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Just got back from seeing Roots Manuva at Cielo, presented by Giant Step. Good performance, although Roots Manuva isn’t really much of a dj. He mainly played random, but rockin songs, all over the map. Good crowd, and the usualy GS gang was out in full force.
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Pic of random rusting and old stuff on a rooftop. I like the urban decay, and especially the old smokestacks in the background.
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View looking south-west, from the east village over to around tribeca area (although you can’t see that far). This was taken in the afternoon when it was bright out, the quick exposure makes the buildings look dark.
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Bren and I on the Vortex rollercoaster at Kings Island. We were young. I found this photo in an old shoebox last time I went home. I don’t know why I’m posting it.. just thought it was funny.
Also, I just bought a Flickr pro membership, so i can store lots of photos and whatnot on flickr. It’s a pretty cool service, and offers lots of flexibility. For a whole flickr photo album, check out the Winter Music Conference post, below.
Bren and I on the Vortex rollercoaster at Kings Island. We were young. I found this photo in an old shoebox last time I went home. I don’t know why I’m posting it.. just thought it was funny.
Also, I just bought a Flickr pro membership, so i can store lots of photos and whatnot on flickr. It’s a pretty cool service, and offers lots of flexibility. For a whole flickr photo album, check out the Winter Music Conference post, below.
>Listening to: William Orbit – Hello Waveforms
This past Wednesday, amid much confusion, I finally decided to go to the M3 Summit and Winter Music Conference in Miami Beack, Florida. I say confusion because the week before, I had been supremely confused as to whether or not to go. I had this great opportunity to go down there and work with Giant Step doing production work, throwing parties, living it up etc… but i also had work that week. I really wanted to go, but wasnt sure if i should skip out on my job.. After much deliberation, I decided that you’re only young once, and that I just needed to suck it up and skip out of the city, to sunny florida. The following pics are from my trip down there, and they can be seen in my gallery on Flickr. Make sure to leave excelente comments!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1XzuHSkkDg]
Listening to: Boozoo Bajou – Dust My Broom
Yes, this morning I actually pried myself out of bed at freaking 7 am, put on my running shoes, and trekked up to central park to run at top speed 9.3 miles (15K) in the pouring rain. Yes, this was a Sunday morning, and no, nobody was cattle prodding me to do it. I did it because I wanted to. Um, right?
Yeah so anyway, I did do the race.. the longest one I have ran so far, in an effort to qualify for the 2007 NYC Marathon, and to whip my ass into shape first “for the ladies”, and secondly for the upcoming 2006 NYC Marathon, which I may or may not get into by way of a lottery. (That the only way I can (legally)run the 06 marathon, since you have to qualify for it the previous year)
This 15K was a run for Colon Cancer.. It’s always good to run for a cause, I suppose.
This was the 3rd qualifying race for the marathon, and the longest purely running race I’ve ever done. Kind of scary thinking about running the marathon.. my legs were killing me by the end of this race, and even sitting here tonight, my hip flexors are sore, and I have a dime sized blister on the left arch of my foot.. think its time for some new running shoes, and/or new insoles. (I’ve had my most exelente Sauconys for about a year now, so its def time for a new pair anyway.)
Here’s a screen shot from my results, and a link to my results page.
In other news the rest of the weekend was not incredibly eventful… Friday night was spent.. um.. oh yeah, right.. After work, I went to meet Jill at a secret restaurant in the East Village where we had the best, cheapest and quickest Japanese sushi and soup ever.. good stuff. Then Jill went home to sleep off the rest of her cold, and I took an hour and walked from the East Village back home to the West Village. It was good, cause it was a great warm night out, and I got to listen to a good portion of this amazing audio book I am listening to… it’s called “The River of Doubt : Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey” by Candice Millard, and it’s about Theodore Roosevelt’s 1913 journey down the Amazonian River of Doubt with his son Kermit and a group of Brazilains. It’s super fantastic, and there’s a ton of stuff about natural history, rainforest ecology, presidential history, and adventure! I would defininetly recommend you read it or listen to it asap. (the abridged audiobook is available on amazon.com, but I would recommend, if you’re doing the audiobook thing, to get the unabridged version, available on the iTunes music store, and at audible.com)
So back to my walk. It was good, and as I approached 6th avenue, I walked through a giant mob on the sidewalks on the fray between Greenwich Village and the West Village. It was such a nice night, I guess everyone was just hanging out on the sidewalk… Refreshing. It kind of reminded me of living in Spain and going to Plaza Einstein to Botellon. (Although it’s a little difficult getting ahold of 29 Cent “Slap Naranja” in the West Village).
