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Catatonic

Went sailing on someone else's boat this weekend and had a fine time. When I spoke with the captain of the 45' cat he was disappointed that there were some last minute cancellations. How many will be coming today? Only 21, he replied. OMG. Sure enough there were plenty of folks and plenty of room as she must be 20' wide as well. This couple bought the boat from a guy in the BVI's and then sailed her thru the canal and up the west coast to SF. You can read about some of their adventures in paradise on their blog.

Leonids Tonight

One of my most memorable stargazing nights was in the mountains of Maui in November of 2001 where I saw hundreds of streaks across the sky in a few hours. We had passed thru a cloud of debris that was created by the comet in 1766, according to NASA. These spectacular meteors are created by the sand size particles left over by the comet.

This year's Leonid meteor shower will peak early Tuesday, forecasters say, producing mild but pretty sparks over the United States and a more intense outburst over Asia.

"We're predicting 20 to 30 meteors per hour over the Americas and as many as 200 to 300 per hour over Asia," said Bill Cooke, of NASA's meteoroid environment office. "Our forecast is in good accord with ... work by other astronomers."

The Leonid shower is made of bits of debris from the Tempel-Tuttle comet, which streaks through Earth's inner solar system every 33 years.

It leaves a stream of debris in its wake. Forecasters, however, say it's hard to know exactly how many of the meteors will be visible.

"We can predict when Earth will cross a debris stream with pretty good accuracy," Cooke said. "The intensity of the display is less certain, though, because we don't know how much debris is in each stream."

The first stream will cross over Earth about 4 a.m. ET. That stream should produce about two or three dozen meteors per hour over North America, NASA said.

Prepare To Be Boarded

Are you one of the lucky ones who has been inspected by the Coast Guard? Well it could happen next week. Here is an account of being boarded and what to expect. And if you read the article, you find out that, "There's an app for that". Read the article.

Create a Sailing Card

They say every sailor should have a card to give to fellow sailors and new friends you meet through sailing. It's easy to make on the web and then give out when you are meeting folks along the way. I used this site and just took a pic of the card and printed it on card stock and I am good to go. Do you need a card?

Pipeline Wipeouts

The Pelican Made Me Do It

LA MARQUE, Texas – A man blamed a low-flying pelican and a dropped cell phone for his veering his million-dollar sports car off a road and into a salt marsh near Galveston. The accident happened about 3 p.m. Wednesday on the frontage road of Interstate 45 northbound in La Marque, about 35 miles southeast of Houston.

The Lufkin, Texas, man told of driving his luxury, French-built Bugatti Veyron when the bird distracted him, said La Marque police Lt. Greg Gilchrist. The motorist dropped his cell phone, reached to pick it up and veered off the road and into the salt marsh. The car was half-submerged in the brine about 20 feet from the road when police arrived.

Gilchrist said he doesn't know if the car was salvageable, but in his words, "Salt water isn't good for anything." He says the man, whose identity hasn't been released, was not injured.

A 2006 Bugatti Veyron was recently offered for sale in Jonesboro, Ark., for $1.25 million.

Speeding to New Heights

In 10 knots of wind, she was screaming along at 27 knots. Amazing!

My Favorite Commercial

Senior Moment

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Pics of the Week

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Beginning of the End? NASA Says No!

Great interview with a Nasa scientist about the world ending, meteors slamming earh, Planet X, polar shifts and much more. Read the interviw here.

Not Good

Blown Away

At almost 200 feet tall this rocket just turned into hyperspeed space ship.

Clipper Race MOB

Arthur Bowers is a crewman taking part in all seven stages of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. The incident happened during daylight hours. He was apparently off watch and had the intention of going below into the saloon. He then unclipped his harness before going below.

In unruly seas (and maybe always as a habit), one should clip on before going on deck, using a strong point adjacent to the companionway. When going below, the process should be reversed, ie., go below, then unclip the harness.

At that moment a rogue wave struck the yacht, sending Arthur hurling down the deck, through protective guard wires and into the icy water. He was wearing a life jacket, which inflated on contact with the water, but he was not wearing an immersion suit. Being in the Southern Ocean, this meant that, apart from the difficulty of finding him, there was only a limited time available to retrieve him because of the temperature of the water. At the time that he went overboard, the wind was blowing 25-30 knots, the waves were six to eight metres high. Hull and Humber was sailing with the a Yankee headsail, a stay sail and three reefs in the main. Read more here.

