Glowing Goodness

Ready for painting - Noe's, Marlon's and La's in descending order.

Fun Saturday

Got a lot done today -

I paddled from Pass Christian to Gulfport (6.1 nm) - from the wind forecast, this was supposed to be a downwinder. La and the kids dropped me off and as I saw them driving away, I felt the wind pickup from the SE (not the SW as forecasted).

Needless to say, the paddle I was hoping to do in 1 hour took 1.75 -

Anyways - made land fall and played with the kids while La took the board out.

Caught some more baby fish and another blue crab (not quite soft shell, but not fully hardened up yet). I'm getting good at catching those guys.

We went home and took a massive nap! Awesome!

The Slip to Ship regatta took place today. I'm kind of glad I sat this one out - lighter winds for most of the day would have meant slow racing - not my cup of tea. Plus the longer catamarans with more sail area would have spanked me - one of the benefits I have learned about the Weta (and trimarans in general) is that they will handle stronger winds better than cats, but they are slower in lighter winds.

I also finished fine sanding La's SUP. I'll start painting the blanks tomorrow.

Nice day!

La's "Inside the Van" SUP rough shaped

A little more off the top nose and some more fine sanding all over and this one is done!

Painting and glassing are next...

There is definitely no shortage of heat for laying up the epoxy...

Jellyfish vs Hermit Crab

Marlon's new thing is to ask "Between animal X and animal y, which will win?"

I think the hermit crab will win here. Unless it's molting, then it would be susceptible to the nematocysts of the jelly.

Sunny and HOT

Went family paddling yesterday morning before the heat came on too bad.

After the group paddling session, the kids and I went fish hunting with nets - we caught all kinds of things - baby mullet (I believe thats what they were), some kind of frumpy fish (baby goosefish?), a small blue crab that was regrowing a lost pincher, and some awesome tans!

The oil hasn't gotten into the sound yet and from the last reports I've heard, it is still about 75 miles south of Gulfport. So our aquatic outings will still happen - more to follow...

Oh, and if you find yourself down here doing what we do, don't forget to wear a hat that has a top, unlike the visor I was wearing. Sunburns on the top of your head are highly likely. Ouch, and very awkward to deal with.

Battle of the Paddle Hawaiian Edition

For all you locals - lucky you live Hawaii!!!

Another Regatta Saturday...

Came in third.

We got 9.7 kts out of the wind today (11.5 kts from the NDBC site).

What's up with that????!!!!!!*(*^&*%$&^

Although number 2 cheated by throwing up a spinnaker (this series had a 'no head sail' rule).

Another good excuse would be 'it was really hot' or 'the wind was light'.

How about 'the wind clocked around and gave the lifts to everyone in front of us, but not to us'?

Seriously - I though we (Roger, Camille, me) sailed a good race - we didn't blow any tacks, or screw up (too many) lay lines - we just got beat.

Pictures taken with the GoPro (I love this camera!!!).

Oh and did I say 'it's hot down here!'?

Business Tripping (Part 2)

These are from the beach at 66th St at the North End of Va Beach.

Another one of the places we would spend oddles and oodles of time just relaxing (or ripping waves to shreds).

There were tons of Mermaid's Purses lying around - I brought a few back for the kids.

This is another place we miss -

North End on Dwellable

Business Tripping (Part 1)

Flew out for some business this past week.

Snapped a few pictures of the Atlantic - this set near Kill Devil Hills (what a cool name).

La and I (and eventually Marlon) used to go down to the Outer Banks from Virginia Beach ALL THE TIME!

We really miss the place...

On the local news

http://www.wlox.com/Global/story.asp?S=12451526

Here's the link

Look for the F28 on the way out (motoring, not sailing).

It's also looking like the oil is not immediately threatening - wonder how long we'll be this lucky???

Mother's Day SUPing Fun

We had a BLAST today!!!

Here are some pictures of the SUPing we did today.

The kids are getting more and more relaxed on the water.

