Back from the Islands

I love Anguilla!  On our 5th Boyz Week, we traveled to the British West Indies and the lovey isle of Anguilla.  I have been to a few islands in my time, but none as amazing as this one.  The people, the unspoiled beauty, and the chill feel, made this one of the top vacations of my life.  We stayed in a beautiful villa (thank-you Frank!) at a resort called Viceroy, overlooking the azure waters. One of the many highlights was attending the annual Anguilla Day celebrations with the island's 14k inhabitants.  There was even a sail race around the 17 mile long island.  We saw the finish and met several crew members. Without fail, I commandeered a fast Hobie and sailed each day in Meads Bay.  Loved that.  If an island trip is in your future, please visit this Caribbean paradise.

Extreme Windsurfing

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!  I am off to the Caribbean for a boyz sailing/villa adventure.  Anguilla here we come.

Great Look Back At Apollo 11 Landing on Moon

Here is a cool look back at the first moon landing with all the audio and video.  Do you remember that famous night in July 1969?  I was hanging out at friends house watching history.  The neat thing about this is you get all the comms between flight control and the lunar module in real time.  Plus some nice video of the moon landing. 
Check it out here.

Pics of the Week

A Whale of a Video

Two SUPers head out the Gate and have a cool encounter with some Cali gray whales just off Ocean Beach.  Way cool.  Just after the 2 min. mark.

Classic Yacht - Rainbow

Beautiful!

Pics of the Week & MOB

Two yachties lose their boat and swim to shore.  Read it here.

Weekend Vids

Heading to the boat for a sail with a couple friends.  We hope to meet up with John and take some pics underway for his website.  Winds to 25 and gorgeous!  Enjoy your weekend and love your mother!

Coming to a Lagoon Near You - Dogzilla

When I watched the races of the 2010 America's Cup from Valencia, Spain, I was amazed at the sheer size of these boats.  The Oracle boat is almost 100' long and 100' wide.  The mast is over 220' high and cannot fit under the Golden Gate Bridge, even at low tide.  When they raced the best out of three, winds were at 6-8k and the boats were flying at over 20 knots!  She has been sitting on moth balls in a SF pier for the last few years.  On Saturday morning, she will fly in on air transport to her resting place in Redwood Shores.  She will sit in the lagoon that fronts Oracle Headquarters on Marine World Parkway.  I hope to see her fly in!

Pics of the Week

A Little Aloha Goes a Long Way

Greeting from Maui.  I am over here on vacation and thought I would help out an acquaintance of mine.  Ronnie Simpson is into torture.  He is currently on a sailing mission from SF to Australia on an engine less Cal 27.  He lost his mast on a routine sail and now is stuck in Lahina.  I am meeting with him today to give him a hand in replacing it with a new mast.  Ronnie has had a shitload of bad luck over the last 5 years and I have reported several of his mishaps on these pages.  In short, he has lost a rudder off San Diego and caught a passing freighter to China.  His float plan was taking him to Hawaii but this was not to be.  Then, in a return after a race to Hawaii, he lost his keel.  And still made it to SF.  Now a mast.  His dream is to sail in the 2018 Volvo Race around the planet.  Non stop on an Open 60.  Wow.  Check out his video below as I am only scratching the surface on the toughness this man owns.

I posted this vid a month ago but it is worth watching again! 



Had an amazing sunset sail on a friends 50 footer last night.  The crew was also delightful.

What's on Your Sailing Bucket List??

Lots of folks dream of sailing the planet, voyaging the Southern Ocean or getting to the islands for an extended time.  Here's my list, what's yours?

Sail to New Zealand and Australia form San Francisco on a 1.5 year voyage on my boat (have not purchased that boat yet)

Charter in the Grenadines

Charter in Croatia/Greece

Sail to Tomales Bay

Continue to sail the Baja Haha for experience and fun (three times so far)

Cruise the California Coast

Sail for an extended time on Banderas Bay, Puerto Vallarta

Sail in the Pacific Northwest and the San Juans

Charter in the BVI's again

Sail in the French Riviera and especially the area of Nice

Transit the Panama Canal

Set sail in Key West and the Dry Tortugas

Sail again in the Sea of Cortez

Sail and have fun safely!

