Always take the big kite
Two identical boats went out for the Disney themed opening ceremony sail past. Mine and the other one with just a main and a mini mouse helium balloon on the forestay.We had main, Jib and a masthead asymmetric spinnaker in board. I didn't actually expect .....
The worst keyboard IN THE WORLD.
Ok so that’s probably a lie. Logi. I’d google what fucked up tat vendor that they are, but If do that I’ll get their terrible products will get AIed at me.They might be riffing on Logitech they might be Logitech (edit when looking for pics they .....
If you can read this the beer fell off
Rick fell off my boat, like many before him. He blames me for this as at the time I was trying to get the lid off a water bottle when we found a big hole in a gusty 20kn sou'easter. He gave me a nice camelback style water backpack with a dinking .....
The boys are back (time at the bar please)
I haven't watched much of Jeremy Clarkson's Farm. Despite watching Top Gear and the Grand Tour which has absolutely categorically come to an end. One of the bits I did watch consisted of him failing, expensively, at something or other and saying "I guess .....
Why so surprised by Trump?
Why is everyone so surprised by Trump doing exactly what we thought he was going to do? I mean project 2025 had much of his domestic agenda in writing, it didn't have that it would be Elon, some kids and chainsaw actually doing it, but the Elon was not a .....
S.A.D.
I know its not possible to get Seasonal Effective Disorder in week. But the cold feet, the news (Trump blowjobbing Putin) and the weather are getting to me. I was in Sedbergh a few years back in the best summer they have ever had and you can see how .....
Uuuurgn (Definition)
Uuuurgnv. Uuuurgned, Uuuurgn·ing, Uuuurgnsv.intr.1. To exhale a gurgle after realising that a horrific plane journey by air is over but that you are now at Heathrow.2. The Expression on the Air Hostesses face as she looks out the window at .....
SailGP needs to work on its green credentials
Sail GP makes a lot of claims about single use plastics. However its OK with plastic tat and I'll be generous here "double use" plastics.By that I mean (alert first world problem) people arriving at the main spectator event in Sydney had any disposable .....
What happend to the SCITE installer?
They're used be one with a night right click "edit with SCITE" in a new window / tab button. it was handy because SCITE is a build it yourself from source kind of project I think who ever made it has left the internet - .....
Oh my god its full of Fascists
I went on twitter to say goodbye, a mate made me sign up to Blue Sky - and was greeted by some heavy propaganda, it appears Elon's idea of free speech comes pretty much from Joseph Goebbels. Along with his hand gestures. I mean these people are supposed .....
Mid Tier Capture card (some ads do get to me)
Long ago I blogged about a $20 capture card off Amazon * - which is chuffing better than either of EXPESIVE named brand ones. I re fanboyed about it a few weeks back. Having just used it for rugby. But it would not caput sound (known issue with .....
Advertising scams on facebook
Does Facebook / Meta realize that pausing on their crap means I have shit eyesight not that I am engaging with the content? I'm sure I am not the only one who wonders how dumb advertisers are to dump all that money on Facebook? I am sure that .....
Live Stream Sports 2025
I did how to stream the rugby a while back. last one was OK:Now I've had an ammo box full of batteries an adapter for my drill batteries to a bump voltage regulator various Elgarto Game capture USB's a cheap Wifi HDMI to h264 encoder (bad) a .....
When did the internet get shit
Well B3ta.com is sill going so there's that but so far my aims for xmass were:order some parts for a 3.5hp TohatsuGet a new Therapy T shirtGet a new Hinano Shirt.Find a Nepalese style shirtFind a Polynesian print style t-shirtGet some replacement .....
Google Search is Shit
Remember the bad old days? lycos, webcralwer and so on then along came google and smashed them? Those days are gone, I have switched to Duck Duck Go, not for privacy reasons but because google is shit. "People also ask" - not only is .....
Social Distancing is ot hard
OK I am in the UK. I'm not a conspiracy theorist - OK I am a conspiracy theorist, I'm just assuming that the deep state is lazy and doesn't bother with this site. I'm at Heathrow - the place if fucked the COVID test centre (which I .....
startOmatic(tm)
Replacing race officers with robots. It can’t be bargained with, it can’t be reasoned with, it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear, and it absolutely will not stop... Unless you use the switch on the back. This is running in .....
Where Have all the T-Shirts Gone?
My T-Shirts mostly came from Regattas, then free from South Darwin Rabbitohs. I got some custom boat shirts made a few years back they're glorious but I had to get 10+ I just tried some on line ones - $66 AUD for 3 shirts, two .....
Free as in Beer
To quote americas's cup .com "Every Match and race of the 36th America’s Cup presented by PRADA will be streamed live on Youtube, Facebook and americascup.com in almost every country around the world." which is true - for a given .....
The Lost Results of Darwin Sailing Club
The Darwin Sailing Club has a new website – its quite impressive actually. The video in the background should horrify me – the bandwidth! If I was .....
Well F*&% me....
IT worked. The "Portable Audio Video Capture Cards HDMI to USB 2.0 1080P 4K Record Via DSLR Camcorder Action Cam for High Definition Acquisition, Live Broadcasting (USB 2.0)​" off amazon for $20 bucks .....
On The subject of Elliott Sevens
My sailing club has 4 Elliott 7s – as in 7S, there is a plaque on each of them with an S. Not sure what it stands for. Its not “Sport” or shouldn’t be. An Elliott 7 (1991) is a Sportsboat – defined as there’s .....
Do not lock your keys in the back of the armored van
OK defiantly on holiday, airport security knows me - he used to do ATM security when I used to fix them. He or one of his colleagues is source of one of may favorite phrases "Don't lock your keys in the back of the armored van" which .....
Who asked for bird shit?
Someone for Talking Swahili came up with the Bird Shit idea, it wasn't me I was just doing what was asked. Apprenlty they're not keen. I'm proud! So here it is:
Hurrah for the blackshirts
Facebook slapped the assembled screenshot right in my face yesterday. Which I posted god knows how long ago. I assume it is their "anti fascist" filter I fell foul of. Frankly its not good enough It took FOREVER to .....
Rockville RPB25
You can buy loud Bluetooth Speakers You can buy Bluetooth Speakers with an SD card You can buy Waterporoof Bluetooth Speakers You can't buy one with all three features. The closest thing is Rockville RPB25 mine is over 2 years old and .....
OBS Remote (yes studio)
Sigh, I don't sit at a desk and I don't stream minecraft. Also I can build wifi and power supplies. Having a remotre control for OBS Studio would be handy and seems rather difficult to do. You need a 23.X OBS You need "OBS .....
The Fannie Bay Sea Monster.
It has many names – ground effect vehicle (GEV), wingship, but everyone calls them Ekranoplans. The Russian name. I recon the USSR earned the naming rights with a behemoth know in the west as the ‘Caspian Sea Monster’. If you fly .....
Onscreen display for Sailing
OK so the plan to WiFi stream from boats is coming on. I have some onscreen displays for OBS (Open Broadcast Studio) testing vid below: This is me and OBS testing the startOmatic on sceen display - background video of the Shaw .....
$30 Spinnaker Bag
“Pole Back” “hoist” “MADE” “sheet on” Spinnaker bag floats down forlornly to droop in the water, Adagio for Strings plays as the owner tearfully watches another bag sink beneath the waves. Obviously .....
