Katherine Walker and the Rites of Spring

The 2 buoy, a lighted red tower, flashing 2.5 seconds marks the east side of the channel just above the GW Bridge at  W 181 Street.

If you click on the thumbnail and look carefully below a branch, in a straight line below the bow of the light fuel barge seen here on  a January afternoon with my low res waterproof camera, you' ll see the snow and ice encrusted 2 buoy doing icebreaker duty as the river shoves those floes down river at 3.3 knots (not the 2.0 predicted peak in Eldridge's Pilot Guide)  I know because in the still waters of the Morris Canal my North River 2 does 5.2 kts.  And I have spent many hours making 1.9 kts. northbound against the ebb tide.

  The other two shots are the Katherine Walker (CG buoy tender) setting the newly painted replacement buoy, and backing away using both bow and stern thrusters. 

Volvo: Drag Race Mid-way to the Cape

14 days out of Qingdao the fleet is 20 South 179 West. They just split tacks passing Fiji and are about 400 miles above the north Island of New Zealand. They are cruising at 14 knots, at magnetic headings between 179 - 185 to the real wind in the 40's where they'll catch the westerlies and head east to Cape Horn at 54 South.

Only 46 nm separates Ericsson 4 in the lead from Green Dragon in 5th, with the leader 8,105 nm from Rio.

No crises, no broken boats, just great sailing at highway speed.

Here's the 2D map

And an aerial shot of Puma passing Fiji - with the lead.

Bowsprite: Sketches and Accents on Marine Channel 13

Bowsprite paints water colors and listens and watches the traffic in New York Harbor.  As the pictures here show and the dialog below demonstates, she has a good eye and ear.  The pictures are the John J. Harvey (heroes of 9/11/2001), the W.O.Decker (So. St. Seaport historic tug), and the Bremerhavn (container ship).  So check out Bowsprite - a New York harbor sketchbook

(Indian accent, proper and polite): “British Lines, to the Dela rosa…British Lines, Dela Rosa.“
(American accent): “Dela Rosa.”
(Indian accent): “Uh, what are your intentions, sir? are you angry?”
(American): “Yes, we’re anchoring.”
(Indian accent): “Oh, well, could you please give us some room?”
(American): “Will do.”
(Indian): “Thank you, sir…”

Beautiful accents…”dulcet” is how Towmasters describes the lyrical southern and cajun accents.

It’s not just voices one hears. One midnight, a captain announced his plans to go to sea. In the background was a quick whiff of Jimi Hendrix.

Another time, some poor captain shared his wheelhouse with some very noisy machinery, so that whenever he spoke on the radio, he seemed to be accompanied by a bagpipe quartet.

Breaking ice up river

Meanwhile, back on the Hudson river, up north there's plenty of ice.

Here are 12 Bridge's shots, taken from the tug Cornell on icebreaking and other duties.

Tugster - NY Harbor man

The Sixth Borough is the harbor, says the blogger who calls himself Tugster. 

I have taken a lot of pictures of tugs and barges - from North River 2 mostly -  but  Tugster has made it an avocation.  

Based in Staten Island he is well situated for his observations.  His interest reminds me of the days when the Times daily showed scheduled sailings and arrivals of steamships, and described their cargo.

The bridge is the Bayonne Bridge,and the Coast Guard ship is the buoy tender Ida Lewis.

The first and last of these shots are mine, the others are Tugster's.  I expect to come back to his site.  It's got lots of good shots - like the salt depot, barges, and cranes that I'll probably do as a post.

So check out TUGSTER

1000 Days - day 658 knockdown - audio

Reid Stowe really is an original.  Behind his airy ruminations is one hell of a sailor and worker.  One could hope that after rounding Cape Horn - in a nightmarish gale - easy street would be right around the corner.  Hope yes. But little ease so far.

Here's the audio discussing his day 658 South Atlantic Knockdown

The picture shows he survived another close call.Here's the homepage for his current ruminations.

Volvo:Qingdao to Rio 6 days out, 30 to go

The fleet (5 of 8 remain) is a few hundred miles north of the Coral Sea angling toward Cape Horn, with an average speed of 16 - 19 knots with 2o knots of wind and six foot swells. Highway speed. Next stop Rio. DTF 9,842 nm for Ericsson 4, the leader.

Here's the data page

And here's the home page.

Vendee: Samantha finishes, Rich struggles

Samantha Davies finished in 95 days (11 after Michel Desjoyeaux).  

The other female sailor - Dee Caffari - finished on February 16 - 99 days round the world, single-handed.

On February 20, day 103, Rich  Wilson has about2,300 miles to go, and is looking at bad weather and relentless pounding into headwinds without end.

Here's the coverage of Samantha's celebration.

Here's the current wrap up.

Monhegan

Monhegan is a magic island.

N.C. Wyeth, Rockwell Kent,and  James Wyeth each made his mark painting it. Monhegan is like a jazz standard.  If you play sax you have to try Body & Soul. 

Landscape painters and photographers have to try Monhegan.  (My day will come.)

Taisy's graduation gift (self-selected) when she finished at Bates was a David Vickery (Cushing, ME) painting of an afternoon summer storm at nearly the same spot and same light as the shot here from Doris Madsen's Flickr set.

She and her husband own a Monhegan skiff built built at Carpenters Boatshop in Pemaquid where I just bought a skiff of the same design.  More on that later.

Above are my favorites from her set and below is the embedded link to her Monhegan set on Flickr

Friendship, Stones Point, Rockland, and Thomaston - Valentine's Day 2009

We went up to Maine for the weekend - to check the work done on the house, buy stuff for when we take posession in May, have dinner with friends.  And, of course, shop for a seaworthy craft for man and dog to explore the Back River, Meduncook River and the other waters of Friendship and Cushing.  Found a Monhegan skiff.  Hope to clinch the deal soon.

So here are some favorite shots - our backyard - the Back River, Stones Point, Rockland, and ice fishing houses on the St. George, Thomaston.

The whole stream is at my picasaweb page.