Saturday was moderately uneventful. I slept till 2 or so. (I stayed up late Friday night installing Ubuntu Linux on an old computer. I know, I’m super cool etc) After doing a few errands etc, I went to babysit a little, made some cash money, then went home to sleep for the race today.
Hmm, I feel like writing dry summaries of my weekends is kind of lame and old, but that’s pretty much what I’ve got so far.
Coming up, though, should hopefully be slightly more action packed… I’m going to Florida for the weekend next weekend, and its a distant possibility that I will be going to M3 the following weekend. We’ll see how that goes and if I can swing the plane tickets and accommodations. Oh, and the missing work. Right….
Listening to: Boozoo Bajou – Dust My Broom
Yes, this morning I actually pried myself out of bed at freaking 7 am, put on my running shoes, and trekked up to central park to run at top speed 9.3 miles (15K) in the pouring rain. Yes, this was a Sunday morning, and no, nobody was cattle prodding me to do it. I did it because I wanted to. Um, right?
Yeah so anyway, I did do the race.. the longest one I have ran so far, in an effort to qualify for the 2007 NYC Marathon, and to whip my ass into shape first “for the ladies”, and secondly for the upcoming 2006 NYC Marathon, which I may or may not get into by way of a lottery. (That the only way I can (legally)run the 06 marathon, since you have to qualify for it the previous year)
This 15K was a run for Colon Cancer.. It’s always good to run for a cause, I suppose.
This was the 3rd qualifying race for the marathon, and the longest purely running race I’ve ever done. Kind of scary thinking about running the marathon.. my legs were killing me by the end of this race, and even sitting here tonight, my hip flexors are sore, and I have a dime sized blister on the left arch of my foot.. think its time for some new running shoes, and/or new insoles. (I’ve had my most exelente Sauconys for about a year now, so its def time for a new pair anyway.)
Here’s a screen shot from my results, and a link to my results page.
In other news the rest of the weekend was not incredibly eventful… Friday night was spent.. um.. oh yeah, right.. After work, I went to meet Jill at a secret restaurant in the East Village where we had the best, cheapest and quickest Japanese sushi and soup ever.. good stuff. Then Jill went home to sleep off the rest of her cold, and I took an hour and walked from the East Village back home to the West Village. It was good, cause it was a great warm night out, and I got to listen to a good portion of this amazing audio book I am listening to… it’s called “The River of Doubt : Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey” by Candice Millard, and it’s about Theodore Roosevelt’s 1913 journey down the Amazonian River of Doubt with his son Kermit and a group of Brazilains. It’s super fantastic, and there’s a ton of stuff about natural history, rainforest ecology, presidential history, and adventure! I would defininetly recommend you read it or listen to it asap. (the abridged audiobook is available on amazon.com, but I would recommend, if you’re doing the audiobook thing, to get the unabridged version, available on the iTunes music store, and at audible.com)
So back to my walk. It was good, and as I approached 6th avenue, I walked through a giant mob on the sidewalks on the fray between Greenwich Village and the West Village. It was such a nice night, I guess everyone was just hanging out on the sidewalk… Refreshing. It kind of reminded me of living in Spain and going to Plaza Einstein to Botellon. (Although it’s a little difficult getting ahold of 29 Cent “Slap Naranja” in the West Village).
Saturday was moderately uneventful. I slept till 2 or so. (I stayed up late Friday night installing Ubuntu Linux on an old computer. I know, I’m super cool etc) After doing a few errands etc, I went to babysit a little, made some cash money, then went home to sleep for the race today.
Hmm, I feel like writing dry summaries of my weekends is kind of lame and old, but that’s pretty much what I’ve got so far.
Coming up, though, should hopefully be slightly more action packed… I’m going to Florida for the weekend next weekend, and its a distant possibility that I will be going to M3 the following weekend. We’ll see how that goes and if I can swing the plane tickets and accommodations. Oh, and the missing work. Right….
The birthday situation went well! The place was packed, and we had a fantastic dinner, and then drinks! Thanks so much to everyone who made it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1MBAQouSwY
Thanks to Juliette for accidentaly taking this video!
