Presentation

A couple of pics from the presentation. Scary stuff - in one of the most spectacular rooms I've ever been in. http://www.nyyc.org/gui/nyyc1/uploadedfiles/panoramas/panoramas_44/04model_rm4800_qt.htm  The other people - on the left, Bob Drewe, past commodore, Alessandro diBenedatto (truly legendary sailor who we were talking to down near the Kerguelens as he circumnavigated in his tiny boat) and Sheila McCurdy, Commodore of the CCA. Wow!

And properly rigged in the rain outside the clubhouse in central New York. Thanks to Dan Nerney - legendary photographer - for the photo!

Berrimilla's Teapot

Off to New York next week and then over to Nome for a nostalgic Consultation with Pat Hahn and perhaps an expedition by snowmobile out on to the sea ice to cross Berri's July 4th 2008 track into Nome and take some photos for the blog. Once in a lifetime eerie feeling. Here's the NY gig  http://www.cruisingclub.org/awards/awards_bluewater.htm

Over the last month, I've been removing the green salty stuff from Berrimilla's elegant teapot, possibly the only teapot in history to have circumnavigated via both Cape Horn and the North West Passage.  Then I polished it to within an inch if its life and had it appropriately engraved with its story. And last Friday, I rose to my back legs and showed a few slides to the worthy people at the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron. At the end of the gig, we auctioned the teapot in aid of CanTeen, Berri's favourite charity. For the impressive sum of $1995, it now has a new home, on another boat chasing a Dream. May they all travel in harmony together and have lots of tea and many more adventures.

On behalf of CanTeen, special thanks to P & V for their generosity.

More garden wildlife

A St Andrew's Cross spider - harmless and gorgeous. About 3cm across.

Sydney - Hobart start pics

In case anyone is interested

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/10781104/1/S2H%202010?h=9ccda9

For the first time in about 20 years, we watched it from the sidelines...

Snow!

I'm in London working with the Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation www.rccpf.org.uk on a guide for Arctic and Northern Waters - absolutely fascinating and some real sailing legends here too. And it's snowing in London....http://picasaweb.google.com/alex1whit/SnowInLondon#

This one is Green Park a couple of days ago...http://picasaweb.google.com/alex1whit/GreenPark#

Wow!

I received the following email a couple of weeks ago and I have permission to post it here. Scary stuff, and it couldn't have happened without the generous and enthusiastic support of all y'all out there. Thanks for a great ride!

Lists are tricky but very special thanks to Pete, McQ, Kimbra, Steves J. and W., Speedy and Malcolm, Leroy Chiao and Pascal Lee.

Hello Alex,

It is my distinct pleasure to inform you that the Board of Directors of The Cruising Club of America have voted to award you the 2010 Blue Water Medal, "for a most meritorious example of seamanship". The award will be made at our annual dinner at the New York Yacht Club on March 4th 2011. We are prepared to provide transportation and accomodations. I need your regular mailing address so that I might send a more formal letter, and it would help if you could provide me with a telephone number for reaching you.

Congratulations! and Well Done!

Bob Drew, Chair, Awards Comm.

www.cruisingclub.org

The Arthur C. Clarke greenhouse

It's getting cold and dark up there. Thanks Keith for the link.

http://www.spaceref.com/gallery/greenhouse1.html

More wildlife

A Huntsman in the letter box - also gorgeous, but shy and harmless.

And a Kookaburra at sunset.

Sydney wildlife

A redback spider - gorgeous beast with a nasty bite (treat with an ice pack to solidify the venom). This one is big, about 25mm across - she was inside the spout of the little watering jug and I disturbed her when I filled it.

And a lizard on a rock beside the harbour, about 40 cm long.

Look who's in town

Ably assisted by the good Dr Cooper.

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/alex1whit/AProperConsultation#

And another

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11172543

We were dodging sandbars as we passed close to Gjoa Havn. It seems this tanker was on a routine supply trip to the local communities.