Buttock Clenching Terror
Buttock Clenching Terror – Novice Helm round the sand bar. Boat owners are often nervous handing the helms of their preciousesesses (‘gollum) over to anyone one else. The addition of low tide, the sandbar and a mast head asymmetric can .....
Death of a Legend: Mourning Pain Shop Pro
Well I messed this post up. PaintShop Pro 9 no longer runs on win 10. damn.
Locked and Loaded
Ok I feel like I lit the blue touch paper and now have to see if it blows up in my face. I have a database full of Sailboat Races, and some and some pictures. I glued it together with spit and PHP and have released it upon the world. Its Cron Jobs are .....
How do you solve a problem like marina?
Ok that title gag is awful, and probably pommy and dated already. This is a Shaw 650, there are many like it, but this is mine. Now I've already done live streaming to YouTube and Facebook simultaneously, I've done it over mobile, last .....
Full Metal Jacket.
Some folks on Facebook will watch anything. God your lives must be dull. I even put up a "WARNING! streaming video testing" up first. if your not trying to answer the question can I stream .....
Now I can stream from a PI Zero.
This is the plan (as published on PierToPier.net) Last year we used Andromeda (a Farr 11 sailboat) + an inverter , a camera and a laptop to stream a match racing regatta. This year I plan to do better. Put two tiny raspberry .....
Rugby Union Youtube Scoreboard for live streaming
I've been live streaming to youtube with my Rugby Club and Sailing Club. I've re-built an app to put an onscreen display, scores and countdown timer on the screen. "How come the America's cup can't stream live but Darwin .....
How to Stream Rugby to You Tube
I'll fix the formatting of this at some point - try the PDF version How to Stream the Rugby Short Version: PHYSICAL: Camcorder to HDMI Lead to GameCapture Device to Laptop (microphone etc optional) VIRTUAL: GameCapture Drivers to .....
Cruft for Phones
the Tendency of PC's to accumulate "cruft" has been well documented see "State of Decay" Verity Stob's now venerable index to gauge PC decrepitude. Phones too can cruft. My Nexus 5 never achieved pristine levels of cruft, and .....
I have a dream
This is too long for a tweet or fb post so... I like big screen TV displays - in this a case its a raspberry Pi in my sailing club running Screenly, since, underneath its linux anything it can't do I probably can using its local install of .....
The Decline (and fall?) of Western Civilisation. Part one: credit.
Everyone knows that 2016 looks like being a disaster, and blame is being thrown around. I am afraid my confidence in the future and humanity is at an all time low. Lets look at where we are, where we are going how we got here. The Decline (and fall?) .....
AdBlue is not a solution
What happened to the KISS principal? Keep It Simple Stupid. I have recently discovered the indescribably poor solution to the problem that is Diesel Exhaust Fluid also known as AdBlue. To be honest it does make the Volkswagen emission scandal make more .....
What have the Romans ever done for us? (BREXIT)
A plea to the Brexit camp. In my personal case. The EU has: Subsidized my farm given me free health treatment in Portugal The Caribbean island of Bonaire (Dutch overseas dependency) French Polynesia. Allowed me to drive .....
Quasi Supernormal Incremental Precipitation Inducer
That's "Rain God" to you and me. It seems to me that the driest continent on earth is pretty wet. I'm being slightly unfair perhaps but this morning there were signs telling visitors they're was no water available due to drought. I .....
Death! Of! Yahoo!
Ok so its not actually dead yet, its zombified corpse has been lurching on for a decade or more. Don't get me wrong they've done well, they survived the dot com bubble, look at those around when it was young, AOL, Comcast, webcawler. .....
Facebook Birthdays Policy and Apology
Right: after some facebook embarrassment: I am like the queen*, I have a real birthday and a fake birthday. For some reason facebook had my real birthday, this is an oversight, the whole reason for having fake birthday is for people like .....
Who owns the Internet?
OK I still have some residual guilt over my recent militant ad blocking on the internet. To that end I keep reading up on it. Guilt is maybe not the right feeling. Sympathy is. I keep using the Guardian newspaper as an example. Its clear they're .....
Grrr outbrain
Outbrain on Wikipedia Grrr, sometime over xmass, outbrain managed to embed its self into both the Guardian and NT news mobile sites. In both cases it tricked me into clicking it.I thought I was getting and interesting article form a kosha site, .....
JVC KD-X320BT I bought Something - from a SHOP
I bought something new, and from a shop. You should be shocked, since I prefer secondhand off the net. I went into Repco* and bought the cheapest stereo in the place. I am genuinely impressed. Its cheaper than the list price of my old stereo, is .....
KD-X320BT
I bought something new, and from a shop. You should be shocked, since I prefer secondhand off the net. I went into Repco* and bought the cheapest stereo in the place. I am genuinely impressed. Its cheaper than the list price of my old stereo, is packed .....
Ode to Flash (NSFW)
Flash is dead, this is a good thing its a bloated, dangerous piece of junk used to make everyone internet advertising, video and gaming experience as unpleasant as possible. Oh god, flash games, Some people wrote some of the most successful but .....
Quit Whining - Online advertisers bleat and no one cares.
First the Music industry was running a cartel and then got exactly zero sympathy when piracy took off. A few years latter it was the movie industry bleating, DVD's region codes and their policy of suing kids so their parents paid off. The whole .....
death of a toyota
It wasn't the the best van in the the world, but this is a tribute The Van at Uluru (note the Protruding mattress and raised passenger seat, I was fixing it) My van is no more, there was no time to morn it, I had to get rid of it in .....
Opera is dead long live Opera
good news I don't like the new version of Opera (that's a browser)*, I did like the old version, in the days when MS was giving I.E. away for free I paid for Opera! Yes Paid for an internet browser. I'm not alone, it seems that Jon von .....
Surprise Surprise! Its Windows 10
I hope you've all been reading my Windows 10 rantets. Cos windows 10 is coming ready or not. By default Windows Updates Just run, this is a good thing cos un-updated copies of windows are akin to bending over and picking up the soap in the prison .....
More on Windows 10 (I still hate it)
Despite my best efforts I've been forced to use windows 10 for real. This is the second attempt to get to like it. It didn't work. I rebuilt my old laptop (first Gen i5 80gig SSD, 4gig ram) as a boat laptop for Ambon, OpenCPN, Charts Grib .....
Oh god here come windows 10
All Your Base are Belong to Us Yes its windows 10 week. By next week we will be basking in our free copy of M$s latest and greatest. This leads me to wonder: A: How many people Know this B: How man will actually go for it. I work .....
*sigh* windows re-install
It may be my last windows 7 install ever? Well if Windows 10 is not a complete turkey, and, no, I'm not taking bets on that. There is a theory, much argued that every good windows release is followed by a dud. Usually it requires some .....
Where to Next?
I have a letter, saying my Australian Citizenship has been approved, as usual I've avoided all financial commitments. The net result is its time to do something different. A wile ago I watched a documentary "the super rich and .....
Would UK Politicians stop talking rubbish. Again..
Listening to the British political establishment going "I'll never even speak to Nicola Sturgeon, let alone work with her" rhetoric I am confused. Its not really they're choice to make.If the voters of Scotland send you a shed load of SNP MPs your not .....
Hello litte girl do you want a lollypop?
Last week* I was horrible about windows 10, I've been running it all week as my work machine, it works and I can be productive but its not grown on me, so this week I'm going to be horrible about Android Lollypop. Well a bit horrible, erm, mildly .....
