French movie from Jean-René Kéruzoré, "Kéru" (Air Vide et Eau)
For celebrating the late arrival of sunny days, after a long stormy winter.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Image of the week : Bay of Naples
The bay is lined to the south by the Sorrento Peninsula – where the world-famous Amalfi coast runs along its southern edge.
Just beyond the tip of the peninsula lies the beautiful island of Capri.
The islands of Ischia, renowned for its thermal springs, and Procida can be seen to the top of the bay.
Mount Vesuvius is featured just inland from the bay overlooking the city of Naples.
Note :
Google is working with the Group on Earth Observations , which is an international consortium of the world’s space agencies (NASA, JAXA in Japan, ESA in Europe, INPE in Brazil, and many others).
The Google Earth Engine is a repository that brings together public Earth observation data (satellite imagery, terrain datasets -also bathymetry ?-, climate information) into a large georeferenced data repository.
It is expected that ultimately the Earth Engine will comprise many petabytes.
The goal is not only to provide public access to Earth observation data, but also to provide an application programming interface (API) to encourage developers outside of Google to develop applications that use the data in the repository.
The Google Earth Engine will provide easy access to the data and a high performance computational platform for geoprocessing.
Links :
Friday, April 9, 2010
Reenactment of Captain Bligh's 1789 epic boat voyage
Talisker, the famous single malt whisky distilled on the Isle of Skye has announced its sponsorship of an epic sailing adventure which will be the first to recreate the exact journey of Captain William Bligh's epic 4,000-mile open boat Mutiny on the Bounty voyage.
Led by Australian adventurer Don McIntyre and a crew of three in 25ft open boat, the reenactment will follow the journey across the Pacific from Tonga to Timor and aims to raise vital funds and awareness for the worlds first international research institute into Motor Neurone Disease, currently being built by the Sheffield Institute Foundation.
Then they plan to set off to sail across the top of the Fiji and the Vanuatu Island groups, before setting course for the Queensland Coast and a landing at Restoration Island following four weeks at sea on light rations. They then sail north inside the Great Barrier Reef to Thursday Island, and across to Kupang and Timor.
McIntyre returned to his roots and the roots of Talisker on the Isle of Skye to trace his Scottish ancestry, and hold a Clan reunion at the famous Talisker Distillery. His grandparents Thomas and Mary McIntyre emigrated to Australia shortly after their marriage in 1901 and this was Dons first visit to the island and Scotland.
The 54 year-old adventurer, who successfully sailed single-handed around the world in 1990-91 (BOC Challenge), has led a series of expeditions down to Antarctica in 2000, fly gyrocopters 13.5 thousand kilometers around Australia in 2007, brought with him the 25ft replica of the Bounty Boat to give his fellow McIntyres an insight into the extraordinary fight for survival that Captain Bligh and his crew faced following the infamous mutiny on HMS Bounty led by Fletcher Christian.
McIntyre and his three-man crew will face the same deprivations as the original Bounty Boat crew, with little food, no charts or toilet paper and only the limited navigation implements that were available to Bligh.
They will start the adventure on the same day (April 28th), at the same time and in the same place (some 1,300 miles west of Tahiti, near Tonga) 221 years after the original mutiny journey.
By the way, Don McIntyre has loaned Jessica Watson the S&S 34 that is now known as Ella's Pink Lady and Mike Perham has signed on as second in command on the Talisker Bounty boat !
(see yesterday blog about world’s Youngest Solo Circumnavigator)
Links :
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Argentina, a new chart layer in the Marine GeoGarage
SHN (Servicio de Hidrografía Naval de Argentina) gives us its agreement to display their nautical raster charts (a set of 90 charts) in the Marine GeoGarage.--- END-USER RESPONSIBILITY ----------------------
As a Marine GeoGarage user, you hereby acknowledge that these charts issued from BSB charts material are only AN AID TO NAVIGATION, so they DO NOT REPLACE OFFICIAL AND UPDATED PAPER CHARTS since they are RASTER BSB Electronic charts.
Mariners should keep nautical charts up-to-date by consulting the Notices to Mariners which are monthly edited :
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So with the Premium Chart subscription (9.9 € / month), you have access today to both UKHO & SNH nautical charts private layers.
Youth solo sailing circumnavigations
Recently the World Sailing Speed Record Council (WSSRC) have discontinued their endorsement of the age records for youngest (and oldest) person to circumnavigate the world, solo, non-stop, and unassisted.
Robin Lee Graham (1949 - ) set out to sail around the world alone as a teenager in the summer of 1965. National Geographic Magazine carried the story, and he co-wrote a book detailing his journey titled Dove published in 1972.
Graham was just sixteen when he set out alone from Southern California and headed west in his 24-foot sloop.
His voyage was also depicted in a film, The Dove (1974).
A followup book, Home Is The Sailor, was published in 1983.
On July 16, 2009, 17 year old Zac Sunderland (picture above), who cites Robin as an inspiration, became the youngest American sailor to complete a solo circumnavigation since Graham, and the first person to ever accomplish this feat in 13 months and 2 days before their 18'th birthday.
As of August 27th, 2009 the youngest person has been officially Mike Perham who grabbed the solo record after completing the 28,000-mile trip, crossing the finish line in Cornwall, in southern England. Perham is a 17-year-old British sailor who became the youngest person to sail around the world with assistance, completing the solo trip in nine months.
Abigail Sunderland a 16-year-old American girl has planned the same project.
But today, another 16-year-old young Australian girl (4 months older than Abigail) is steering her bright pink yacht to reach her bid to become the youngest person to sail solo and unassisted around the world.
Jessica Watson's plan to make a 23,600-mile (38,000-kilometer) journey through some of the world's most treacherous waters sparked a debate in Australia about whether someone so young should be allowed to try such a potentially dangerous feat.
Watson and her family insist she is an experienced and capable sailor who has studied navigation, electronics and maritime safety procedures.
But is thirteen too young to sail solo around the world?
Child protection agents in Holland have urged the courts to prevent 13-year-old Laura Dekker
True annual circumnavigators are a few breed that still need to plan their global voyages with many years in advance. To calculate how many circumnavigate the world in a year is a hard thing to do, since not all the attempts are announced, most are not prepare to last a few weeks but instead years that may turn into a whole decade of sea travel. There are families or couples who decide to cut their jobs, put their lives on hold for various years in order to immerse themselves into a world sailing adventure that will take several years, with no schedule and no fixed departing or arriving dates.
The first person to sail around the world alone was Joshua Slocum, an American "Blue Nose", from 1895 to 1898, three full years. The second man did it 25 years later; it was another American, Harry Pidgeon, from 1921 to 1925, four complete years of sailing.
Between 1973 and 1974, just four sailors went around the world alone (seven sailors did it in 1987, twelve in 1999, fourteen in 2004). The number of sailors attempting an annual circumnavigation are counted down to a dozen.
Here world around races are not contabilized because the sheer number of participants are competing, not planning a true and genuine round the world attempt.
Recently, one of the UK's most exciting young sailors has confirmed his entry into the oldest solo round the world yacht race – the 2010 Velux 5 Oceans.
Nineteen-year-old Oscar Mead will line up against some of the world's top sailors for the 30,000-mile Velux 5 Oceans race which starts in France in October. from pursuing her dream of becoming the youngest ever solo circumnavigator.
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