Packed into Good World, we had a lot of fun, drank a bit, and enjoyed the excelente DJ, who was playing, among others, Arrested Development, Carl Craig, and Haul & Oates…
my 24th Birthday party at Good World bar nyc… super ultra sparkler birthday candle, with Elea and Juliette and Chiris next to me, and Jill’s flourless chocolate cake next to the sparkler
This weekend, I chilled in Washington DC… Saw Jason and Chris, went to the Smithsonian, Eighteenth Street Lounge, mopped, etc.. good, relaxing weekend. You might also note that I’m very into space and NASA and the Apollo program. If you look closely at the photo, you’ll notice I’m holding a Fisher AG-7 Space Pen, the pen that the Apollo astronauts used in spaceflight (for example, in the actual capsule in back of me, in space!). The pen is still used on all spaceflights today, and is in orbit in the ISS right now. And finally, for halloween ’04, I actuanlly dressed up as a Apollo 11 Mission Controller, complete with historically accurate ID badge.
>Listening to: Weezer – Make Believe
Ahh, back to the good ole blog.. i suppose i’ve been at this long enough. I was just listening to a nifty NPR podcast on blogging, and how its invaded our lives.. Diane Montane of morning edition was reading a story about a couple who would live their lives together through their blogs. Intense and a little overboard, i think. However it is pretty cool to have friends with blogs…and a little stressfull sometimes. With a few of my friends, it feels like before we hang out or talk, we both have to read eachothers blogs, just to catch up on the latest news. A time or two i’ve said things to my friend like “oh hey, how did that trip you were going on turn out” and the first response will be somethine like “oh come on, didnt you allready read about that online”. Yeah, pushing it, but its still an interesting cultural phenomenon.
That being said, most of the blogs i read daily nowadays are tech and news blogs.. Gizmodo, Engadget, Slashdot, BoingBoing, DIGG, and the Mars Exploration Rover blog.
In other news…. work is going ok.. one deal just fell through, but there are many more coming down the line, so hopefully a couple will pan out and i’ll be able to stop relying on my rapidly deminishing savins account for rent. To suppliment my non-income, I took back some of my duties at Takeout Marketing, doing the college radio promo, helping with mailings, etc. Not a lot of money, but its nice to stay in the industry, and to help friends out. I’m also still helping people out with computers and tech stuff, so if you need help, call me!
Valentines day, although generally cheesey and commercial, was good. Got nice gifts from my mother and sister. Also went over to Juliette’s house for a little get together cocktail party type deal. Oh and today all the chocolate is on sale, fantastic. (hmm… i really wanted that valentines day blurb to have more “edge” and “spin”, but i’m running late and rushed now, so the creativity and wit is gonna have to wait…)
Ok so i’m outta here..
>
Listening to: Nicola Conte – Bossa Per Due
Ok, i just gotta post this link.. these are some of the most bizarre commercials I’ve seen, by the man himself, Don Hertzfeldt…
From Wikipedia: “Don Hertzfeldt (born August 1, 1976) is the creator of many short animated films. These films typically feature hand-drawn stick figures acting out combinations of slapstick and black humor along with heavier existential themes. Hertzfeldt creates all of his films using traditional animation techniques, without the aid of computers. This lends a more organic feel to his works, most evident in occasional stop-motion photography sequences (as in Intermission in the Third Dimension), as well as in the use of the celluloid and drawing mediums themselves as part of the visuals (as in Rejected).”
>Listening to: Silverchair – Frogstomp
Ok ok, so to wrap up the year and the whole “holiday season” type situaton, I went home to Ohio to spend some time with family and friends. I came back to the city just in time for new years. I’m trying flickr for the first time here, so hopefully the pics will work… Check out the new years photo set here. More soon…
>Listening to: Radio1190
Fantastic tool for making your own subway signs! (Link)
First!
Listening to: Radio1190
Fantastic tool for making your own subway signs! (Link)
First!
