.  Maine Made.  I can only vouch for the crab cakes.  I've got the clam cakes for Friday night, which is fish night.  Except that every night, most lunches and some breakfasts feature fish when I'm up here in Friendship, knocking about Knox County by myself.  Don't believe me?  Check it out - visit Harmon's HERE

Small Fortune

They're fishermen. They like to fish - offshore, mainly out of Montauk.
Check it out if you like that sort of thing. at Small Fortune:

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Ray - A Life Underwater

a film by Amanda Bluglass
Beautifully written and photographed. A man of extraordinary focus.  Ray, 75, is a diver  who treasures the deep and the ordinary.  And  hopes for gold and a mermaid.
A gem. - GWC
h/t Pescadotes/Joe Warren

Chinese Platform divers practicing -2008

Pescadotes: blue whale*

Pescadotes: blue whale*:
New from Joe Warren


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Orchids - Jon Gelman, letters - O'Keefe and Stieglitz

photo by Jon Gelman

Georgia O'Keefe made this sort of thing popular - with her paintings of vaginal flowers.  Perhaps she missed her partner Alfred Stieglitz with whom she carried on a copious correspondence during the long periods when they were apart.  (NPR reports on Sarah Greenough's volume of   the letters - My Faraway One.) I suspect there's not much literary treasure in all today's email, tweets, and blogging, but the photography is really good now, as Jon Gelman shows us in this set taken at the orchid show. 

Stieglitz and O'Keefe - reunited

Carlo Borlenghi - Vela e velieri

Can't make it to Paris for the opening? Check out the spectacular website of the great Italian sailing photographer.

Chinese vs foreign stars: Who has most beautiful legs? - GlobalTimes

Chinese vs foreign stars: Who has most beautiful legs? - GlobalTimes:
看看！

最漂亮的女儿是哪过的？
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Copps Island Cedar Point Oysters - Long Island Sound

Had a half dozen at Tony's Pier on City Island Avenue; took another half-dozen home - at a buck a piece.  Briny, fresh from the Norwalk Islands on the Connecticut shore.  Get 'em from Norm Bloom & Sons.

Whitbread 1997 - 1998 - retrospective

Lobster 'the size of a small child' caught in Maine - Telegraph

Lobster 'the size of a small child' caught in Maine - Telegraph: "The 40-inch male crustacean, about the size of a three-year-old child, was freed in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, said Elaine Jones, education director for the state's Department of Marine Resources.
"All the weight is in the claws," Ms Jones said. "It would break your arm."
The lobster was caught near the seaside village of Cushing and brought to the Maine State Aquarium in West Boothbay. The state restricts fishermen from keeping lobsters that measure more than 5 inches from the eye to the start of the tail.
Because he became acclimated to the water near the aquarium, the lobster was released in West Boothbay rather than where he was caught.
Scientists are unable to accurately estimate the age of lobsters of this size, said Ms Jones."

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