How to Make ASCII art work in Email Signature
For years I've had a crappy home ASCII art signature in my email - it only works on REALLY old computers. Not that I ever cared. for years I kept my email to ASCII not HTML Partly this is becasue HTML in email was crap, bloody awful and didn't work, .....
a new hope fades, I am so learning osx
Windoze 10 (so named so it doesn't get mis-detected as window 95/98), Well there's no way to hide it, its not remotely ready yet. OK so the start menu is back. well done start menu. Unfortunately its stuffed full of Mr Blobby tiles. Yes my previous .....
The Terror of Nakara NT 0810
Tonight the League of Burmese Trombonists present a best seller play entitled. The Terror of Nakara NT 0810 Scene One an air conditioned bunker in Mumbai, rows of desks, like the banks or oars on a trireme line the floor. Suited figures behind .....
Satanic Test Card.
In 2002 I got a front page for this BBC Test Card on B3ta.com for this, 12 years on Its been Digitally re-mastered in glorious HD.
Windows 10 - its doesnt suck?
Hidden Start Menu in Win 8That's How much M$ liked the start screen I like everyone with the power of choise, am still on windows 7. This is because I hate windows 8, and before anyone asks its not just stick in the mud sulking. I've seen enough of it .....
Scottish Independence.
I've been following the Scottish independence referendum coverage with great interest, and incensing suspicion that they should vote "yes". State of the Union There are many, many, people from Tony Abbott to Obama weighing in on this, but its the No .....
Somebody was listening
I'm not going to get over exited yet. But Opera 12 is now being fed an older version of Google's home page (like I care), howerver that will be the tip of the iceberg, don't get me wrong its nothing like as bad as trying to use internet explorer. I .....
Driving Miss Shermy (7 inch Single)
Connectwise MSP Sucks
and reI'm uploading this because I need to warn any poor bastards who have the misery of having to work with the Ticket loosing and job complicating system known as connectwise FAIL. lets immediately start with some technical proof of .....
XP is Dead, who cares? Opera 12 & Winamp that's a problem
So M$ have killed off XP with a mere 7 years warning. I never liked it any way, the trouble with XP was it was the bastard son windows 2000 and a telly tubby. Windows 2000 was the breakthrough, XP gets far more credit than it was due. Windows 7 is much .....
Even the ones with digital watches
"And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches" just say "Fuck off Google" Wearable Tech - AKA digital watches I keep hearing stories about the new iWatch, which many .....
this one actually works - flying in the NT
QANTAS stands for "Queensland and Northern Territoires Ariel Service", founded by a few WWI pilots backed by farmers, farmers who had to wait a year, they were lucky, for their shopping to arrive. Yes it was some likely lads with a biplane made of string .....
Exited about a computer game and proud to be British?
Neither of these things happen as often as they used too, for 2 reasons. One I've seen a lot of the world and found bits I like more than the UK. Two they stopped making the sorts of Computer Games I used to play a decade ago. I mean last time I was .....
Progress Bar of Life
|===================| The Windows Progress Bar of life is slowly slicing minutes off your life: Abort, retry, Ignore
Carbon, Nomex, and Gaffer tape. World Solar Challenge
Been looking around the Pits at Hidden Valley, for a bit this morning - mostly cos their starting the race rather early tomorrow. Its a proper job the world solar challenge 3000km of outback to Adelaide. On the open road, a largely unfenced road with .....
Pommy Land Customer Service
On of the things you notice when you leave is the shear bloody minded incompetence of the UK, specifically the bits where you need to get something done by someone on you behalf, online banking, getting an address changed on something of that nature. .....
Foiling Tractor
I'm not a fan of Oracle - nice job on MySQL Larry Java's not gone too well since you bought it etc. I'm not a fan of Larry Ellison, or his handling of the America's cup in fact I thought it was insane and he was a spoiled rich brat. Which is true. The .....
Droving
Droving Cattle - like in the westerns died out in the 60's, roads and road trains I assume. End of an era and all that. Right now in 2013 - call it 50 years later there's a drought in Far Western Queensland, the result is no grass, possibly .....
Outback
Day of rest - Yachties will understand this, others may need an explanation. I have a long range Tank In short I've fixed the gas lamp plugged my flat tire and done the laundry checked over the engine and tided up. + the normal chores I've pretty .....
Is Darwin for you? A Handy Quiz to see If you'll fit in.
The Immigration blurb keeps saying you should be aware of Australian culture and cost of living etc. The Northern Territory bits of it make even more mention of it. Can't think why. Even if you do understand you still want to know "Will I .....
Reynolds River Road
My boss not only doesn't seem to mind me driving my work Ute though bog, bush and rivers, he seems to encourage met od do it.
Like making love in a Canoe
This contains one of my favourite gag's of all time. Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl. This begs the question "How bad does American beer have to be to the butt of a Fosters Joke? Now I use this gag on Australians, and then undermine it by .....
No Future
I work in IT, its simple, without banging on about Nm processes and 3d transistors or Moore's Law PC's double in Power every 18months to 2 years, If its 4 years old its not work using/fixing. Everyone presses the start button clicks the big blue E .....
CSI Darwin - The Great Lynx Heist
Who Stole Tom's Deodorant? Police investigating a simple deodorant theft in the Top End have uncovered links to major international organized crime gang thought Australia and Southern Germany. Uncovering a web of corruption spanning the globe. .....
Belated and benighted blog
Firstly I am on a train in the UK, its expensive and late. Woot. I'm in first class, cos its cheaper. Which like much of the UK is insane. Apparently Revenue Protection Barriers are in place between Oxenholme and Preston. Fortunately I used to live in .....
Tom's overly bold tech pedictions.
Goodbye 2011, hello 2012. What will happen in the world of tech? A bad year for M$ Well.... Another one. People have been predicting Microsoft's decline for years, usually wrongly. Its too big to go away any time soon, but in every thing that's .....
Bah Humbug
Its Christmas, traditional time for shopping, I've not bought a luxury for 2 years. The last was a hard disk to take on my travels. Been to play at Harvey Norman (Dixons with furniture) JB Hifi (Richer Sounds and HMV's bastard child), and Dick .....
Your life Jacket is under Your Seat
It won't do me any good cos there's not enough water down their to brew a cup of tea from. I'm flying over the driest continent on Earth, just what I need if we crash in the bush I mean the Simpson Desert speaks for its self, so does the Painted Desert, .....
The Master Race
Southern softies need not apply The following is an article from today's 'The Sunday Territorian', sister paper of the Croc-tastic NT news (Croc's, nudity and ute crashes a speciality). original is here. THE naturalist Charles Darwin observed that when .....
Musings dept EU - from the far side of the world.
The Guardian had (yes I still read the guardian sometimes even over here) an article discussing the UK leaving Europe. Made me think. Now the UK would be dumb to leave. But the question that occurred to me is would they miss us(you). I'm .....
Coming Home.
OK, been playing certain cards close to my chest for a while now. Been trying to get a Work Visa for Australia. After 15 years in Brighton (give or take a few trips around the world) was, well maybe not too long but enough - I can't imagine living .....
Hong Kong
Mid Levels Elevators Coming soon What Makes a great city? Brighton's a city, though I don't really think of it as one, nor does it feel like one. Manila's a proper city, but its not great. You need several things to make a city great. To stand out from .....
Lost in Transit
Banaue Rice Terraces OK I'm at "Clark", that's Manilla's second airport. Yes Manila, its a "Ryanairport" which means its so far from Manila its takes two hours on the bus. Public Transport in the Philippines is cheap. The price you pay for cheap is .....