XXL Rides of the Year, Biggest Wave & Worst Wipe Out

Greg Long wins the $50k for Ride of the Year!

Here are the noms for Biggest Wave.



Galtier Garanx blew down a 63 footer to win the award last weekend.



Koa Rothman wins with flare!



Just for fun.  They are using a winch to tow in.

Equity Partnership Available on our Boat

One of our partners is departing and we have an opening on our 1981 Newport 30.  She is a sweet boat!  We have had our partnership going strong for 14 years.  The equity share is $3000 and monthly costs are $100 per month. We are looking for an experienced sailor that can handle winds in the slot of 30+ knots.

The boat is a 1981 Newport 30 III. We purchased her in 2000 with intent of bay sailing. She has proved herself time and time again in the heavy winds of the bay. She sleeps 4, has a roller on the jib, wheel steering, new dodger, new head, and does a great job of keeping us safe. Please contact me and I will be happy to show you the boat. Let me know if you are interested by sending me a note.  fungod at gmail.com

Couple of Great Sails

Headed over to the boat on Friday afternoon for a sail to Oakland and Jack London Square.  Winds were in the high teens and I made it over towards Angel Island.  Headed for the bay bridge and notice a CG boat under the bridge.  As they are dismantling the old bay bridge, this boat is turning folks away so no debris will fall on the boats.  No worries, I will go around him and further east.  Make it down the estuary and find my assigned slip at Jack London Square.  I eat a quick bite and then head down to meet Drew.  We are heading to The Fox to see String Cheese Incident.  What a great venue and show.  Head back in a cab and go right to sleep.

 In the morning, Kona and I are up early as we need to get back to Emeryville to pick up crew.  We head out with the coffee brewing.  By the time we hit the bay, the blueberry pancakes are ready.  It's a beautiful day.  I meet the crew at 11 and we do a quick sail change.  Then we are off and it is a windy day.  We try to get to Angel but the winds are overpowering.  Instead we head to McCovey Cove and the ballgame is on.  We anchor and the Giants stage a comeback win and the crowd is going nuts.  We drop off a few crew in SF and head back with much lighter winds. 

Yesterday I was lucky enough to get out once more for a sunset sail.  Winds were in the teens again and I had a nice sail to the city front in SF and then up towards Angel.  I donot think I have ever seen so much tanker traffic in one day.  It was busy.  But also some great sailing.  A great way to start the week!

Crash & Burn

Tow-in session of January 28th in Nazare, Portugal. / 28.01.2013 from Band-Originale on Vimeo.

From Nazare, Portugal, location of the biggest surfable waves on the planet. 

Looking forward to some sailing this weekend along with some wine tasting in Napa with a local group.  Hope you get out to the waters in your area.

Pics of the Week

My Top 10 Sailing Links

Here is a list of sailing sites I visit every week.  Some are resources and some are blogs but I think you will enjoy them all.

Blogs:

 Sailing Anarchy Racing from around the world.

Lectronic Latitude Cruising and racing from around the world.  If you sign up, it comes right to your in box thrice weekly.

 Download the monthly sail rag as well for great reading.
 Latitude 38

Pressure Drop Racing and cruising news.

Sail Feed Half a dozen awesome sailors writing on one blog about many aspects of sailing.

Blue Planet Times Kimball Livingston is a great writer/sailor with lots to say.

Resources for sailing the bay:

Wind and Tides Just like it says.

Wind speed Current wind speed at all the buoys on the bay.

OCSC Sailing More resources and cams on the bay.  Sign up and get free access.

If you are counting, that was only 9 (the headline sounds better if you put 10).

Sonos to Change Direction of Streaming Music in the Home

Sonos is beta testing some new software that eliminates their hardware and uses Wifi and a smart phone to shoot music throughout your home or business. They have a program that may allow you to become a beta tester if you qualify.  Could be very cool.  Apply here.