Onya!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/sailing/7966301/Ellen-MacArthur-I-cant-live-with-the-sea-any-more.html

Nice day in the Arctic

Here's the latest webcam image of the greenhouse and Berrimilla's rock.

http://yfrog.com/gi8otoj

The Arthur C. Clarke greenhouse

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/08/27/mars-greenhouse-arctic.html

Donated by Keith's company, SpaceRef and built by Keith and Marc, SpaceRef geniuses...

Murphy

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/08/29/north-cruise-ship-stranded.html?ref=rss

Some HMP links and other stuff

I've been chastised for neglecting the blog - sorry, been in the wilds of Brisbane sitting in on a Marine Watchkeepers' course playing with fire, amongst other things.

Here are the links to things happening at HMP and the Mars Institute.

http://www.marsonearth.org/

http://www.marsonearth.org/2010/07/

http://www.marsonearth.org/multimedia/gh-webcam1.html   You can see Berrimilla's rock to the right of the ridge on the horizon above the greenhouse - cool! The wind turbines on the poles are the same as we used on Berrimilla.

For the ride home, I found a copy of Michael Collins' book 'Carrying the Fire' (NY, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux) reissued in 2009 for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. Beautifully written and evocative. Hard to believe that those three guys are all 80 this year.

Opposites

http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/contenthandler.cfm?id=2232

Courtesy of Dale Andersen, who was one of the people in the bar in Baton Rouge at the genesis of Berri's NW Passage gig.
 
The other end of the world -HMP's John Schutt and the Resolute Twotters are all going down there in September. Envy! The Twotters fly down from Resolute and across Drake Passage from Punta Arenas (I think) and the pole - what a ride

Two days out from tomorrow

I'm sitting under a tree about 100 metres from the building at the centre of the old Naval Air Station at Moffett Field where the Admiral once had his office. There's a big flagpole with the Stars and Stripes and it's a glorious day – just a bit of misty haze that filters the deep blue of the sky. I'm hanging around for a couple of hours before my lift to the airport and my flight back to Sydney – the redeye that leaves at 2250 and arrives on the other side of the dateline at 0610 after adding a day to the date.

 The contrast is extraordinary. The stark, bleakly indifferent ice age landscape on Devon Island with its savage beauty and its tiny wonderfully adapted wild flowers, its damp fog and its  cloudbase that blends with your consciousness, the occasional sunshine through the exhilarating clarity of an almost unpolluted atmosphere – and the silence so deep that you can hear it – these things don't live in the same world as the crimson rose and the rampant daisies beside me. Yet they do – and that's the point – Mars (almost) on Earth.

 A memorable three weeks rounded off yesterday by dinner with Pascal's asteroid team who are developing a plan to land humans on an asteroid and do some science….

And there I was interrupted  in full  hyperbolic tilt by a text from Pascal requiring me to front the Medical Review Board, Dr Cooper himself, no less. Noice!

And now I'm at SFO airport having spent a significant dollop of tolerance and an hour convincing the United check in staff that I am actually booked on my flight – I suspected that my earlier euphoria was premature and so it was. But I have a boarding pass - we'll see if it gets me on the plane!

 I will try to summarise the 2010 HMP program in my next. Meantime all the photos are now on the website – just follow the earlier link.

More photos

http://picasaweb.google.ca/alex1whit

Today, DV & WP - C130 to Vancouver, then to Moffett Field tomorrow. Oh Joy - United have changed my ticket (and waived the fee!!) to allow me to fly back to Sydney from SFO.

Would be a real blast if the weather is clear and we can retrace some of Berrimilla's track from two years ago on the way to Yellowknife.

Resolute! Thanks all round.

By the skin of our teeth as it were. Rescued by a Government Inspector, no less, who blew in in an empty aircraft to do a routine inspection and lifted the 7 of us who have to get somewhere else urgently out of HMP. Thanks!

Sad to leave the Crater - a very special week with some very special people out in the boonies. Thanks Pascal and all y'all on the project.

And thanks to Steve J, who, I understand, has cleaned up the website  yet again while I fiddled in the background.

I now must do a search for flights that will get me to the Church aka Ottawa Airport on time. Complicated as I have to decide where to get off the C130 and I don't yet know when we will leave tomorrow.

If I can keep my eyes open after that, I will put the rest of my photos on picasa.