This was Thursday's little challenge. It's what I've starting calling a "trawler bridge": a span high enough to let motor cruisers get at some good anchoring and/or gunkholing, but not so high that they have to share it with pesky sailboats. I kid, of course, but I had spied out a great little spot on Norfolk's Lafayette River (Google Map here) to ride out the frontal passage and it would likely be free because there's only 24-feet under this bridge at high tide. However, I wasn't absolutely sure that Gizmo's mighty antenna farm met that requirement...
I'm not a pagan but my first wedding was on the Summer Solstice in 1976 and the second was on the Vernal Equinox in 1993. So, yes indeed, today we're celebrating twenty years wonderfully together (though right now about a thousand miles physically apart). But I want to write about what largely drove those wedding date decisions: my fascination with celestial mechanics, largely acquired through marine navigation, particularly the celestial kind. I learned about the apparent and true motions of the heavenly bodies, the foundations of geography, and what makes this such a balanced day on earth...
2013 is going to be a bang up year for Panbo, I think. News about that tomorrow, and soon we'll be back to actual electronics news and reviews, I promise. But first I have one more bit of boating nostalgia to cap off 2012. I took the photo above in April, 1978, as the good sloop Alice reached along well offshore about half way to Maine from Man-O-War Cay in the Abacos (hence the conch jerky hung to dry in the rigging). We'd already endured some fairly heavy weather without problems and this was a glorious morning when Alice was taking care of herself nicely and I was further enjoying the fruits of our long relationship...
"The crew was pretty grumpy as we headed north out of the Panama Canal. Hopes of spending a wild reggae Christmas in Kingston, Jamaica had recently been dashed (rumor was that there was a lien on Regina in Kingston), so on the morning of 24 Dec 1979, we found ourselves dropping anchor in Bahia du Mole..." Thus begins a sweet Christmas story written and mapped by my old mate Steve Nelson on The Friends and Crew of Regina Maris Facebook page. I'm sure that many far flung cruisers will enjoy Steve's true tale, but I can practically smell the scenes ashore and on board...
I think we've had some great product coverage recently, thanks largely to Kees Verruijt's excellent METS coverage, and I'm glad to report that Kees, Dan Corcoran, and others have more entries in the works. I know I've said it before but this winter Panbo truly will get more voices, and more frequent entries. Which makes me feel indulgent about posting non-electronics photos of my beloved boat! I spent some of the Thanksgiving holiday going through the images I collected during the trip south, and I couldn't help but feel very thankful for the vessel I lucked into and the coast I live along...
While I was enthusiastic about the first Penobscot Bay Rendezvous last summer, when the event actually came around I only managed to make a couple of the parties and do a little spectating (above). But I sure liked what I saw and am pleased that this year I'm helping to manage the PBR as the Powerboat Fleet Guide. I like how the event welcomes both power and sail -- and how it attracts a mix of local and visiting boaters too -- but the powerboats need things to do on the Bay besides watching sailboats race (as enjoyable as that can be). The ideas were good last year, and I think we've improved them a lot for 2012...
Do you too wonder if the Colonels dressed like that as they fished off their steam yacht in 1933? Actually I didn't even know that there once was a giant bluefin tuna fishery off Scotland until this morning when I read Airmar's new blog about an expedition that starts tomorrow. The company already had a crack tuna fisherman on staff in the person of Bertrand Picarda and now they've teamed up with a gentleman from Inverness who fishes a handsome 40-foot Rodman 1250 Fisher Pro..that now has some new holes in its bottom...
Yes, I was a grinning fool when Panbo -- for the second year in a row! -- received the BWI Award for Original Online Content (all awards listed here). Plus it seemed the perfect moment to debut the new Panbo logo hat I'd just received the day before, and purely by happenstance I was joined at the podium by two friends from the even smaller world of marine electronics. Bill Bishop got Third Place for his Marine Installers Rant blog (check his Award entry here and don't miss the cartoon he submitted as the essay) and Bruce Angus did the presenting because he's now Interim Director of the NMEA, which sponsored the category. But don't think that NMEA had anything to do with the judging, which was done anonymously by three fellow members of BWI. Well, actually I do know the name of one judge because she was quoted thusly: "Ellison obviously knows his subject matter inside and out, but never takes himself too seriously, actively soliciting input and contributions from his readers." For which I will be eternally grateful...
I do enjoy the odd array of holiday cards, digital and otherwise, that I receive from the marine electronics industry each year. An image of animated snow (you may have to click on thumbnail above) seen on a beautiful KEP Marine monitor is joyful...
I may have become 65 years old yesterday, but no barnacles are growing under this blogger's keyboard! It's still a work in progress, but have you seen the new line of useful function and social media icons that recently appeared at the end of each Panbo entry (also seen above)? The "Print" button will get you a nicely formatted version of the entry with reader comments included, but without extraneous web page stuff. And the "Email" button makes it pie simple to send someone a link plus a bit of the entry with an image and an optional comment from you. The Email button also leads to all sorts of other share possibilities, though you may have to join ShareThis to use some of them. I'm not clear on that and a few other things...