2 men in a boat.
Well its just after sunup, 11° from the equator, I'm wearing jeans and 2 jumpers, and I still have cold feet. Dawn In the Territories Pete's American and a fan of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or jam as we call it I like Vegemite on .....
Gove (actually)
Back in the Northern Territories, I've made progress on Pete, but he's still not really up to speed with just how sparse bits of Australia are. I didn't manage to get through to him that North of Cairns it gets patchy, and north of Cooktown its .....
Peregrina
Just a quick update, before I loose internet up towards Cape Yorkie Bar. I'm sailing with Pete aboard Peregrina to Darwin, where I left my car. Handy huh? Anyway flew to Cairns a few days back we anchored in the lovely river at Port Douglas yesterday, .....
Rapture
The Rapture/judgement day/zombie apocalypse appears not to have happened. Its not the first time this sort of predication has gone awry. But this one has come in the age of facebook and twitter. Harold Camping's predication has been lampooned all .....
Facebook and how to survive it.
Facebook probably knows more about you than you mum, or maybe even your wife/hubby. You have to remember it was set up for university students who's privacy was pretty much non existantant any way. Since then its snow balled. HR departments love it, you .....
Angry Wangry
Just been researching RS's new boat the RS100. Looks a little like an MX Ray. It appears the RS100's a bloomin good boat selling well etc etc etc. Unlike the MX Ray which was an appaling lump of junk. Before you watch the following video be aware its .....
Brave?
For years the single handed dinghy market has been, to my mind anyway, really simple. Plastic learing toys for kids, a fewy loony high performance boats like my old RS600 and the medium "good all rounder" market, which I admit there's ample selection of .....
Set your clock back 5 years and thirty minutes.
The sign on the wall of the road house in the last fuel station before the Qeensland border tells you to set your clock forward 5 years and the 1/2 hour for the time zone change between Queensland an the Northern Territories. Yes I'm back in the Top .....
Waltzing Matilda (alt version)
In the Isa (Mount Isa) been down't pit. Twas cool. Anzac day tomorrow. Wondering weather to stay or go. Probably go, aparently 60 down the road is free camping. Probably get a few beers and some ice and camp there for the night if I can find a bottleo .....
camped by the Billabong
I'm in Winton, again. I Broke down. The big 400k Winton is the home of 'Waltzing Matilda'. I'm sure you know it, its author Banjo Patterson ("Banjo" was also the name of his fathers horse) first heard the story at the billabong here. He .....
Things you didn't know about me
I caused the Bloop ('twas an exelent curry). I am the real king of Redonda I am the only thing Chuck Norris is scared of. I know where Lord Lucan went (he is dead now, we gave him a fantastic funeral, despite his crimes) I am not the Stig, sorry, .....
GPS Analysis
A Sample Chart Always wanted to see your course and speed after you've been racing a sailing boat? Well now you can. I always grumped that there was no decent stuff out there to analyse GPS tracks. So i wrote some - and you can share it with the .....
Weddingballs
I'm sure there is a special column running in PrivateEye to celebrate the insanity that is the royal wedding. Here's my contrbutions. http://www.guandongenterprisesltd.com/ - Please check out the loverly mug... There website says "We have had a .....
I went on to the internet and I found this:
Been helping Matt paint his boat, unsually known as the "Upside Down UFO". Not by Nokes' boat yard, no, they call it the "Purple People Eater". That sounded familure so I googled it and I found this: And laughed till I cried, feel .....
Updates
Dull ignore. This website, when I redesigned it whilst stuck in a hotel in Nottingham 2 years ago was suposed to be clean simple and unexotic. Ooops its sliped a bit since then. Partly it went wrong beacuse the way I do things has changed since it .....
I knew he was a worng 'un
bit of an update. Tom digs a shallow grave at midnightActually this is hot water beach NZ Life the universe and "immi" I've been looking for work in Australia. Because I was told I was a lowed to. I entered Oz on what's called an ETA and .....
Driving on the Right
The Frankly awesome adventures of Evan the Canadian. - and you thought I killed and ate hitch hikers.
Bowsprit Envy
Fish Eye View (the orginal of this was onSailing Anarchy, but I can't find it to link to. Is a term based on Freudian psychology. Similar to Porsche ownership but with out the social stigma. Having a faster boat, which, usually, these days means a .....
Sad News
It is well deep sadness I woke this morning to the news that all 4 people on Yacht Quest have been killed by their captors. My condolences go out to Bob and Phyllis's and Jean, Scott Adam's families and friends. I knew Bob and Phyllis well, they were .....
Somali Pirates
It is with great sadness I report that the American sailing yacht Quest appears to have been seized by pirates somewhere in the Gulf of Aden / North Indian ocean area. Bob in Nuku HivaPhyllis in Tahaa The yacht name is familiar to me but I have not .....
Apple's greatest blunder.
You know what I'm talking about its iTunes. When the first iPod's came out, with simple buttons and massive hard disk storage, yes a program was needed to manage your music. As time went on and the iPod range expanded, with the shuffle and the .....
Nice Picture.....
This is us curtesy of the front page of Sailing Anarchy. SA/a>For those not familiar with Matt's boat its the one on the right
International Rescue
Despite my and frankly Matt's reputation for maritime mayhem and carnage, recently its not been us that needs rescueing. One of my favourite T-Shirts headed for hospital on Wednesday night, with blood showing after one of the crew of a beneteau 57 .....
dial 9999999
10 Million Dollars! Matt's credit card isn't working - I think we have a culprit right here..... Its expencive being a boat owner. All we wanted was a few liters of Diesel. Racing Yachtsmen are like minicabs. They never have more than £5 quid in .....
Short Cut
Driving one day, sign said: So off I headed for Paradise (you would too) Half way to Paradise I saw another sign: But I knew, instincively, not to take it. There should be no short cuts on the road to Paradise. After that I hand nowhere else .....
Day Time Telly
Being sick is no fun, I have the mother of all colds. This means I'm at Matt's and watching telly. Daytime telly. Did I mention the Oprah house. Not a typo. Oprah Winfrey is in Australia guess where she did her shows? Thank god I missed .....
The Dampness of the Pants
I have lived at sea for years, climbed in and out of tenders for decades. I've never fallen in. I've capsized. Crashed racing dinghies, but fallen out no. Racing dinghies whilst wearing full wetsuit and harness ok. Helming Gripster I sort of .....
they're coming right for me....
Simanderal at Anchor in Farm Bay Just been down the Botanic gardens, mostly because it was a nice day, its a lovely spot and I know from their blog that Simanderal were anchored their last night. They've (rather sensibly) decided its a .....
Biology
Great Ocean Road FAIL Its cool. too Cool for me. In Christian's house in Geelong, near Melbourne. Its raining, wasn't too bad yesterday but more British than Aussie weather. Due to an accidental party last night I'm quite hungover and hungry. Back .....
Tom has left the Outback
Uh, hu thank you very much... lake? Arrived in Port Augusta, South Australia. And to celebrate had a beer. It was a small beer... sigh... A drinkers guide to Australia Beer comes in 2 sizes in Australia, some times three. Small glasses are .....
Pitch Black
The movie, not my van's dodgy electrics. Everyone remember where we crashed What I particularly liked about that movie was the way it was shot, the planet they crashed on was always shown in washed out colours. It made me think, the light from .....
