Update: Dalai Lama's gift to Memphis

It seems we were wrong about our fellow Memphians. The house was packed to hear His Holiness speak.

Clipped from The Commercial Appeal:

People skipped work, traveled long distances and one couple even cut their honeymoon short to sit in the presence of the Dalai Lama.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience," said Jackie McNamara of East Memphis.

Sitting in the nosebleed section of the packed 2,100-seat auditorium, the criminal investigator took a day off to hear the author and spiritual figure.

"If any city in the U.S. needs healing, it's Memphis," she said.

The Dalai Lama accepted the 2009 International Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum on Wednesday, showing his appreciation by donating his $50,000 honorarium to the museum.

The Dalai Lama blesses the spot where Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated.

A good day for Memphis.

Adios,

Istaboa

Good day for fishin'

A good day indeed...
Got up with the sun and was catching bait at first light.
The day was perfect. A bit cloudy, which prevented the sun from baking us and just enough breeze to keep us cool; still winds were light enough to allow the ocean to remain calm with just a nice easy swell to remind you that you're in the ocean... not a lake.
The Albury Bros 23 did well in the ocean as we ran it out St Lucie inlet to our designated spot which was about 10 miles away. Sweet boat! 
The action started quickly and, with Will's guidance, I landed the first fish, a nice Mutton Snapper, good eats. Then followed that up with a good sized Trigger Fish.... also good eats.

My philosophy is, catch what you can eat, then quit. But Will had yet to catch a fish so we kept dropping bait.
Things had slowed a bit when all of a sudden Will's second rod started bending like it was hung on the reef. But it wasn't the reef. He grapped the rod and and started cranking. We had no idea what was on the end of the line but we new it was big. I thought shark, Will thought turtle. We were both wrong.

 

As you can see from the picture it was a huge fish. A Goliath Grouper (also known as a Jewfish in politically incorrect circles... not sure why it's not PC to call it a Jewfish?)

Will was both extremely excited and exhausted after fighting this monster for 15 minutes or so. He said it was his largest fish ever. Will is a very tall fellow and that fish is almost as big as he is. We think it may be close to 200 pounds.

Since it's a protected species in the US, we let it go after we took a few pictures. The fish swam away a bit slowly -but surely-  back to the depths from whence it came.

After that we ate the lunch Mel had packed for us , laughed about how excited we got, and then caught a couple of Vermilion Snapper. All of this by 12:30. We cranked up the Albury and ran home.

 

A good day for fishin'.

We've had fresh fish for the last few days. Tonight Trigger Fish is on the menu. Recipe 

Should be good.

Adios,

Istaboa

Surreal...

Natalie Cole, and Dalai Lama in Memphis

 

 

Time to start fishin'

Capt. Will, one of our friends from Compass Cay who lives here in Stuart, came by yesterday. It's always good to see Will. One of the kindest people we know.
He also came bearing gifts. He had just returned from Compass and Tucker had sent us a bag of Hogfish.  Great eating fish.
You may remember Will from an earlier post... He is the resident Shark masseuse on Compass.

Will and his favorite shark, Squirt.

Will and I are rigging out the Albury to do a little fishing. The weather is right and Snook season has started. He has lived around here for years and has fished these waters since he was a kid. So fresh fish should be on Istaboa's menu soon.

Came across this YouTube video today and thought it was funny. This critter is called a Slow Loris
This has nothing to do with fishing. but... enjoy.



Hopefully we have a few pics of some fish to post soon. Don't expect large catches as we only catch enough to eat as a rule and we don't like to freeze them; we go out and hopefully catch dinner and come on back in.
Fresh fish!


Adios,


Istaboa

Bagan exits the Northwest Passage

Congratulations Bagan.



Salute!

Attached is a snip of an email from Sprague Theobald, the leader of the Northwest Passage expedition, to Dan Streech of Nordhavn.  Dan was kind enough to forward it on.

