Moai |Easter Island // Issuma

Moai | Issuma:

Issuma is at Rapa Nui - Better known as Easter Island 27 08'S:109 19'W, Rano Raraku, Rapa Nui, a Chilean possession, 2,0003 nm wsw from Santiago.  How far to other cities?  Far.

There's no harbor and just getting ashore is pretty dicey.









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Cirrus SR 22 - plane parachutes to safety at sea

In this VIDEO you see Cirrus SR-22 airplane , which has its own parachute. Not for the pilot. for the plane. Due to a valve malfunction the pilot had to ditch 250 miles from Maui. Via the Coast Guard he put the plane down - in big seas - near a cruise ship which fetched him out after the plane ditched safely but quickly overturned! h/t James Fallows - who owns one!

Mom & Dad - Maine - Summer 2009

Happy - in Shenzhen, China

This is where your iPhone came from - Shenzhen the huge manufacturing port city near HongKong.

Cutting transom angles - Glen L.com

Cutting Transom Angles | Boatbuilders Site on Glen-L.com: "Figuring out how to cut the angle on a transom can be a little challenging. Joshua Burks is currently building our Zip which is a 14′ runabout that has a 12 degree angle on the transom as do many of our designs. Joshua is documenting his build with video. He’s done a really good job at walking us through his build and explaining what he does. You can see all his videos on his You Tube Chanel. The second video pertains to today’s article about cutting the transom angles. One of the considerations is how much material to add to the transom to allow for the angle. We have explained how this is done in a formula and photo below, but for those of you who are visual, Joshua’s video is excellent and really shows how much more simple it is than you might think. I hope you enjoy the video:

Tommy Caldwell Climbing Pitch 15 - the Dawn Wall, El Capitan

This is the toughest stretch of the climb.  Kevin Jorgeson made 10 attempts before traversing it.  Caldwell did it on his first.

Van Morrison and Them: I can only give you everything I got

Van had been listening to the Stones.  He was 19 years old.  His group was called Them.

Easter Island! - Downwind! | Issuma

Easter Island 27.1167° S, 109.3667° W

Downwind! | Issuma:

by Richard Hudson

After four weeks of sailing closehauled (all but one day on port tack), the wind shifted north, and we had a beautiful tailwind. If you look closely under the spinnaker (colorful sail), you can see Rapa Nui (also known as Easter Island and Isla de Pascua).

We did not have time to anchor at Rapa Nui before dark, so we spent a leisurely night sailing slowly under the stars, with little sail set, to time our arrival for dawn.

On this leg of the trip, we went farther west than the direct route from Mexico to Rapa Nui because the weatherfaxes showed a lot of light headwinds north of the equator on the direct route. That probably helped avoid motoring (I like sailing, not motoring), as we motored about 75 miles out of about 3100 miles logged. It also made for a somewhat longer (~400 miles) distance and therefore longer time at sea.

How is Rapa Nui? More later.'via Blog this'

Green-Energy Inspiration Off the Coast of Denmark - NYTimes.com

Green-Energy Inspiration Off the Coast of Denmark - NYTimes.com

by Dawn Cardwell



Before dawn one morning in October, a handful of Americans gathered at a lonely pier on Samso, a small Danish island about four hours from Copenhagen. Bundled in layers of fleece and wool, the Americans, mostly from islands off the Maine coast, had come to get a closer look at a wind farm — 10 mighty turbines spinning in the Kattegat strait — that has helped make Samso a symbol for a greener future, one powered entirely by renewable energy.

Monhegan Island- Rockwell Kent

Among them was Marian Chioffi, the bookkeeper at the electric company in Monhegan, Me., whose population of about 60 swells to include hundreds of residents and thousands of tourists in the summer. They — along with generations of artists like Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent and Jamie Wyeth — have been drawn by the island’s lost-in-time charm and picturesque setting in the Gulf of Maine.

Monhegan faces challenges as stark as its beauty. Foremost among them — and the spur for the journey to Denmark — is dependence on expensive, dirty fuels for heating and electricity. Even with the recent fall in oil prices, Monhegan residents pay among the highest power rates in the nation — almost six times the national average — and the electric company, locally owned and operated, struggles to keep the lights on.

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El Capitan climber: ‘Just a matter of time’ | The Press Democrat

Kevin Jorgeson on pitch 15 which nearly defeated him

El Capitan climber: ‘Just a matter of time’ | The Press Democrat: "Kevin Jorgeson finally caught up to his climbing partner, Tommy Caldwell, on the face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Now both are ready to resume the climb of their lives.