Listening to: The Crystal Method – Vegas
Ok, so I ran out to the Verizon store.. even took a cab there. Bought the new razr v3c, and tried it out. DISAPPOINTMENT. Ok so the phone is super cool and sleek and lightweight etc. However there were a few things that prevented me from adopting it. It’s a bit outdated in terms of physical functionality nowadays.. no mem card slot, no headphone jack. The keypad wasn’t quite as textured as I would like it to be… When using it in a dark room, I had to actually look at the keys to see what I was pressing. I’m a little more used to feeling it out and navigating with a little more tactile feedback from the keyboard. (like Das Keyboard!). But the main thing that killed the razr v3c for me was the speed of the UI. Now, the Verizon UI that their putting on all their new phones nowadays isn’t all bad. It’s on my LG VX7000, and once you get to know it, its good.. a bit simplistic, but good. So besides the crippled bluetooth, I didn’t mind the Verizon ui on the Razr. However, it was S-L-O-W! To search for and dial a number in my phonebook, I could hit the key sequence before the phone could even switch from the home screen! I would hit the contacts and then the first 2 letters of my contacts name and then send, and 5 seconds later you would see the phone quickly flip through the screens and then freeze for another second or two, and then dial the number. Not good. This lag was consistent throughout the whole UI. Scrolling through menus, there would be a slight lag on the response, so you would often pass the line you want to select in a list. It was also quite annoying having that lag when switching ringers, ringtones etc. Also, V-cast. Although I thought the vcast service was pretty cool, when watching videos, even when I have full reception, the razr drops frames left and right, and unsyncs the audio. It feels like its having trouble rendering the video in time or something.
I returned the razr to the store the next day, and talked with a tech about it. He said that yeah, the razr is slow, and they might fix it with a firmware update.. but it might be a while, because most people don’t really notice the slow ui.
Guess I’ll just wait for another good one…
Listening to: Medeski Martin & Wood – Combustication
***UPDATED!!***
Ok, so here are some cool gadgets etc that I’ve been eyeing lately.. you could call it my holiday gift guide…
– Insulated Thermos. Yeah, one with a sealing lid and a lit that tunrs into a cup.. i like the kind of slender ones they sell at starbucks.. but maybe with a cooler logo on it or something. No glass liner, either.. breaks too easily.
-40 inch LCD tv. Perfect to hang on the exposed brick wall in my studio. I hear the that panasonic got pretty good reviews.. Also, must be able to do 1080i with hdmi, ideally 1080p.
-Sony Playstation 3. Yeah so, i’m pretty much trying to boycott sony nowadays, given all their drm shit, atrac3 stupid codecs, proprietary connectors etc, but the PS3 is going to be sweet when it comes out, complete with a bluray drive.
-Shure e4c sound isolating headphones. I’ve been wanting a pair of these super high quality headphones for a while… perfect for blocking out noise on the subway, compact for travel, accurate sound for critical listening.
-“Professional” shoulder bag. Something small and sleep, with a handle and strap to carry to work every day and keep work papers in. I believe some people call that a “briefcase”. Hmm…
–Fisher Space Pen. Ok, so I actually allready use one of these, but I think it would be cool to have the acutall model of the pen that the Astronauts on the Apollo Missions, and all other manned space missions after that use.. Also, the “Cap-o-matic” style is cool, and a little cheaper.. perhaps teh matte black all metal military model?
-Leather Bound travel atlas. I was in this super ultra mega cool store called “Flight 001” last night. They sell all sorts of super yip, cool travel gadgets and accessories. I saw this small pocket sized world atlas that looked pretty cool (along with everything else in there)
More to come…
Listening to: Deep Channel – Afro Celt Soundsystem
Erg.. mgn, you might have been right about the razr v3c.. the UI is super slow, the vcast streaming video is choppy, media support not so great, start up time is slow, outside screen is dim, non transflective lcd etc… but i’m giving it another day before i completely write it off..
In any case, el weekendo was good, relaxing. Saw Syriana with Lauren, which was fantastic, and then met up with Michael et al (including Judy… fantastic!). Also, we were all given the privelege of seeing Lauren take a shot of gravy! umm…
Listening to: Trans-Siberian Orchestra – Wizards in Winter
Ahh, I really love this cold weather we’re having… good to bundle up and walk around in and check out cracked frozen puddles and snow banks and snow on roofs etc.. its fantastic. And I finally broke down and bought a scarf for this season. So the winter wear for NYC is a lot different than Boulder… no more Mountain Hardwear fleece jackets and montrail gore tex shoes.. now its wool “topcoats” and wool “trousers”.. although i’ve been secredly wearing my north face long underwear under my “trousers” and waffle weave long sleeve under my dress shirts….
