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.

Vos Voyager, an oil rig support vessel, filmed this in the North Sea in 2011.

Back River dip December 27

Air Temp:46 F

Water Temp: 44 F

High Tide: 14:43 EST  10.1'

Sunset 16:07 EST

Breed: Yellow Lab

Age: 9

James J. Muldoon

Volvo Ocean Race Female Sailing Team Hopes to Navigate New Path - NYTimes.com

Captain Samantha Davies

Led by Vendee Globe (solo, non-stop) race veteran Samantha Davies  the all women Team SCA is in Abu Dhabi awaiting the January 3 start of the next leg - to Sanya, China.  They are 6th in the 7 team fleet.  (Vestas Wind, wrecked on a reef in the Indian Ocean has just been plucked from the sea).

In Volvo Ocean Race, Female Sailing Team Hopes to Navigate New Path - NYTimes.com

by Chris Museler

In June 2002, the British sailor Abby Seager stepped off a 60-foot sailboat she had just raced around the world in the Volvo Ocean Race, hoping to have paved the way for professional women’s ocean racing.

Enduring professional sailing teams and events have grown twofold in the decade since that race, but there had not been an all-female team since then until Team SCA signed up for this year’s edition of the Volvo Ocean Race, a 38,789-nautical-mile around-the-world event.

Seager, now Abby Ehler, and her crewmates Carolijn Brouwer and Liz Wardley are the only women on the team who have competed in a Volvo race before, but sponsors and team managers have invested in the goal of creating a competitive women’s team with a long legacy. SCA is only the fifth all-female team to compete in the 40-year history of the event, formerly known as the Whitbread Round the World Race.

Continue reading the main story

RELATED COVERAGE

• 

  Times Documentaries: Video Feature: Two Men Cross the Atlantic, Sailing Together for the First TimeNOV. 21, 2014

“For sure we didn’t come into this expecting to be on the podium,” Ehler said in a recent video call from the boat while sailing north through the Indian Ocean on Leg 2 of the race. “This is a steppingstone. SCA’s commitment is unbelievable. We have been training for almost two years, and our physical conditioning is far better than 14 years ago.”

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Sailing World's Conference Rankings, Fall 2014 | Sailing World

Sailing World's Conference Rankings, Fall 2014 | Sailing World

Full rankings:

Coed Rankings

MAISA

1. Georgetown
2. Fordham
3. Navy
4. Old Dominion
5. St. Mary’s
6. SUNY Maritime
7. Hobart/Wm.Smith
8. George Washington
9. King’s Point

Also receiving votes: U. Penn, Cornell, Hampton, Washington College

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Protected No Longer? Desperate Fisheries Managers Want to Open Closed Areas. – Voices

Carl Safina worries that the federal fisheries will unwisely open groundfishing areas that have been wisely protected.  Dragging damages the sea bottom environment where fish thrive.  - GWC

Protected No Longer? Desperate Fisheries Managers Want to Open Closed Areas. – Voices

By Carl Safina and Elizabeth Brown

By the early 1990’s, decades of heavy fishing had depleted several of New England’s important fish species, including cod, haddock, pollock and flounders (collectively referred to as ‘groundfish’). Fishermen had been catching fish faster than they could reproduce and had degraded fish habitats by dragging nets. To help rebuild New England’s fish populations, managers established several areas where fishing with any gears capable of catching groundfish species were prohibited. These areas were designed to protect both young, immature fish and large breeding adults. Later, in the early 2000’s, several areas both within and outside these closed fishing areas were designated as habitat closures, designed specifically to protect vulnerable habitats from all destructive bottom fishing gears.

Over the last 10-20 years, these protected areas have provided important safe havens for many species and have allowed previously degraded ocean habitats to recover. These protected areas have complex bottom structures and living communities that include kelp, mussel beds, sponges, and more. These areas often contain larger and older fish compared to fished areas. Since larger fish produce many times more eggs than small fish, these large fish are critical to helping populations rebuild1. Protected areas also help create a build-up of fish, which can swim into outside areas, and actually improve fishing there2.

These protected areas have provided many benefits to New England’s groundfish species, including Georges Bank haddock, Acadian redfish, pollock, and white hake–which have all recovered from previously depleted states. They have also benefited other species, like scallops–whose populations are thriving– and many marine mammals.

Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Photo by NOAA.

Unfortunately, despite these positives, New England fisheries remain in trouble. Some groundfish, like Atlantic cod and yellowtail flounder, remain deeply depleted. Recently, scientists estimated that Atlantic cod in the Gulf of Maine is at a mere 3 to 4% of a healthy abundance level. And the Atlantic cod population in Georges Bank is not fairing much better. Rising ocean temperatures are further threatening New England’s fish populations. Record high temperatures in New England have caused fish to retreat to cooler waters, and can affect fish growth, reproduction, and survival3. In recent years, the federal government has had to fork over millions of dollars to help struggling New England fishermen, who have not been able to catch enough fish to make a living.

New England fisheries are now at a critical juncture. There is considerable debate about how to fix New England’s fisheries—And specifically how to manage New England’s ocean habitats, as managers work on updating their habitat plan for the region.

The fishing industry has been pushing fishery managers to reduce the amount of protected areas [the protected areas that have benefited so many New England species and the fishermen too]. Why? Because they want to have more opportunities to catch fish, to reduce some of the economic burdens they face. They have also argued that many of these protected areas are no longer necessary because they were originally put in place to reduce fishing pressure on depleted species, and now fishing pressure is limited through species-specific catch limits.

New England fishery managers are apparently going along with this idea. Their proposed habitat plan that they released in October primarily includes options for reducing habitat protections4. In nearly all sub-regions, the options put forward are to keep the current protected areas as they are OR to replace them with smaller, patchier protected areas. The only sub-region where managers have proposed to add new protected areas is the eastern Gulf of Maine. Overall, New England could lose up to 70% of their protected areas.***

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Whizzbang

Whizzbang

Our friend Kathryn Armstrong is going to be southwest bound - from St. Maarten to New Zealand.  She'll be crew on Whizzbang - a boat she and her Dad Jeff have several times brought down to the Caribbean from Massachusetts with Capt. Peter DeWalt.  A late January departure is planned.



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