Swell Times with Liz Clark

Liz Clark has been having the adventure of a lifetime aboard her Cal 40 as she circles the globe on a radical surf safari. She has had several setbacks with her boat and had to spend weeks on the hard making repairs and modifications to her boat. But those hard times slip away when she heads to remote surf session with nobody out but her. Catch up with Liz and her adventures in the South Pacific here.

Daring Stories of Women United By The Sea - Movie Trailer

Sunday Sail

It was a great day to be sailing the bay yesterday. I headed out with two old high school friends from the east coast, Dan and Rich. My golden Kona was along with us for the ride. We headed out with a light breeze that completely died around noon. But wait, we could see some ripples on the water ahead. I decided it was time to throw up the kite and see what happens. We rigged her up and off we went at an amazing pace of less than one knot. With the tide flooding we slowly made our way to the city front of San Francisco. Just as the wind began to pick up, (5 knots maybe) we ran out of water and had to tack. We took down the spinnaker and raised the white sails for the ride home. And what a great ride it was! The wind peaked at 10 knots and we were striding across the bay at 6.5 knots. It was almost tropical out there! We had a fab time talking about old friends and just enjoying the vibe of good friends and cold beer! By the way Dan, what was the name of that lovely rum we were sipping?? Another awesome day to be playing on the bay!

Riding Giants - Watch It Now!

Growing up surfing on the east coast gave me a taste of the what surfing is all about. After college in Vegas, I moved to the gorgeous coast side village of Carmel, on the famed Monterey peninsula. The surf in Carmel, Santa Cruz and Big Sur was so much bigger and gnarly than anything I had ever dreamed of. Dropping down a 10 foot wave would take my breath away. The ride that followed was pure magic. I was living the dream in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Those days of chasing waves are etched in my memory banks forever. If you enjoy the water and/or getting on a board and riding the breaks, you will really enjoy one of my favorite surf films called, "Riding Giants". This documentary film by Stacey Peralta, traces the origins of big wave riding in Hawaii all the way to today's tow-in surfing by Laird Hamilton and crew at Teahupoo. My second favorite surf flick is, "Step Into Liquid", followed by the iconic, "Endless Summer". You can watch all three for free at a site I discovered last night. Get a nice comfy spot with your laptop and go full screen with these great films. Cowabunga!

John Lennon: The Sailor

The sail from Newport, R.I., to Hamilton, Bermuda, was an epic voyage for Lennon. On day three, the Megan Jaye ran into rough weather and, one by one, the crew fell ill from pitching seas. Lennon, after 15 minutes at the wheel in his foul-weather gear, began to get his sea legs. He said the feeling was just like going on stage. “At first you panic and then you’re ready to throw up your guts,” Lennon recalled in a Playboy interview after his trip. “But once you got out there and start doing all the stuff, you forget your fears and you got high on your performance.

“So there I was at the wheel with the wind and sea lashing out at me. At first I was terrified, but Captain Hank was at my side so I felt relatively safe because I knew he wouldn’t let me do anything stupid. After a while Captain Hank wasn’t feeling too well so he went to the cabin below.

“Once I accepted the reality of the situation, something greater than me took over and all of a sudden I lost my fear. I actually began to enjoy the experience and I started to shout out old sea shanties in the face of the storm, screaming at the thundering sky.” Lennon also compared the experience to when The Beatles were at their peak, saying he felt “centered” and “in tune with the cosmos.”

Tyler Coneys was a member of the crew, which included his cousins Kevin and Ellen and Captain Hank. Earlier that spring, Lennon, 39 at the time, had purchased a 14-foot sailboat from Coneys Marine in Huntington, N.Y. (“It was a ‘wet-ass’ boat,” says Coneys. “Not the kind you buy when you just start sailing at 40.”)

Coneys says the Atlantic crossing was Lennon’s longtime dream. “When guys turn 40 some buy a sports car or a motorcycle. Well, Lennon wanted this experience. They say life begins at 40. And this is what he wanted.”
Read the whole story here.
Found it on Proper Course.