Ok, time for sleep.. broker convention tomorrow morning at 8:15 am… early.
And yes, i’m still considering that Razr, which is hitting shelves on monday. Along the same lines, my “holiday gift guide” will be online soon.. stay tuned.
Listening to: Natural Selections Vol 1 by DJ Jesse Mann
Ok, while in the Brooklyn museum of art the other night with Shannon, I saw the lomo super sampler and lomo fisheye cameras in the gift shop.. super uber mega cool.. i want one of each! or just a dslr camera with a cool fisheye lens…
This weekend was quite eventfull, including triple crown, spirit, walkin round soho, and lots of sleep. Even though i dodnt really have any incredible stories or anything, i’m posting anyway.. i think i need to start posting more regularly, even if they are not “ultra super mega posts” like ive been doing lately.
The Razr for verizon is coming out in a week, and i think i’m definetly going to get it, despite the v3i will be out is the gsm flavor soon… its frusturating that verizon is a good 9 months behind cingular in terms of releasing new cool phones. They chalk it up to “reliability testing”. Puh.
Last thing, saturday night i was walking home from the L train in the west village at around 3:30 am sunday morning, and i got to see the first snowfall of the year in nyc start! it was amazing! Now i just have to get up to the mountains!
Ok and for the link… check out the new amazon maps.. they have incedible pictures of all the streets in selected citites.. creepy… Amazon Block Maps
>
Listening to: Sunset West – I Can’t Think Straight
Ok, so a lots been going on lately. I think the most effective way to cover stuff is just going to be to post random photos and write a little about them. Soo……
I was in Century 21, an excellent discount department store the other day buying socks etc, and got to see security tackle and beat the crap out of this guy who bolted for the door.. it was a pretty intense situation, especially since the place was packed, and the guy was struggling a lot…
Last week, Jeff, Genna and I went out to meet some of Genna’s friends for karaoke in Little Italy.. its was fun, and kind of weird… the bar we were in was apparently some sort of historical landmark, and had all these pictures of Italian gangsters etc hanging out there over 90 years ago. And there we were, drinking PBR and singing karaoke on plasma screens.. I bet nobody in the 30’s expected their beloved hangout to stoop to such levels for our fleeting amusement. But i guess business is business, and they did seem to have a pretty decent crown in there. In this photo, as you can see, Julie and I are singing along to 5th Dimensions “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In”, a deceptively complicated song from the late 60’s.
Moving on…
Ah yes, Jacob is now in Switzerland. The other day Sarah, Jacob and Charles came into the city to enjoy the rain etc… we ended up going to the natural history museum for a few hours, which was incredibly cool, as usual. I always love going to that place, especially the dinosaur area and the mineral hall.. they have a couple super cool pieces of Amazonite and Rodocrosite (although not as cool as the star specimen in the Coors Mineral hall in Denver, CO). Also, in meteor area, they have a neat display talking about how atmospheric resistance on entry causes the dimple like pattern on the outside of the meteorites….its cool cause they look almost exactly like the dimples on a golf ball…coincidence? I think not. (Perhaps i shouldn’t be so fascinated with this since i graduated the 3rd grade a number of years ago.. but whatever, its still cool). Also on display is a super neato Ventifact from Antarctica, the highest, coldest, windiest, harshest continent on earth. A ventifact, as the name implies, is a rock that’s been carved and eroded by wind.
The next morning, after kicking Sarah, Jacob and Charles out of my apartment(we had gone drinking after the museum the day before), I was picked up by Jill and Jesse and the three of us drove out to Barton Orchards to do some apple picking. When we got there, not only did we pick delicious apples, but we also took fun pictures, took a hay ride, ate doughnuts, and listened to the incredible musical talents of THE HOT ROD BAND! Also, there were all sorts of cool apple crates everywhere, which I really liked taking pictures of.. I don’t know what it is about these crates, but I like them. I found similarly cool apple crates the week before while apple picking in Ohio.
Ok, Gilles Peterson. Incredible. As I was coming home from dinner with a friend, I passed Canal Room and remembered that my favorite DJ in the whole world, Gilles Peterson was playing there, and that the party was sponsored by my old record label. So I called up Mimi (whom I used to work with) and she came out and brought me through the huge line and into the club immediately. Its good to have connections. Anyway, Gilles’ set was AMAZING, and the whole place was packed. And I might have even danced. A little. Maybe. To give you an idea of the atmosphere, check out this VIDEO CLIP. Its dark and the audio clips, but its better than nothing.