Kings Canyon
And introducing Evan, my latest hitch-hiker. A year abroad student I found near a large rock 440km's from Alice. You call this a Desert? I'm Back at the Stewart Highway. Another 500km's since my last Opal Rant. Van now mostly running on .....
Bloody Opal!
Good News I'm still running! Been to Uluru and King's Canyon.(edit) Ooh a big Rock Opal is a Fuel, a type of budget petrol with all the additives removed. Apparently, and I'm not kidding here, its to stop the Aborigines sniffing .....
For 24 years I've been...
I'm still in Alice, the problem with the van is fixed. Sort of. The Hole The problem was fuel was spraying out one of the injectors. All over the engine. Not good. This is Australia so this is petrol. The injectors are not what people like me .....
The Bright Side of Life
As Monty Python Sung, always look on the bright side of life. I do. "That's Not Gone Well" I didn't die in a fireball that consumed me and all my possessions. In fact not only did I not explode, I didn't explode in the middle of Alice Springs, .....
Backpacker Van Roulette
How to play the game, the (unwritten) rules and the stakes. Its a high stakes game with winners and losers. We'll find out where I come in much later. What is a back packer van? A backpacker van is a minimalist camper, the obvious source of .....
Living Next Door to Alice.
Fill in the the next line you know what it is! I'm in the YHA in Alice Springs a former theatre. Alice is nice, its pretty red, with some flashes of green. A river runs through it; about once every 30 years. Your thought to be a real local if .....
Knight in Shining Armour
Some times you don't get a Knight, just a geek in a shining 20 year old Toyota. We pulled over about 20kms south of nowhere. If nowhere is a place then the Desert Hotel in Renner Springs* is it, its 140 km from the "arse end of the world" Tenant .....
Daly waters pub
Stop at the Red Light I'm at the most fabulous Outback Pub. Décor is well everything. A whole line of bra's hand above the bar, boxers above the pool table. The bar its self is adorned with ID's drivers licences and goodness knows what .....
Heading South
In Katherine, van seems to be going ok, its done well over a 1000 k now. Gota passenger, a German called Stephan. We camped overnight last night in Kakadu. Photos are up of Lichfield the day before, no really they are. I forgot to actually copy the .....
End of an Era?
I'm sitting here, in JJ's Garage in Darwin Australia feeling nostalgic. For many years I've been involved with the PierToPier.net free WiFi in Brighton, an experiment in community networking. Its glory years are behind it, I'll .....
Check List
Gerry can of water - Check Oil Change - Check Stove - Check Bed - Check Curtains - bit thin Fan - Check Eski - Check Beer - Check Gas (as in GAS) - Check Food - No Map - No Spare Oil - No Fuel Gerry Can - No .....
Name the Van*
Me van is coming on, now has bed, storage, eski (or esky**). Stove, knife and fork -forgot about plates and pots. A 20 water gerry can. ERRATA:Read Sorted for Soted Aussie beds come in 2 sizes, single and long single. Got a long second hand one for .....
Ready to Roll?
I have a Van, and when nobody was looking, reconfigured JJ's Car Hire's firewall to allow ssh out so I can update my blog (James If your reading this - don't worry I put it back. Me Van, couldn't get any bikini clad Modelsso used the Fai .....
I R Still alive
Sort of living in a cross between a garage and backpackers (day) and YHA (night). Using the garage's WiFi, which blocks everything. bar the web so can't upload to blog JJ's car hire, consists of James who runs the car hire, and backpackers camper hire .....
Boiling the Mariana
This marina's small and locked in. And boy is it hot up here. Keith the Lockmaster and man about the dock says the water temp has now hit 30° the sun is beating down on it and many of the influx of rally boats here are running their a con .....
All I want is a van with a view
In Darwin and Damn its hot, particularly if your waiting for a bus that doesn't come. After the lass next to me asks what happened to it. Hmmm asks me this begs the Question A: do I look like an expert on NT (Northern Territories, also know as "Not .....
Van Diemen's Land
flowplayer("player", "/include/flowplayer/fp.swf", {"clip":{"url":"/content/vid/vdl.flv"}, .....
Holding Pattern
Krsshhhhhh. This is Tipperary Waters traffic control, Krssshhhh. Darwin, wierd place, its still quite a long way (groan) to Tipperary Waters Marina. Approaching Darwin Blue Striped Muscles live in the water pipes of boats, the salt water pipes. .....
Sidereal Time
This is one mean solar day. I mean its hot. The reason, well we've not been this close to the Equator since about a week before we got to French Polynesia. Then, unlike now the sun was tracking north. As we've been as far as 20° south of the .....
Going Home
No not me, not yet. My hat. The Hat goes to Glastonbury I've several old pieces of clothing, I've always been keen on urban combat trousers and T-Shirts. Not the funny logo ones, there appeal would fade, but ones that mean something to me. Bar my .....
Cape Yorkie Bar
"Thank you for driving carefully through our ocean" When I left the Panama Canal I carefully wrote "The Pacific Ocean Welcomes careful drivers" shamelessly half inched off the Red Dwarf front cover, which depicts a sign with the corner .....
Dealing with Morris men
We made an unexpected stop this morning. Miserable autopilot failure. Not the first time on this boat. But boy has it been well behaved for the last 10,000+ Nautical miles. That's No log... Previous deaths of this particular unit: Lost .....
He'd man!
Captain cook, was a sailing god. I know "I say I am a sailing god" but that's only whilst I'm overdosed on adrenalin after a particularity crazy dinghy sailing session. Don't get me wrong, I'm good. But captain Cook was sodding .....
Death by Misadventure
On this day in the year of our lord 2010 Mr Mrs Miss oceanhippie died as a result of MISADVENTURE involving a: I tell no LieKangeroo Bollocks bottle opener Estuarine Croc (salty) 10:1 Shark 12:1 Box Jelly fish 20:1 Stinger 30:1 Spider .....
Hitchhiking With Serial Killers
Caught up with Sam, last seen in Gran Canaria 3 years ago. Sam, his cat, his boat and bits of the Bluebell Railway (balast along with Ross' old sash window weights) in Airlie Beach. Ramprasad At Anchor off Airlie BeachJust off the land .....
Statistics Again
I've been saying there's 8 people I've sailed across an ocean with here in Oz. Not counting Steve and Katrin. This is quite surprising. Island Kea goes back in In terms of ocean passages, I think I've sailed with 2 swedes, 8 englishpersons, .....
<strine> HTML5 Specification
HTML5 is still gestating even though bits of it are already out in the wild. Fortunately there's still time to get tags submitted. I've taken the liberty of submitting one that will change the face of the web as we know it. HTML, javascript, css .....
Stig mode
As you may be aware, Top Gear has tamed a racing driver, know as the Stig. He's a racing driver not a sailor. Imagine a verbose Stig. That's a racing sailor is. In human, incapable of understating things like ferries, fishermen, the traffic .....
"Sorry I'm late I've got a dirty bottom"
Commuting in Style. How to be late in style. Matt's Nature Reserve Step One leave your boat on a mooring for 2 years so there's a coral reef growing on it Step Two ensure the Prop is so fouled it doesn't work. Step Three paint the deck, to .....
DON'T PANIC
Click for Full Size Poster Not content with the little YouTube clips? Want the full frontal story of Tom's Travels. Well it will be coming to YouTube soon. In several episodes. Cos when I tried to make big movies my laptop runs out of memory and .....
