Spring Sale

Spring sale at the Friendship Trap Company

Strange beauty

Gulf oil spill at sunset.

Image: NY Times - Richard perry

Everest - Camp 3 - 24,000 feet - 7 Summits for CAF

Paul, Denise & Co. are resting and re-oxgenating at Camp 2 21, 500, after return from Camp 3 - 24,000 - a successful climb of the Lhotse face.  The Sherpas have already delivered 48 canisters of oxygen to Camp 4, where they will be used for the summit assault.


Paul says 
"We're back at C2 after a long and difficult assault of the Lhotse Face yesterday! We reached our goal of getting to Camp 3 at 24,000 feet, which also marks the highest altitude we have ever climbed, surpassing the reach of all of the other Seven Summits including Mt. Aconcagua in the Andes. All of us would quickly agree that climbing such steep terrain at this level, or trying to do much of anything (without supplemental oxygen as we were doing) is agonizingly HARD! We did manage to snap this quick photo as we collapsed (with our jumars still attached to the fixed lines) just before reaching the tents at C3. Just beyond us in the photo is the "Yellow Band" and the "Geneva Spur" which we will be required to cross en route to C4 and the South Col."
Paul's  full report is here

Mother's Day Love Seat

Step 1: Concept

Step 2 - materials 

Step 3 - Awaiting the Day

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Shanghai Expo Fireworks Finale

They are psyched about the Shanghai World Expo in China.  Why, I don't know.  They're boring these world's fairs.  But the Chinese invented gun powder, you will recall.  And they love fireworks.  So here is the finale of the opening fireworks display last night.

Red's Eats

The late Times reporter and epicure R.W. Apple helped make it famous.  We stop across the way at Sproul's on the waterfront deck - where I am partial to the baked haddock sandwich - and the line is shorter.  Of course it's red's that's on the Boston Globe's map of best clam shacks HERE.  Their capsule review follows:


Red's Eats, Wicasset, Maine

Situated in an old-school trailer, this Wicasset shack is a Route 1 landmark famous for its lobster rolls which they maintain is created with an entire one-pound lobster. Best of all, Red's lobster roll isn't slathered with mayonaise (though you can get it on the side, along with melted butter), allowing diners to enjoy the true taste of Maine lobster. Generally regarded as the state's best roll of its kind.

Main St., Wiscasset, Maine

At base camp: Mt. Everest 珠穆朗玛峰

珠穆朗玛峰 - Zhumulangma Feng - Pearl Peak to the Chinese.  Mount Everest to us.


Paul and Denise Fejtek are heading for the summit - their fifth - as part of the Challenged Athletes Foundation (Paul himself has limited use of one arm).  the plan is Seven Summits - the highest on each continent (Antarctica is next).  Here  is a shot from base camp.  Their site - Seven Summits for CAF is HERE (and on the blog list at the right)

Greenland Char

Greenland Char by Pescadotes

I have dreamed of  Greenland ever since my late dear friend Louise Halper gave me a copy of Rockwell Kent's N by E, his story of sailing to to Greenland. Their boat dragged anchor in a storm and was wrecked.  That gave him the opportunity to stay until his shipmates could return the next summer with the materials needed to repair the boat.  Of course he did some fabulous painting, and he shacked up with an Inuit woman named Salamina who he celebrated and painted in a book of the same name. 


Images: Pescadotes, Rockwell Kent, Rockwell Kent, and  Chop plate, 11". Salamina design by Rockwell Kent and manufactured by Vernon Kilns. 

Issuma: Northbound

Issuma's current position.  Richard has been at sea since about April 10 when he departed Cajalba, Brazil where they build these great boats from wood.

Ahab of the tramp tugboats

Burkhard Bilger has a great profile of Latham Smith, pater familias of a tugboat family.  He's a Shakespearean sort - lives large in a small world.  If you want to tow a dredge up the Congo River where you'll find the spirit of Joseph Conrad he's your man.  If you  want to bring a bargeload of anything to any unlikley place call Latham Smith first - if his rival and son Dominque hasn't gotten there first to take the load.

You've gotta pay for it at  The New Yorker (April 19, 2010) unless you already have a subscription.  And don't all wives who live in Manhattan or who went to Barnard have one?  Borrow hers.  There is at least one freebie: a video of Allen Ginsberg aboard Ellsbeth - the first of the tugs Latham designed and built and named after his ex-wife the mother of his five kids.


It's a great read in the John McPhee genre - and of course Bilger does get a memorable ride on a tugboat.