Aleria's Adventures

I saw this photo of a humpback whale in Norway on Facebook yesterday and it rekindled the moment when a fin whale surfaced right next to Aleria  off the Azores. The stench of rotting fish was overwhelming and clung to our clothes all day afterwards. It was a magic moment. We got a photo, but not like this one, capturing water on fire. Beautiful.

2018 is a remarkable year for sailing around the world. There are scores of vessels out there crossing oceans in the Golden Globe Race, the Longue Route, the Route du Rhum and the Transatlantic Race as a start. These are all the folks that are racing. There are plenty of stories going around, too, with carnage befalling most of the fleets. On top of that, Randall Reeves has embarked on a second try for his Figure 8 Voyage and Jeanne Socrates has joined the fray aiming to be the oldest woman to sail solo nonstop around the world. You can follow them all on the Longue Route Fleet Tracker.

This year, the  Hobie Cat  turned 50 years old. Developed by surfer Hobie Alter, who was credited with building the first one in 1965 with a design that could be easily beached. Since 1967, the company has been building a variety of sizes and styles, but it's the Hobie 16 that really revolutionized sailing. The Hobie 16 was easily trailerable, easily beached and didn't cost a fortune. It took a rich man's sport and made it accessible to all. Over 135,000 Hobie 16 Cats are sailing around the world. They were fun, they were fast, and they were accessible.

I paid Crazy Glue Mechanic for this photo.  As sailors who take our vessels to distant lands, we want to preserve our memories. But the rules about what is acceptable behaviour, especially behind a camera lens, are different in many places around the world. I have the belief that if in doubt, ask permission or don't take the picture.

The last few weeks were extraordinary for storms around the world. It's a strange conundrum that although weather forecasting is getting better, the weather overall is getting worse - more extreme and less stable.

As weather resources change and new ones are added all the time, I thought it would be useful to keep track of some favourite online sites. Most are for route planning purposes. With climate change, it's more important than ever to stay ahead of the game.  Frank Singleton's Weather Page has everything listed and keeps it up to date. 

The headline, "Plastic Can Take 500 Years To Bio-Degrade In The Ocean," caught my attention today together with an infographic that backs up the statement. The data was obtained from NOAA and Woods Hole Sea Grant and the infographic was created by statista . I'm assuming some maths genius calculated the rate of degradation of certain plastics and projected it on a timeline, otherwise no one would have actually observed the rate of decay over 500 years, unless of course he or she were time travelers. But it is a serious problem for the oceans and it seems people are finally waking up. Little did Dustin Hoffman know in The Graduate about the effect 'plastics' would have on our world.