Luckily the oil hasn't made it's way into the bay (yet). The news has been saying the first globs have made landfall in Louisiana and Dauphin Island in Alabama. But from the time on the water today, you would have never guessed there was 3.5 million gallons of crude oil drifting around out there.

We did manage to catch some baby fish - tiny little guys (I think mullet).

Anyways - in my opinion, you couldn't have paid for a better day -

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY LA!!!!

Amphibious Saturday

Fun Saturday!!!

UCT 1 is down here in Gulfport supporting Seabee Day and conducting other business. I can't turn down any opportunity to dive (and didn't even though the water was more than a little bit green). HOOYAH Seabee Divers!

Then, without much turnaround, it was off to Long Beach Harbor for yet another race on Roger Evans' F28. Four boats raced today and we came in second only by a few boat lengths (and a few minutes based on corrections).

For the record - MONOHULLS SUCK! Why sail slow when you can BLAST! Check out the spray flying off the starboard ama!!!

We started about 35 minutes behind the other boats (staggered start based on correction factor) and after having to go downwind on the first leg (not a trimarans favorite point of sail), we ate up the course on the second (nearly a beam reach) and third (close reach) legs. Got up to 14 kts (my GPS ran out of battery power, but that was the highest speed I got) on a NE-N-NW breeze.

Saw more than a few dolphins - and NO OIL. I'm not going to talk about it for fear of jinxing the Coast....

Tomorrow is Mother's Day!!! If the weather cooperates, SUPing! Stay tuned!

La's "Inside the Van" SUP templated

Since it was rainy and the beach is about to go cancerous (yes cancerous - and no I'm not over exaggerating - oil has benzene and toluene, among other known carcinogens), I figured it'd be a good time to get started on La's SUP (which she won't be able to use locally for a while).

Taped and assembled the template - and at least I think this - it actually looks like the AKU Shaper image.

I even cut it out of the blank.

We stopped off at Lowe's this afternoon to look around and I picked up some new 5 1/4" jigsaw blades - these almost cut through the entire blank, but not quite. I had to use the Japanese Pull Saw to liberate the templated portion.

While we wait for the oil to make landfall, there is always shaping...

Oh and when the rain stops, I will paint Marlon and Noe's boards.

Maybe the last day of the beach as we know it

The forecasts are still for heavy rain and strong SE winds.

With that, the oil should be here soon (forecasted for a Tuesday arrival).

On the way to run errands, we took some bread down to Gulfport Beach and fed the seagulls. Considering how the weather guessers have been wrong before (actually multiple times a week - especially with regards to wind forecasts, as my many days of being skunked on the kites has shown), maybe they gulls will be spared from death by oil burning their eyes, nose, throat, skin or starvation because of the lack of food that isn't dead because of the oil slick (that is now larger than the island of Puerto Rico).

And now for the brighter side. This is funny - but not too funny (at least don't tell La I thought this was hilarious). As the kids and I got out of the van to feed the gulls, I gave some bread to Marlon to bait the birds our way. Well they came - the whole flock - and with piss and vinegar (bird shit actually) they got La back into the van screaming and yelling "those birds pooed on me!!!).

Boy was she PISSED!!! Good thing she was able to get it off ;)

I honestly believe that these gulls hate La...

This is going to SUCK!

When this oil mass hits shore, you can kiss life as we know it GOODBYE!

The local paper today talked about how one plan was to use the Mississippi Gulf Coast as a sacrificial area to allow the oil to come up on land so it can be collected easily (because there is a highway that runs along the beach). How screwed up is that!

It is now conceivable that I may not be able to play in the water again for the next 15 months because of this spill...

I'm pissed - not to mention there are dead turtles starting to wash up. What we can't see yet will start washing up later this week - dead fish, shrimp, dolphins, jellyfish - you name it, it'll probably be dead. The whole Gulf of Mexico will be a black pool of death.

More posts in a minute.