The Great Mid Ocean Battery Transplant
Remember my last post? About, amongst other things Balmar nobby charge regulators and alternators, and our tials there of. We had it easy. Aspen have had no lecy for days. Their genny is out and neither of their nobby. Charge regulators would charge .....
Indiana Jones and the Trough of DOOOOOM
Well this is another interesting passage. With incidents a plenty. We left in 30 knots of wind, hammering along in rough seas. As that died away we approached the "Trough of Doom". The boats ahead crossed it earlier, glad we missed that bit. However .....
Maths Problem
Doctor man he say: Take one tablet ever 6 hours 4 times a day. Apply cream 3 times a a day. Now we're at sea, that means watches. We do watches of 4 hours each, with 2 2 hour watches ("Dog Watches") between 4pm and 8pm. Day one I was on watch .....
Never judge a man by the size of his Namba
Desktop Wallpaper FAIL The Namba is a Penis Sheath worn in Vanuatu (not by me I hasten to add). They really do still exist, the photo right is one I took at the Land Diving 2 years ago. Its one of my stared photos in Picasa. For .....
Hapi 30 aniveseri blong independens
You only as old as the country you feel. This ones a youngster at 30. Its the 30th anniversary of independence at down town Port Villa. Damn is it great. Maori pre-match huka meets X-Faxtor, Pontins, talent show stroke royal variety .....
Hasn't washed his trousers since Brighton
To be fair they were clean on the first time I went to Gatwick. And I've only worn them for a couple of night watches since then. Trousers don't feature very heavily in my life at the moment. Fia Tira leaves Musket Cove It does solve the 2 .....
Alice? Who the **** is Alice?
errr? Which one is Alice? I dunno I think its and English thing. It happened once before, Germany Tall Ships Race, 95 or 96. The band on the dock were playing "Living Next Door to Alice". We (SV Marabu + SV Speedwell), obviously, as every pure .....
Fiji the kid
Friday we were welcomed to Savusavu by the chief, I drank too much Kava. Several people have thought on Twitter or FB that meant Cava. With my spelling its understandable. Kava is a root, long an spindly, know here as grog. Its ground up into a .....
Blues Brothers
its three hundred miles to Fiji, we've a full tank of gas, half a pack of rolling backy, its mid winter and we're wearing sun glasses. "Ronseal" The fuel's gonna come in handy got 5 knots of nor nor west breeze, hard on the wind at west nor .....
Cruft
I just found this: "State of Decay" and it made me think of giving Windows 7 a review. Verity Stob writes insightful but techy articles for the register. She? I assume its a she. Uses a Beaufort Scale of cruft to define, just how bad .....
Paddle Round the Pier and Lashings of HTML5
Remember remember the 3rd and 4th July is the Paddle Round the Pier weekend. After all the time energy an love i've lavished on it (I usually have to take a holiday) you'll all be going I'm sure. Its Fabulous fun. Take your boards your liko's .....
Hells Angels and the Great Nuie Beer Drought of 2010
OK I've a normal English Driving Licence. No Motorbike entitlement. 4 kmh S**t Box I only wanted a scooter. Used the famous (and out of date) Cook Islands licence to get my Nuie driving licence with Motorbike entitlement. Can't .....
Dwarf Beer
Non readers of Terry Pratchett may not have come across the term Dwarf Bread. I think he was taking the piss out of the Fantacy/Science fiction plot tool system. Probably Tolkien's The Hobbit primarily. Almost all sci fi shows have .....
Off-line
I AREN'T DEAD Probably, going to be off-line for a while, till Nuie probably. more than a week. Tom
Edgar Alan Doh!
Drawing by W. Bligh. The William Bligh Thunk. Thunk. What is that knocking? Knocking at my cabin door? Thunk Thunk, out there darkness, nothing moor! Oh its a bloody mooring buoy, Thunk, knocking on the hull THE SAME bloody mooring .....
The water is always bluer on the other side of the lagoon - understanding Tom
We went of yesterday, its still blowy here and the most sheltered spot is here, on a "booowee" off the Taravana YC in Tahaa. We like it here. Meal 2 nights ago was the best fish I've had since Jackie's cooking on Jackal 2 years ago. And .....
Moorea Panorama
What can you see? You sea the sea, and Tahiti and the Lagoon. The image below is just a thumbnail. Click to view/download the full version. Click for the full file, or right click and save as to use offline
Black Pearl
High Quality Pearls Pearl Farming is rampant around here. Back not like the white ones you get from countries like Japan. First you get your oysters up from the depth of 6-10 meters, they're hung on buoys under the water in .....
The Economics of Paradise
Now we were light winded and then becalmed when trying to make big passages. Now were tied to a buoy with 20, frequently gusting higher wind and lots of rainy squalls. Shame fabulous bay this. Funnels the wind a bit more than we'd .....
This is an SOS(not) distress call from the Sailing Vessel Island Kea II
A motu Raiatea, and Tahaaaaaaaa? The crew are stuck in a perpetual pronunciation loop. We keep trying to work out whether Faaaha and Faaha are the same place. The trouble is that by the time we get to pronouncing "Fa" "ah" "ah" in attempt to .....
Party like its 2010
Still in Moorea, yesterday, despite some very suspicious VHF usage including the letting slip of the "secret girls channel" - eleven. Pete off Perigriana was disappointed, his 60th birthday and nobody was really paying attention. We were, we just .....
A pox on Polynesian internet
I bet her internet don't work I'm in Cook's Bay Moorea, there are 3 forms of WiFi available, I've paied for both and neither will work. When everyone asked why we give the Internet away free on Brighton Beach I say "cos were nice .....
Paradise Lost
Its doing what it does a lot in the pacific, raining. A lot. Soaking out there. Do you all feel better now. We've been out on a tour, in the rain. The first stop at the water fall was impressive, its wasn't actually raining. But there was .....
Shampoo You - Its what we do!
Repairing dinghies, is a git. The Brighton Drinking Sailing Club Rescue Boat has had a leak for years, its right next to a joint on the rubbing strip on the side. Instructions say, if you must have an inch of patch from the hole all round. In my .....
Prickly Heat
No wind, in Marina Taina, Papeete, Tahiti and man its hot. However expensive this Marina may be, its fatal mistake was to give us flat rate electricity. Its thirty something out side, baking sun and 24 degrees in side. We've got the air con on. .....
I think I killed another one.
Yellow Fish Oh dear, my new Olympus indestructible waterproof freeze proof (handy) camera is slowly expiring. I say new one, the first one made it to Fiji last time before it decided to leak. It soldiered on above the waterline and was sent back as .....
How do you say Manihi?
Its not just me! Hakahetau Nobody can pronounce names in he South Pacific, today's radio net is high farce. Nobody can hear Bali Blue the net controler - maybe his new tattoo is interfering with his SSB (Single Side Band HF radio). Many .....
No I havn't got a tatoo.
Part of me really wishes I had. They're fabulous, traditional and important round here. To Busy to Blog Mind you so was cannibalism. I really don't have the time right now, even with the pits they kept prisoners of war in, the heandsman's .....
Are we neraly there yet?
Broadly speaking yes. Last night we were due a wind change, we had decided not to fly a spinnaker in case. Opps we didn't keep to that and put it back up again. T'was fine till midnight, after half a hours thinking time we got it down. .....