Even as I heard the words come from my mouth I still couldn’t believe what I was hearing; we had indeed exited The Northwest Passage and the dream that I stated to bring to fruition several years ago has now been accomplished. This year we were the first American boat as well as the first, and only, power boat to transit The Passage and now the very first Nordhavn.  By the way, do know that I was told by two very knowledgeable people in Cambridge Bay that this has been the worst ice year in ten years. Suffice it to say that there’s still a hell of a long and potentially very bumpy road ahead but doing successfully what many before me have tried and not been able to accomplish is one of the more humbling acts of my life.  Franklin et al were supermen.  They didn’t have satellite navigation, washers and dryers, flat screens, iPods, or stabilizers.  When they left home… they left home!   They only had themselves, their books, the stars and in the case of the actual Franklin Expedition, not the best of luck.  I feel that to date our efforts have been bestowed with vast amounts of luck and otherworldly blessings. I think I read somewhere where success is the combination of luck and preparation.  If that’s so, perhaps a successful transit was in the cards as I don’t think we could have been any better prepared. We certainly had some very lucky moments.  As I’ve said to you so many times before, part of the preparation was having the very best boat for just such an attempt at such a high risk venture. Not a market slogan but the God’s honest truth; I wouldn’t have considered doing this trip on anything other than a Nordhavn.  If this trip failed it wouldn’t have been simply something that I wasn’t able to finish, failure in my case could have meant the boat being crushed and sunk or worse, lives lost. I would not have put my life nor the lives of my crew in the hands of any other manufacturer.  No two ways about it, when the pack ice closed in around us as it did, Bagan saved our hides.  The ice was starting to stack up around us to our west, a rockbound coastline sat not a mile and a half away to our east and a slow but relentless current was pushing us from the northwest.  As you know, a half a mile off the beach we had to make what I feel to be one of the most disturbing decisions of my life. If we’d waited for it all to play out we would have ended up on the rocks with the ice bearing down on top of us.  There was only one thing to do and that, in any other circumstance, was to ask the unthinkable from Bagan and try to get her to do the inconceivable; be a tug / icebreaker and fight her way out. A boat sixty miles north of us was in the same predicament and they ended up having to call in a Canadian icebreaker. For one who is always so careful about trying to have Bagan’s hull do anything more than gently kiss a dock for a landing (trying), I hated what I had to get her to do.  With all the crew looking for leads, calling the closing distances and armed with poles to fend off, I would slowly bring her bow up to a floe that was anywhere from a foot to four feet thick, make contact and then gently pour on the coals.  Most of the time the bulb would wedge itself under the ice, which would get hooked into the curve where the bulb meets the boat. I’d then build up the RPMs, pushing at times up to five large sheets of ice at a time, albeit at a snail’s pace, to create a lead.  Other times the bulb would ride up on a lower shelf of a floe, lift her bow one to three feet up and then she’d use her weight to crash through or shatter the floe ahead. We did this time and time again for the better part of two harrowing days.  Once the ordeal was over we sent our diver Greg over with the vid camera and apart from some expected dings in the bulb and some smudged bottom paint, I can tell you we suffered literally not a scratch anywhere. Wait until you see the HD video!

Wow!


Adios,


Istaboa

The Albury Brothers 23

At Sunset Bay Marina

Hence the name

As of July 23, 2010 

It turned out beautiful. The folks at Birdsall marine did an excellent job on the T-Top.

We have been very impressed by this boat. Very simple, solid, and seaworthy. 

A friend said, "It's a Thunderbird not a Corvette".
True... True... We like T-birds.
Nice clean lines, classic retro, and a time proven hull.

The first time I actually rode in an Albury, it was a 20. On a rough day in the Sea of Abaco it proved to be amazing. I have ridden in 26/27 footers that didn't take the seas as well as the Albury 20. Very dry and a soft ride.
The 23 is even better.

The Story...

The Albury family has been building boats in Man O’War Cay, Abaco, for many generations, including their famous smacks, sloops and schooners. Since 1952, Willard Albury, first with his father and brother, now with his sons Don and Jamie, have produced sea kindly outboard runabouts & skiffs. They build these boats one at a time, for those customers who appreciate a special boat when they see one.

 Dave's Albury 20

 

The inside liner and the T-Top liner coordinate.

Traditional Bahama Blue

We were very fortunate to have found a used 23 for sale. Not many used Alburys around.

We loaded her up with a nice Raymarine chartplotter and fish finder and a good Icom VHF.  Not much else needed except an autopilot but that can wait for a while.

