Photo of the Day

September 27 - Mexico

A clean wake? "My wife and I spent four months on our shakedown cruise along the Pacific Coast of Baja, up to La Paz, and on to San Carlos where we left our boat for the summer," write Jackie and Steven Gloor of the San Diego-based Moonshadow. "We had a great time and met a lot of wonderful people - cruisers and locals - along the way.

"What we saw of trash disposal bothered us quite a bit, however. On almost every beach we found trash in various forms: glass bottles, plastic, empty motor oil containers, and so forth. Fishermen, who stay in camps nearby, leave much of this trash behind. We assume it was their trash because the amount of trash increases drastically the closer you get to any fish camp. However, as the enclosed photo shows, there are many sites where cruisers clearly have attempted to burn their trash, not realizing that tin cans and glass bottles don't burn. This accompanying photo, for example, was taken right next to the 'cruisers' shrine' at Ensenada San Juanico. This trash had to be brought there by cruisers since there is not a single fish camp anywhere nearby, and there is no road leading to the shrine. We found evidence like this in other places, such as on Isla San Francisco, as well.


Photo Courtesy Moonshadow

"We follow the trash procedures we learned at several cruising seminars we attended. The first rule to follow is 'try to produce as little trash as possible'. We leave all packing materials not required at the dock before we leave. All recyclable trash is compacted and separated from burnable trash. If we are anchored out for an extended period, we do burn our trash on the beach. We do this by digging a hole below the high tide line, starting a fire with driftwood, and then slowly adding trash to the fire until all has turned to ashes. In most cases we clean the beach of any plastic in the process as well. After we're done, we cover the small pile of ashes we created and let nature take over. We hope all cruisers follow these simple steps."

Latitude 38's policy comes from the Caribbean, where the motto is: Take only photographs, leave only footprints. We don't think the burned cans - which could easily be bagged and taken back for proper disposal - count as footprints.

By the way, if anybody knows of such piles of garbage on the islands between La Paz and Isla San Francisco, and their exact location, we'd like to know about them. We're planning to visit these islands immediately after the Ha-Ha with Profligate, and would have the space aboard on which to bring such trash back to La Paz for proper disposal.


Great America II Skirts Humberto

September 27 - Atlantic Ocean

Keith Taylor reports, "A week after leaving New York harbor, sailing adventurers Rich Wilson and Bill Biewenga have covered 1,035 nautical miles in their bid to set a sailing record from New York to Melbourne, Australia. At noon yesterday, their 53-foot trimaran Great American II had skirted the forecast path of Hurricane Humberto, which was packing 135 mph winds at its center. The two-man crew was sailing a southeasterly course away from the storm at five to seven knots. Light winds over the past two days, and the need to avoid the hurricane, slowed Great American II as she strove to beat the sailing record to Melbourne, set 145 years ago by the American clipper ship Mandarin carrying fortune hunters to the Australian gold rush. Great American II's early pace out of New York Harbor put her ahead of the ghost of Mandarin for the first two days, but the weather conditions forced her east. Today, seven days into the voyage, the trimaran trails the clipper by 280 nautical miles."


Kostecki and illbruck Continue to Lead Volvo

September 27 - Atlantic Ocean

But not by much. Standings as of today at 0400 GMT: 1. illbruck, 6,633 miles to finish; 2. Tyco, 2 miles behind leader; 3. Amer Sports One, 3 mbl; 4. Assa Abloy, 7 mbl; 5. News Corp, 18 mbl; 6. SEB, 22 mbl; 7. Amer Sports Two, 37 mbl; 8. djuice dragons, 48 mbl.


More Ha-Ha Entries

September 27 - Baja Ha-Ha World Headquarters

Ha-Ha Entries 111-120:

111) Joie de Mer / Beneteau 43 / Peter Killcommons / San Francisco
112) Beyond Reason / Lagoon 38 / Jerry Lumbard / San Francisco
113) Synergyzer / Ericson 28 / John Riley and Larry Weinhoff / Daly City
114) Slainte / Columbia 30 / Robert & Patricia McFarland / San Diego
115) Mallika / Kettenberg 41 / Cal & Cher Ares / Jenner
116) Delia / Island Packet 38 / Joe Bayliss / Seattle
117) Magic Mist / Islander Freeport 36 / Richard & Dana Stubberfield
118) Scirocco / Morgan Out-Island 41 / Greg Retkowski / San Francisco
119) Desire / Islander Perry 32 / Heather Myles / Riverside
120) Whatever . . . / Beneteau 411 / Teff Reed / Berkeley

The complete list of Ha-Ha entries appears in the October issue of Latitude 38. See www.baja-haha.com for more information on the event.


YOTREPS

September 27 - The Pacific Ocean and Cyberspace

Who is out making passages in the Pacific and what kind of weather are they having? Check out YOTREPS - 'yacht reports' - at http://www.bitwrangler.com/yotreps/


Weather Updates

September 27 - Pacific Ocean

San Francisco Bay Weather

To see what the winds are like on the Bay and just outside the Gate right now, check out http://sfports.wr.usgs.gov/wind/.

California Coast Weather

Looking for current as well as recent wind and sea readings from 17 buoys and stations between Pt. Arena and the Mexican border? Here's the place - which has further links to weather buoys and stations all over the U.S.: www.ndbc.noaa.gov/stuff/southwest/swstmap.shtml.

Pacific Winds and Pressure

The University of Hawaii Dept. of Meteorology page posts a daily map of the NE Pacific Ocean barometric pressure and winds.

Pacific Sea State

Check out the Pacific Ocean sea states at: http://www.mpc.ncep.noaa.gov/RSSA/PacRegSSA.html.
For another view, see http://www.oceanweather.com/data/global.html.


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