And finally, Wonderwoman. Last Sunday Charles and I hit up the Digital Life convention at the Javits Center. Its an annual convention for consumer electronics.. more of a showcase than convention.. its always fun to go check out what’s new and stuff. Anyway, Charles and I were standing on line waiting to get tickets, when both Flash Gordon and Wonderwoman came up to us. Naturally, we focused on wonderwoman, and she was truly wonderful. We chatted for a second, and then i was lucky enough to get a novelty style photo with her. Yadda Yadda, she’s in a rock band and is really cool.
So that’s pretty much what’s been going on lately. Now, amidst all this, you might wonder how i am funding all this and what I’m doing during the day. The answers are I don’t know and Nothing. Since moving to the oh-so-posh west village, I’ve been paying incredible amounts of rent etc. I think the going out to eat for every single meal has something to do with it too. Also, I’m in the process of job hunting. I stopped working at Giant Step a month ago. This was actually an extremely hard decision to make. They weren’t really paying me very much there, and I felt like my job was kind of an intern type job, but with nowhere to move within the company any time soon. However, Giant Step happens to be one of the coolest companies I’ve ever worked for… their market, music, and most importantly employees are top notch and super cool… so it was always fun and excitement working there, its just that the money I was paid for the amount of time I spent there just wasn’t cutting it. So I’ve been hunting around for a while now, and currently, I’m planning on diving into the real estate industry. I feel excited about it, and have a good deal of backing from my family and friends… and some in-family experience to help me along. Presently, I’m considering two different job offers, and I hope to make my decision and start work sometime next week. But its still going to be a sketchy operation. The way this whole real estate brokerage industry works is on commission. That means that I will have no salary, I’ll only get paid when I make a deal. I’ve been told to expect to make absolutely nothing in at least my first year.. scary, but the potential reward its intense, so I hope its worth it.
Whew, long post, but I needed to get all that done. Thanks so much for reading all the way to the bottom, and please please, leave me a comment!
Media and trip report from Sailing and Scuba Diving in the British Virgin Islands
THE PHOTOS!. (Out of over 500 pics I took on the trip.)
VIDEO RMS Rhone…
-Exploring the RMS Rhone Shipwreck…Great classic wreck dive. We went down in about 70 feet of water and found the Rhone. Its the classic wreck dive in the western hemisphere, and i can see why. Swiming through the hull was incredible, and seeing the intact crows nest on the mast was pretty cool too.
VIDEO Captains tour of the Jorvik
-Indeed. Our feareless captain sean gives you a tour around our ship, the Jorvik. Although we all slept on deck every night, Zac and Jesse were in the starboard aft, Sean and I were port aft, and Dyana and Stephanie were in the bow. I shot it on our last day of the trip, as we were cleaning up in port etc….
VIDEO Sailing along…
-Making adjustments to the sails to tack our boat in reasonably strong winds.. its intense, especially on a close haul because the ship heels over a ton.
VIDEO Stephanie exploring The Baths
-Yes, the baths were beautiful. After exploring the rock formations, we made our way out to the beach and swam in the turquoise water for a while.
VIDEO Scuba Diving at night
-Video shot during a dive at about 11pm at night in the British Virgin Islands. The lights on our tanks are those “snap to activate” rave-style chemical light sticks.. great to have since you don’t have to worry about them failing in the middle of a dive, where having a light is absolutely critical.. even for knowing which way is up…. since its like being weightless underwater, without having a point of reference (the ground, surface, bubbles floating up), its easy to get disoriented and not know which way to swim to the surface… scary. But the night diving is super cool.. saw some fun stuff down there at night, including weird worms that explode every few seconds.
VIDEO Diving on twin shipwrecks
-Exploring two shipwrecks side by side lying in about 80 -90 feet of water…
Maple Longarms, the Travelbug Sean and I found in the Geocache we located on Anegada
Finally, Sean posted a great trip report on TravelTalkOnline.com …. a great travel site. I’m just copying and pasting the text from his report into my blog, but you can check out the actual thread on the site HERE, complete with user comments.
