Photos of the Day

December 12 - Mexico

While surfing the Web this morning, we stumbled across Guy and Deborah Bunting's terrific Web site. Guy built the couple's Morrelli & Melvin cat Elan in Vista, California, and the couple have been cruising her for the last several years in Mexico. Their latest Web entry was at the start of summer, at which time they reported, "It's into the Sea for the summer again! We had a charmed summer last year, with lobster, clams, scallops, dorado, tuna, trigger fish, snappers, and calamari on the table! So who wouldn't return?"

Photos Courtesy
Guy & Deborah Bunting

Check out the squid that Guy pulled up from the Sea. That's a summer's worth of calamari right there. We also enjoyed the couples' shot of the cow being loaded onto a boat at Santa Rosalia. Apparently, the line around the cow's neck asphyxiates it enough to keep it from causing trouble during the loading process, but not enough to kill it. Only in Mexico! The final shot is of Elan on the hard for a bottom job. For more great stuff, check out their site at: home.talkcity.com/PassportPl/elan2001/

Dalton More Busted Up Than Thought

December 12 - Auckland

A little more than a year ago, we fell down the companionway-like stairs at the Latitude office, causing extreme pain in our ankle. The emergency room doctor took an x-ray, and pronounced that "it's a bad sprain, but certainly not broken." After a couple more weeks of pain and swelling, we visited another doctor, who looked at the same x-ray - from a distance of 10 feet - and instantly pronounced that it was broken. How can such seemingly obvious mistakes be made?

Grant Dalton is probably wondering the same thing. After the last leg of the Volvo, he checked into a Sydney Hospital, assuming that he'd broken two ribs during a fall suffered on the last day of that leg. Doctors confirmed this, but found nothing more. When he got to Auckland, he went for a second opinion, and doctors discovered he also had fractured three vertebrae in his spine. Ouch!

Will he sail the next leg from Sydney to Auckland, which starts the day after Christmas? He sure wants to, in part because he's won that leg the last two times, and would like to do it again in honor of Sir Peter Blake, his friend and around-the-world ace who was recently murdered in Brazil. And nobody doubts that Dalton is one tough cookie. The veteran of six Whitbreads did a leg-and-a-half of the last one with a broken collarbone. Nonetheless, he admits there is a slim chance he may be sidelined. He's got a backup skipper lined up - Paul Cayard? - but won't say who.

Mystery Photo

December 12 - ???

This is a two-part quiz. First, where was this photo taken? Second - and even more important - what's in the boxes on the little barge?
Email your guesses to Richard.

YOTREPS

December 12 - 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

December 12 - 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.