WOW! What a Picture

Burlington, VT

No LL

Below is a picture of a volcano seen from the International Space Station. It shows a plume of dust and steam that ate a hole through the clouds and seemingly was on its way to space.

It really blows my mind. I never could have imagined seeing a volcano from that angle before.

You'll need red-blue glasses to truly appreciate this 3D picture.

Read the full story about this pictur at here. Credit for the picture goes to : Expedition 20 Crew, Crew Earth Observations Team, NASA

Libby, First Mate, First Artist

Burlington, Vt

No LL

(click on the collage photo to see it full size)

Last spring, in Marsh Harbor, our friend Pat on Reflection taught Libby and several other cruising women how to make pine needle baskets. Since then, Libby has become a real enthusiast. Her skills improve all the time. The baskets get done in less time and they become ever more creative and artistic.

In fact, we had so many that Libby passed most of them along to our daugher in law Cheryl to sell at Farmers' Markets markets.

She even got me interested and I made a couple of baskets myself. It's great fun.

Kudos to Libby.

Skipper's Errors

Burlington, VT

No LL

My daughter Jenny protested about my recent blog story about the dinghy painter and the painter. I mentioned that I hadn't committed that particular error since 15 years ago on Lake Champlain. Jenny said that I forgot to mention who jumped in the cold cold water with a knife in her teeth. Yep, it was Jenny who paid the price that day. She wanted to spare her Dad the pain. Humble apologies Jenny. I didn't forget the incident but I did forget to put it in the blog.

What's the deal with the figure 8 on our GPS track in the picture above? Yet another skipper's error. While motoring across the lake we were towing the dinghy. We seldom do that. Usually we put the dinghy up on deck when travelling. This time we did, and this time the dinghy came loose and started to drift away.

Luckily, I noticed it right away. The figure 8 track documents how we swung back to pick it up.

So how did it break loose? Skipper's error. When I'm in a hurry, I use a slip knot to temporarily fasten a line to a cleat or to the sheet winch. It is relatively secure and much faster to make. However, towing the dinghy across the lake is not a temporary fastening. I forgot to change the slip knot for a bowline. Shame on me.

p.s. For the past few days we've been scraping, and sanding, and cleaning, and painting and waxing. We can't play and relax every single day. Boat chores need doing.

If you mainain, repair, replace, and modernize a Westsail and its equipment, it will last indefinitely. Also, when you live aboard and cruise like we do, you wear things out faster than you might expect. Bottom line -- we have a never ending list of boat chores and projects that need doing. As soon as we start neglecting them, the boat starts deteriorating.

I learned a long time ago that if you want to be a boater, then you must learn to enjoy the maintenance chores too.

Who reads this blog?

Porter Bay

No LL

I got an email last week. It said,

"My name is Chris, and I have been reading your blog for a couple of years now. I came across your blog while doing research on WestSail 32s. I had been thinking of purchasing a WestSail and tried to convince my wife that she would love the idea of cruising. Well, I have not really been successful, but am still working on her."

My primary intended audience are friends and family. They want to keep track of Libby and me. The secondary audience, are people like Chris who want to live the cruising life vicariously.

Blogger is a Google owned company. Google can't tell me who the readers are, but it does provide some interesting statistics about page use. I'm not going to reveal all my secrets here, but I thought you might be interested in a few tidbits from the most recent 30 days.

Number of visits: 27% of the visitors come to the blog once and don't come back. Presumably, those are people who are surfing, and who didn't find this blog of interest. On the other hand, almost 1/3 of the visitors check this blog once per day or more. They are the hard-core blog fans. I'm very gratified to have so many loyal readers.

How did they find the blog? 78% of the visitors come here directly, meaning that they have bookmarked the blog and come here deliberately. About 11% find it by search engine, and another 11% by a refering page, such as the westsail.org site.

Where do these readers come from? Mostly the USA, but also 38 other countries.

A Photo Trip Up Otter Creek

Vergennes Vermont

No LL

We love travelling up and down Otter Creek. I'll let the pictures below, taken yesterday, explain for themselves why.

Above, Purple Marten Lane

Eagle's Nest, occupied by Osprey