Here is a little bit of a look back at my musical journey: (this is what I sent to Sonos)
First, I am a music lover.  I started listening to my parents music as a boy in the early 60's.  Frank Sinatra, Brazil 66, show tunes, etc.  Then my older sisters started listening to The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel and the rock and roll of the 60's.  My life totally changed when FM radio arrived in the early 70's.  I graduated HS in the mid 70's and began my journey into progressive rock. In college, I discovered Emerson, Lake and Palmer, The Grateful Dead, Ambrosia, Yes, Jethro Tull, and many more.  In the 80's I started taking over the turn table at parties.  Hearts of Space has been a big influence on my life as well as all types of jazz and meditative music.  By 1991, I had my first paying DJ gig at a corporate party in Napa.  I have done over 500 gigs and have become an accomplished DJ/MC for corporate events in the Silicon Valley.  As well, I have over 100,000 songs on my hard drive.  Wifi and LTE has allowed me to download from iTunes during my gigs if there is a request I do not have, which is HUGE.  In my house, I have Airplay in all the rooms using Airport Expresses or Apple TV's.  Music is always on during the day and most of the evening.  Drives my wife nuts, but I play stuff she can enjoy too.  Have access to Sirius, Rdio, and Hearts of Space as far as paid subscriptions. My favorite radio program is 10@10 with Dave Morey which is broadcast on KFOG.  Dave has retired and they still play it every weekday at 10am and 10pm.  If you own a digital radio tuner, you can hear it 24/7 and commercial free with Dave at the helm on KFOG-2.

I am a bit of a nostalgic person and these songs bring me back to the day of whatever year they play. Analisa hosts the show now and is a good DJ and she plays some great songs but the original show with Dave as host was the best.  He even grew up in my area of the east coast (DE/PA) and is the same age as me.  We have similar tastes in music and very similar musical influences (back then it was AM and FM radio mostly).

Here is a nice sample of 10@10 from 1975.  10 great songs from one great year.
1. Jigsaw - Sky High
2. Ambrosia - Holdin' on to Yesterday
3. Nils Lofgren - Going Back
   (Tv: Starsky & Hutch)
4. Wings - Venus & Mars/Rock Show
   (News: The Pet Rock)
5. KISS - Rock and Roll All Night
   (News: Elton John)
6. Elton John - Captain Fantastic and
   the Brown Dirt Cowboy
   (Movie: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
7. Willie Nelson - Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
8. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run
   (News: Jimmy Hoffa goes missing)
9. Linda Ronstadt - You're No Good
   (News: Nixon Subpoena)
10. J. Geils Band - Love Itis

Bonehead Move of the Week

We have had several incidents in the last few months with folks not wearing a kill switch on the wrist and the boats getting out of control and hurting people.  These folks were lucky but might not be so lucky next time.  Make sure you have a kill switch attached to your wrist on your inflatable.



Here is a recent report on a tragic accident of a boater without a wrist kill switch on:
According to witnesses, the operator of a large dinghy with powerful engines — assumed to be 30-40 hp — was thrown from his boat while speeding through the La Paz anchorage. Because he was not wearing a kill key lanyard, his dinghy continued to roar around the area at high speed.
Seeing the mishap, La Paz-based cruiser John Spicher of the 31-ft sloop Time Piece reportedly jumped in his dinghy and retrieved the ejected driver from the bay. They were headed to shore when the wayward dinghy glanced off an anchored boat and turned straight for Spicher's boat, running over the top of him. The deadly prop badly mangled his leg and both he and the rescued man were thrown overboard.
As Spicher attempted to climb back aboard he was struck again by the unmanned craft. This time it pinned him beneath it. The two men were rescued by a Mexican captain who administered first aid to Spicher's leg. Although we don't yet have all the details, Spicher was reportedly medevaced to the UC San Diego trauma center that same afternoon.
Needless to say, the whole bloody incident could have been avoided if the dinghy driver had been traveling at a more reasonable speed — and even more importantly, had been wearing a simple plastic kill switch lanyard around his wrist. If you don't have one, get one.

Pics of the Week

Heading up to the boat today to enjoy one of my favorite activities.  We are sailing over to watch the Giants game.  We reserve a slip at the harbor next to the park and have a little tailgate in the slip.  Head to the game and then sail home after.  No traffic, great wind and soooo nice!