Seans trip report:
For this trip we chartered a Moorings 473. Really enjoyed some of the features on this boat in comparison to what we’ve had in the past. In particular, the front-loading fridge, and the shore power A/C was a nice luxury that we haven’t had in the past (although we only used it for our evening start in Road Town and one other night at Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor).
Despite the otherwise excellent condition of the boat, we did run into a problem towards the end of our charter when the alternator died on us. Turns out a leaky fitting in the engine compartment had allowed saltwater to enter the alternator, coroding it over time. The leak was observable only when the engine was running, so I didn’t notice it despite my daily checks of the engine compartment. In the future I think I will be certain to open the compartment from all sides a few times with the engine running just to be certain there are no leaks or other obvious problems, something that I have not felt obligated to do on chartered boats in the past.
The alternator failure caused us to change around our plans for one day, but Moorings customer service was quick to respond to the problem and brought a new alternator out to our boat early the next morning, getting us back on our way.Other than the alternator issue, we had an awesome and pretty much flawless trip. We visited The Bight, Savannah Bay, Bitter End, Anegada, Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor, Cane Garden Bay, Little Harbor on Jost (had planned on going to Great Harbor, but this is where the alternator died and nobody felt like trying to manually operate the anchor windlass), and Key Bay on Peter Island (maybe my favorite anchorage in the BVI except for Anegada). We usually arrived late (5 or 6 pm) after a late start and a full day of sailing and diving, and we never had a problem getting a mooring ball or finding a spot to anchor. I really enjoy sailing this time of year. Nothing is too crowded, but most places also haven’t closed down for the season just yet. Yes it is hot, but by no means unbearable when you’re on the water, and the water itself was incredibly warm (between 86 and 88 degrees everywhere!). Best of all, you can get some great deals this time of year. For us, 6 people in our early and mid 20s, we would have been hard pressed to afford this trip at most other times of the year.
With the 6 of us all being scuba divers, this is the first year we decided to ditch the rendezvous diving and rent our own tanks instead. This worked perfectly, and we will definitly be doing it again in the future. UBS delivered our tanks and gear to the Moorings, helped us set up the tank racks, and gave us a very handy list of GPS coordinates for dive site mooring balls. With our own tanks on board we were able to dive almost every day, and we saved a ton of money considering the fact that tank fills only cost between $3 and $8 at most places. Diving highlights were the Rhone (never gets old), the Marie L and Pat, and a surprisingly interesting night dive right under the boat in Savannah Bay. We didn’t make it out to the Chikuzen (my favorite dive in the BVI) on this trip because of weather concerns on that day, but we dove the Visibles instead (off one of the Dogs, can’t remember which) and found this to be an interesting dive as well (although there was a LOT of current near the surface). Diving off a monohull is a bit of a challenge to begin with, particularly with so many people all trying to gear up at once in the cockpit, but it wasn’t so bad once we got used to it, and the freedom definitly made it worth it. Check out this video of our swimthrough of the Rhone bow shot by my buddy Jeff.
A few other notable items. Purchased the Garmin Bluecharts before our trip and enjoyed playing around with these on my handheld GPS, although we found that in places (particularly the Anegada entrance channel) the Bluecharts were entirely inaccurate and would have landed us in some trouble if we’d followed them directly. They are a nice tool, but always cross reference paper charts and your own observations if you are trying to do serious navigation. On the up side, we were able to use my GPS to locate Walker’s geocache along the north shore of Anegada (a short walk from Loblolly). This was my first experience with geocaching and it was actually a lot of fun. Will have to try it again next time down.
Also, the condition of NPT as well as overnight mooring balls seems to have improved overall since our last trip. I don’t know if we just got lucky this time around or an effort has actually been made to address this problem. Some are still in very sorry shape.
We did not provision in advance and instead walked in to Road Town on our first night to purchase provisions from Bobby’s. This worked well, and by asking around in the store we were able to get a discount as well as a free ride back to the Moorings base.
That’s about all I’ve got for now. I’ll try and post again with some more thoughts soon. Already planning our next adventure…we can’t wait to get back!
Sean
Listening to: The Sea and Cake – One Bedroom
Hooah, busy busy busy… Looking for a new apartment, looking for another job, getting ready to go to the BVI next week, going to some cool shows. More soon, i’ve got so much cleaning to do tonight… Ack!
Oh, and Jason (my brother) just left to go backpacking in Alaska for a month.. wish him luck!
Listening to: The Herbaliser – Take London