Took it out yesterday, the late afternoon breeze made it a bit choppy on the south fork of the St Lucie river but she smoothed them out nicely. The 225HP 4 stroke Yamaha ran quiet and smooth at 4000 RPM, winding effortlessly around the bends in the river at an easy 28 MPH.
Gonna be a great boat.

The hull is called Sea Mist... a light shade of greenish blue.  Kinda like the color of Tilloo bank at mid tide.

 

We will post some more pics when we find some nice light for a good profile shot.

So until later,

Adios,

Istaboa

Things that go splat in the night

As we were kickin' back, reading our books on a nice rainy afternoon, tranquility was being enjoyed.  Ahhh... We love days like this.
Then, out of the blue, Radar broke the peace and quiet and proceeded to lose his little mind. It was  quite disturbing at first as he was barking insanely at the wall for no apparent reason. We thought the boy had gone over the edge. Boat fever.

But after investigating we found this little fellow stuck to the bulkhead of the Pilot house. (Not sure what Radar would have done if he could have caught it.)
So being the friends of honest and harmless creatures that we are, we removed him and carefully set him free outside on the aft deck of the boat. Surely -we thought-  he will find his way off the boat and catch a few of bugs in the meantime.

So... a couple of nights ago as we were sleeping soundly, Radar struck again. 3:00 AM he started growling and woke us up. Then, barking, he lunged at Melonie in the darkness of our stateroom; which was very alarming.
In a very sleepy and confused state, I took him up to the salon to see if he was sick and may need to go outside. He was still upset about something and continued to growl but wouldn't go out.
That's when I heard Melonie say in a very grave and ominous voice, "Oh my God... Something is in the bed!".
I ran down stairs with Radar on my heals, still growling like I've never heard him before, and turned on the lights. Melonie was out of the bed, appearing to be totally freaked out, saying something about, "it crawled across my face". I pulled back the cover expecting to see a snake when something hurled itself out of the bed. This scared the crap out of us, especially with Radar barking like a banshee, which alone is enough to raise the hair on the back of your neck.
And there it was... The scary, creepy-crawling thing; the creature in the night...
Our little frog friend had come back to see us and thought our cool dark stateroom was as good a place as any to hop around in. Unfortunately it hopped on Radar, then walked across Mel's face.

I took it outside and -this time- put it on the dock then closed the gate hoping it would find another playground.
After the adrenaline dissipated; Mel and I went back to sleep; Radar stayed on guard for the rest of the night.

Oh, the perils we face while braving this adventurous life we lead.

Adios,


Istaboa

Another good boat dog

Pretty cool footage of an Iceberg collapsing offshore of Labrador. The dog seems to be enjoying his day at sea. Watch his tail wag.




Is it me or does this guy really sound like Kermit the Frog?

A personal observation:  Here we are in sunny Florida and I keep posting about boats in the ice. Weird.

Not exactly a pleasure cruise.

Since we're not doing much here in Stuart other than passively enjoying ourselves and about the only adventure we've had recently was last night's dinner at a bad Tex-Mex restaurant; we'll point you in another direction for a little excitement.

The crew on Bagan are having one intense boat ride.

Cut from Bagan's blog:

The next morning we awoke to find that we had, of all things, drifted our way south 7 miles. With renewed energy and refreshed determination we once again set about using this good ship as an ice breaker. By three that afternoon we had broken our way clear into thinner and less dense ice packs. Simply put, I would not have tried any of this if I had not been on a Nordhavn. Her strength and integrity is unsurpassed and it’s no exaggeration when I say she, and she alone, got us out of a situation that was in a lifetime of boating worse than anything I’ve experienced to date. No qualms about saying that at times I’d never been more terrified or more despondent. I think that at one point or another we all were and the amazing thing about this crew is that we pressed on regardless and did our best to keep these feelings of abject horror to ourselves. I’m very, very thankful to be posting this as I am and in the last few days have learned more about myself than all my combined fifty-eight years have taught me. Hands down, the best crew, for the best boat on the best trip.

incredible testament to the build of the 57 Nordhavn.

If you're not, we strongly suggest you follow this blog. It's really getting good.

I can't wait to see this documentary.

Adios,


Istaboa

How to make a Hurricane.

The eye of Hurricane Bill

3 Minute clip that explains it all... We need to find this little girl and tell her to stop doing that.

Birth of a Hurricane

Adios,


Istaboa