Gassed like a Badger
The night before last the Generator stopped itself after 5 minutes. This is very irritating, mostly because after many truly unpleasant hours yesterday I thought I had it licked. We thought it was spitting water out of the pipe underneath. .....
Pedicure
Since I am now a fashion guru, its time to talk skin care. RSS users will need to got to my actual site for this. If you want to achieve the pinnacle of sailing fashion, like me, your going to have to work on your skin. Apply a .....
Traditional sunday down at Brighton Drinking Club
Errata: For"Brighton Drinking Club"Read"Brighton Sailing Club" Ok we're net controllering again, worked a bit better this time, partly because Lucy Alice have the hang of minimalist relaying. We're still using 4kHz wich is theoretically .....
Incoming....
I've never been hit by a flying fish, I've been lucky, they go seriously quick. They appear to be able to swoop around waves, but whether this is about airflow or sight I don't know. I suspect its feel of the air, cos dodging ships is .....
No shock, hard drive is running normally
Well we've a bit less wind than earlier and it looks like its begun its shift to the east. Maybe a bit calmer night tonight. Mind you that's the price you pay for 2 days of 190+ mile runs. Miles are flying by. Damn things in shock .....
Too Posh by Half
Sigh, its a bit bouncy and I've got a decent laptop. I.E. I didn't get it from pc world. Because its good it watches for shocks to the hard drive and moves the heads out of the way if it detects them. I'm on a moving boat, in the middle of the .....
Big Brother
Boredom breeds what Vardnean College referred to as "Professional Development". I've been fiddling with the faces function on Picasa. Picasa's a free photo manipulation program come library program, its a Google owned freeby. It scores .....
Water water every where, and quite a lot to drink.
Well we were one of the last to leave Puerto Ayora, us and Aqualuna. If fact Aqualuna just towed Moonshiner back in with engine troubles as we left. They'd been about a day out when their engine gave out. Unfortunately it took them 3 or 4 to sail .....
Floreana
Those of you who've been reading this may remember I had to cancel my trip on Thursday. Was told that this was "the best Island" by some of the grand tour mob. So was really looking forward to it when I managed to re-book .....
Paranoia
Been a dull day, last night was fab, kindly invited to dinner on board Perigrina. Apologies if I've misspelled your boat name, it could be worse I have a friend called Virginia i once mispelled her name. Lovely. They've got a cracking parking place, .....
Its just another day for me and me in paradise
4KSB 1 Today I'm on a tour of Floriana one of the other Galapagos islands. Except I'm not. There's only a few people left in the fleet, not on the grand tour are: me Duco off Briet and maybe the Miss Tippys and "rally control" aka .....
Meat Pie on Legs
The wild life here is spectacular. Spectacularly lazy that is. Fear of man, nil. Top speed less than Sinclair c5 with a flat. Right Click and save as Evolution definitely works mind, there's a lizard that's evolved to eat ketchup (red .....
Any one want to buy some diesel?
WTF? Day one, good northerly, day 2 good northerly. Ran 380 Nautical Miles in 48 hours which is bloody excellent. Now the guide says expect a "light and variable winds and contrary current" the reason we ran 190 miles a day on white sail and windvane .....
Optimists, Pessimists and Sailors
Optimists and pessimists are usually defined as those who see the glass as half full and those who see it a as half empty. There is of course a third category. Sailors. Most sailors don't give a damn as long as the half full or empty glass .....
Trouble Shooting Guide to Glass Bottomed Boats
Glass is disgusting shade of grey-brown. - you are aground on mud. Stars or Sun visible through glass - boat has capsized, get out and swim. Feet are wet and glass has crazed pattern - you are sinking. Fish all leaving very quickly. .....
The Pacific Ocean welcomes careful drivers
I'm gonna come back here one day with a dirty great sign Saying "The Pacific Ocean Welcomes Careful Drivers" and affix it to the last buoy in the channel. After I've got my Zarpe (excuse spelling). Then leg it. ERRATA:For "Wench" .....
Darién
Image Courtesy of Wikimedia OK I was wrong, last time I was here I described Panama as the crossroads of the world. Canal between Atlantic and Pacific spanned by the Bridge of the Americas connecting north and south America. It doesn't work .....
Island Kea II Transits
Island Kea Locks down to the Pacific at Miraflores Locks We're in to the Pacific! We when up to Gatun Lake through the Three locks at Gatun Tuesday night , overnighted in Gatun Lake tied to a buoy. Through the lake and cut .....
Web Cam - oceanhippie.tv
Tomorrow we should transit the Panama Canal, well half tomorrow and half Wednesday. Panamax from the Lifting bridge at Gatun Unlike the open ocean the Panama Canal has webcams at both Gatun Locks (Atlantic side) and at Miraflores on the way down .....
Test Sail
It looks like we made it. As a "Test Sail" 1148Nm is a little excessive. Almost any uk boat won't make that in a year. Could well be the 2nd longest passage till Australia. Maybe even longer. Been blogging, there's the initial .....
Volume up, tone down low, rubbish on the radio
Its 8 am, trade wind sailing the boats asleep, Chesney Hawkes, I am the one and only. I'm taking it back. Ok so I don't have a copy of that, will have to get one. I can almost see the camera angle orbiting the boat, power ballad .....
Is there anybody out there?
Remember the James Bond stealth boat? Well we've got one too its called a fiberglass yacht. GRP doesn't reflect much radar, it goes right through. Yes the masts big a and tall and metal but its narrow and rounded too. No nice angles to reflect .....
Superyacht theory
Antigua was stuffed full of massive yachts, and I don't mean loads of big Oysters, I'm talking BIG. A guy who goes to Steve and Katrin's local was engineer on a 140footer. Island Kea was one of the smallest boats in the marina despite her .....
Its alive
A yacht without a mast is very sad thing. Its a frustrating thing as well. Redonda in the sunset The last 2 days have been transformational. After wondering when the bits for the headstays would arrive through out the day. By about 5pm the .....
Trouble Ahead?
What my weather forecast showed about the time they must have passed. Thesegrib files, in my opinion under read. It appears the rest of the rally is now in Panama, but they took a pasting along the way. Several bits of broken boats, .....
Quantum Wave Collapse
Yay the case of Schroedinger's mast has resolved its self. All for the want of a checkbox marked "yacht in transit" on a computer system. Theoretically it should be stepped on Tuesday. Lubbers take note stepping is putting a mast in the boat .....
Cats, Carnival and Sticks
Bar the odd, and largely irrelevant Twitter message, I suppose a proper update is in order. First let us discus quantum physics, don't worry this is going somewhere. What's Missing? Schroedinger's Cat Without going into excessive .....
Here Come's my Ride
Caroline and Laika come to pick me up from the dinghy dock at Nelson's Dockyard, English Harbour
Looking Good
Guest House Bar View I'm here, been staying in the Waterfront Guest House, which could use some more windows and its Internet is broken. This is made up for by the guy's that run it and the location which is fab! I met up with .....
Right I'm really going this time.
Gatwick Airport If your reading this I've finally successfully gotten to Antigua. The Island may have sunk under the weight of my crap. But I'll have got there. This is because, unlike Barbados, KL, Dubai and I rather suspect pretty much every .....
Welcome to the Hotel Great Britain
Welcome to the new cold war. The Berlin wall, in fact the whole iron curtain was designed to keep the poor old commies in more than the decadent west out. Given that the UK is bankrupt and nobody likes it, Its bankers, the last remaining profitable .....