While Caldwell spent Monday resting and supporting his friend’s efforts, Jorgeson setting about completing pitches 18, 19 and 20 of the never-before-climbed Dawn Wall route. It was a little after 9 p.m. when word finally came: Jorgeson had successfully made up the ground."



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Sickening - North Sea batters floating oil rig

Morning of Misery | Issuma

a better day - January 5

Morning of Misery | Issuma: 

Location:Sun Jan 11 12:45:00 EST 2015,  25 44'S:110 37'W

[If you wanna know where Richard and crew are, it is bloody nowhere. Santiago Chile (26 S, 64 W) is about 2,500 miles east, I estimate. Their current course seems to be SSE.  Speed 5 kts.



by Capt. Richard Hudson

"Just in case you thought it's all fine food and sunny sailing on an ocean voyage, let me tell you about a particularly miserable morning, that ended up with me grumppy and drying my sea soaked clothes...

I was up for the pre-dawn watch after a short and very poor sleep. 

Sailing close on the wind in high seas the ship sometimes moved violently, and we were constantly well heeled over. Imagine your bed against the wall, and then the whole room lifting and tilting so much that you were actually sleeping on, and sometimes pounded against, the wall! In all that I was cold and aching, having used my jacket as a pillow for extra support at the weird angle. 

Getting up to seek a blanket in the dark and bouncing boat seemed even more uncomfortable at the time. I was so sore, cold and tired.

Once on deck I found the cockpit wet with spray and the wind fitful. It's speed and direction wavered, and getting tossed around on the waves made it even more difficult to manage. Carry sail and white knuckle through the gusts? Shorten sail and become more susceptible to the seas? 

I didn't have much time to think on it before the conditions briefly caught us head to wind, then a thunderous slap, and all the sails were aback! (A sudden change in direction put the wind on the wrong side of the boat for the way the sails were set.) Quickly and desperately I tried the tiller over hard hoping a wave would help knock us back on heading, but no such luck. I had a lot of work to strike some sail, gybe to change direction, and set the sails again in the tossing seas! I was so frustrated and fatigued.

Finally back on course, I contemplated if the conditions would hold long enough for me to dash below and start the kettle for a comforting cup of tea. Stepping to the high side to better check, in the dark I heard that roaring whoosh-slap-splatter of a great wave crashing into the cockpit! I only had time to turn my back before me and everything around me was soaked, making me even colder. 

The force of the wave was great enough to knock coils of line apart and across the ship. I was dripping wet in a heaving mess! I had a good jacket on, but I had such a good dousing that water ran inside the jacket and down my back and arms, and soaked my legs. With the salt water, these clothes would remain sticky and never fully dry. I straightened the deck while I dripped off a bit, then used that dash below to change the worst of the soaked garments. I was so cold and wet."



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Psychedelic Harbor - Bowsprite

Bowsprite - Psychedelic Harbor

One anchorage is larger
And one anchorage is small
And the yellow buoys of Bay Ridge
Don’t do anything at all

And you just had some kind of tug food
And your mind is moving slow
Go ask the Statue
I think she’ll know

And the AK bridge lady is talking backwards
And VTS said to go ahead
Remember what the HarborMaster said

Clean your head
Clean your head

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First ice floes on the Hudson

Southbound

The View from 1200 feet up on El Capitan

The view from Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson's base camp 1200 feet above the floor of Yosemite Valley on the face of El Capitan.

Cold snap - 6 F

Taisy's bookcase

60" x 31 1/2" x 11 1/4".  #1 Pine backed by 1/4" birch veneer plywood. 

Pocket hole joints.

Penefin stain 

Add caption

Kevin Jorgensen and Tom Caldwell - climbers

Photos +Corey Rich 

Scaling El Capitan in free climb mode

Post by Tommy Caldwell.

Peace Corps Preserve Trail - Goose River

As a Returned Volunteer (one can't claim to be a veteran ) I was delighted to find that the new hiking trail near our house in Maine is the Peace Corps Preserve Trail. It runs along the Goose River which is the town line between Waldoboro and Friendship  It pours into the Medomak River at Delaney Cove. It was near the Goose River that Wilbur Morse first called a Muscongus Bay style sloop a "Friendship".
We hiked a mile or so as the temperature dropped (it was 24 F when we entered).  A few hours later it is 7 F and headed down. At least we're not in Montreal-25 F expected.

Sharp's Point and Rockland Marine

a gig at the Steam, Sail, Power Museum - Rockland

YP-1288- a Navy freight barge, in for repairs 

a trawler in for repairs at Rockland Marine

Turning cold.