You’ve probably seen them, they’re in a number of shops; multiple locales rendered in wood, behind glass. Rusty and I have always looked at them but never bought them. We didn’t have wall space, and couldn’t agree on which one to buy anyway. There’s one of Puget Sound, and of the San Juan Islands, and of the Salish Sea, and … well, how do you choose? They have lots of them, from all over the States, even the Caribbean.
The Puget Sound Chart
Readers of this blog are likely painfully aware that I am not a wordsmith. Some folks can make words dance on a page. They spin an eloquent yarn that has the ability to hypnotize the reader. That’s not me. I can, however, given enough time and luck, make a decent photograph. That’s the limit of my talent.
So I was surprised when the editor of Sea Magazine contacted us about doing an article for their magazine. He had found us through our little blog.
Spammers. Proof that everything created for good can be used for evil.
While our little blog sees a couple hundred visitors on an average day, we receive thousands of comments. Most relate to designer shoes, handbags, fake designer sunglasses, and other junk in several different languages. And of course porn. Most originate from the foreign countries (many IP addresses from China). Oddly, most are targeted at one particular post from last year. Recently, the number of these comments has been ratcheting up to the point that the server can’t handle the load. Performance has frequently been slow. 95% of recent traffic to the server was comment spam bots. We’ve tried many things to stop this traffic. We’ve modified the firewall configuration and blocked IP addresses. We have added a little captcha confirmation to the comment submission process in the hope that only a real person can submit a comment. We’ve even deleted the target post. (I don’t think anyone will miss it.)
Hopefully we have resolved the problem for now and we can get back to post our usual exciting and informative content.
Actually, it’s quadcopter. A DJI Phantom 2 Vision + quadcopter. It shoots stills and hi def video.
We took the new toy with us on our recent visit to the Gulf Islands. Here’s a collection of short clips I put together from the trip. Watch it full screen!
OK. I know this is a bit late. So let’s roll the wayback machine back a couple weeks and pretend this post is timely. We just returned from two weeks in the Gulf Islands. We had such a great time that I didn’t keep the blog updated while we were on our voyage.
I’ve known Bruce for over 45 years now. We met in elementary school. Despite this, he foolishly agreed to come along with us for a week in the Gulf Islands. I had envisioned a week of indentured servitude where we (he) would get a bit of work done around the boat. Kim, on the other hand, thought we should let him participate in the relaxation and fun. Sadly, she won. That was probably good for Bruce, but the projects are still undone.
Here’s a short video from the 2014 Grand Banks rendezvous in Roche Harbor shot by Ian McGhie from Stan Miller Yachts.
We just acquired one of these drone thingies. A DJI Phantom 2 Vision Plus. I hope to shoot some great video before I accidentally sink it.
Johnny and Robin, friends from California are looking for a boat to buy. We thought it would be nice to invite them up for a long weekend and show them how just how fantastic boating around Seattle can be.
Johnny and Robin have chartered in both the San Juan and Gulf Islands. Their last adventure was aboard a Nordic Tug 42. So they are familiar with Northwest boating. We wanted to show them some of the sites, how we use our boat, and just generally have a great time on the water.