Last Chance to Sea
I'm off again on the 28th of december to islands new and seas of blue! The last chance to see me and drink to my departure will be at the usual place at 9:00pm on Wednsday the 23rd of December, most of you can guess where that will be if not then drop .....
Bald Pussy Photos? WTF?
My mate who hosts this site runs a really nice stats sytem. Allows me to see what sites link here. Frankly some of it is disturbing. Golf Forums? I hate golf. Motorbike forums ok so it was to this. Several MUD (I refuse to call them MMORGS) sites. .....
Windows 7 should I upgrade?
Windows 7 for human begins "Should I upgrade" If you have the attention span of a teenager. Then the answer is "No". Should I upgrade to windows 7 Windows 7's features are almost none. It scores solely because Vista was so bad. Upgrading is not .....
Nice one Garmin
My 2 and a half year old GPS was starting too look a little tatty, the velcro on the strap was going, there were scratches and dropplets appearing inside the water proof case. Now lets be fair this GPS is has had a rugged existance. Its a wrist watch .....
Bugger Bognor
Been Playing with technology again, due to the Unique way it works Its ended up off my websites content management system. Went to Bognor and Back on a beach cat Saturday and Sunday. It wasn't a race (even though we were first baot back). Anyway the .....
Wunch of Bankers
Groan..... So far the worst scam I've seen is card readers. Mine just arived. Mugger's Charter. So if your bank uses card readers (they mostly do now) do not lie to a mugger about your PIN number. You see your bank has decided to give every mugger the .....
I can't believe M$ sometimes.
M$ is not the best computer company, but for most people its the only computer company. Most of their products are at baest associated with irritation. I use windows, cos lots of software I've learned over the years runs on it. The real key is its thrird .....
When is murder justified?
As resident geek, I've now been shown a couple of "new" PC's both massivley out spec at least most of my PC's. The trouble is they're running windows vista. They've only a gig of ram. This is theft, extortion, it really is. I'm sitting here, i've cleaned .....
Moblie Friendly
Mobile Version Woot, got a new iPod Touch, decided to see how tricky it was to "Mobile Friendly" this site. Thanks to someone else's browser ID lib, some nice guy's image resizing scripts It all works quite nicely. Ben and Dave have tried it on .....
That's Gotta hurt
RSS users need to go to my blog to see the video http:// www.oceanhippie.net/blog.php?mo=6&ye=2009 Telephonica blue find a rock big time. Woah. Typical Ian Walker, "this whole counties rock". Ken Read on Puma looked extreemly streesed. Can't say I .....
This is not a rant.
No really it isn't. I as those of you who have read "it works (just)" description of a yachites idea of how to deal with an ipod. I have to say I LOOOOOOVE my new ipod touch, yeah its youg to be seriously compromised when I gad about on the briney again. .....
Windows 7 in all its FAIL glory
Where have my decorations gone? Ok we all know vista is a steaming pile of shite. But lets go back a while and see why you souln't get exited about windows 7. Windows XP is, to all intencive purpouses, Windows 2000 (Technically NT 5, XP .....
Normal Distribution
Click to embigen For all their dreadful website's dreadfull problems. Me and pretty much every other geek-come sailor is horribly addicted to The Volvo Ocean Race game. Sad I know. Its fun though. I've sailed on a few yachts and managemnet by .....
Paddle round the Pier
This years Paddle Round the Pier, great fun for all the family, great event hope to see you all there. I'll be driving a rescue boat. Volanteers are urgently needed as are people with Ribs etc. See their website for more details Tom
Dumb and Dumber
Asda FAIL Asda is "Clamping down on killer teaspoons" It won't sell you any unless you have ID to prove your over 18. People have been killed, yes murded by teaspoons. Probably by some Kung Fu monk. FAIL. In other news I've bought a new sailing knife. .....
Politial Correctness Gone Mad.
"WINAMP, it Really Wips the Lama's Baaaa" No it bloody doesn't, winamp as every one knows whips the lama's ass. Not the lama's lame-o-sound-effect. It politial correctness gone mad. Oh and all windows users who read my scathing review of .....
Windows 7 ate my hamster
Not waving but drowning. Woopy do, windows Vista was a steaming pile of dog turd. Ask the internet. Windows 7 is better and marvelous and windows is saved world is perfect. Errr... No. Right now "tings not lookin good". First of let me say Boy is .....
April Fool
Bug Me Not BugMeNot, Bug me not Is an exelent website providing a list of passwords to free registration sites. You know the REALLY annoying ones that make you type spurious data, Michael Mouse and a one shot disposaable email address in to do .....
Floop or Twoop?
Computers are dumb. Really dumb they're like a gullible younger sybling. The apprentice who's looking for the left handed hammer or a long weight. They do exaclty what you tell them, and carry on doing it unless you tell them to stop. A partiluarly .....
Inflicting Missery on the world
Tom is atempting a franenstiene experiment of mosterious proportions. Link Twitter to facebook Link Facebook to Twitter (har har programing loop) LInk webisite to twitter via RSS and twitter feed Take over the world. iniciate project .....
Proactive is a brand of Yogurt
Appraisal Targets A couple of years back, showing my ususal respect for authority and dodgy sense of humor I was trying to liven up my Apraisal meeting with my boss. On of the questions he was obliged to ask was: "Where do you see yourself in 2 .....
Oh happy days
Its always great when the really deserving cock up. BNP and the Scientologists in one day. Firstly the racist morons used what they thought was a great British spitfire in one of their dumb anti immagration posters. Unfortualty a bright spark .....
Ebay for dummies, a seller guide.
Jesus...... I've been selling stuff on ebay, mostly worthless old junk. Old Hard Drives. Boken Laptop bits, a Z88. Yeah that old. Here's a summary of some of the questions, messages and emails that have resutled from the bits I've been selling. One .....
Care to Comment?
I think this random website now has a commenting engine. It took a long time to write and its probably got some bugs. But it does appear to work. Don't tell Kieran but its being run on a fairly trusting basis. I have the capacity to impose .....
Change to Volvo Ocean Race Rules.
This volvo ocean race has specified that each boat shall carry a "Media Crew Member". In future a VOR 70 shall carry: 1 - Qualified Boat Builder 1 - Naval Archetect 2 - Tons of Epoxy Resin 400m2 Carbon fibre matt 2 - Polish Builders 1 - .....
Plummeting pound the un-expected irritation.
Bloody foreigers comming over here, using our internet an buying our junk on ebay. I've been selling stuff on Ebay that i probably couldn't even shift on freecycle. First some one ask how much to send my dead Zaurus PDA's case to Holland. He didn't buy .....
Motivation
I've always been a fan of despair.com, and then I saw this old thread on SA (Warning, NSFW). Thouhg I've got lots of photos, and have been helping to destrol the brighton sailing club changing room. Plenty of material. Then I found this site that .....
Nearly shot of Virgin
Sigh, Our 2meg Broadband has been incablable of even low quality streaming video for days, god Vrigin are shit, Ive now speant another few hours to find out alittle about NTL's contention rate. Or cable equivalent. Basically how much bandwidth am I .....
Merry Christmas
Happy Xmass Due to excessive lazyness and an attitude problem there will be no cards (again) this Christmass. Sorry. Itsn't that I don't care Its just me and sending Christmass cards never seems to Happen.
Jesus' face seen in RS600 foredeck
Jesus' face, no I can see it either, maybe its Elvis.The Cover was frozen to the deck, hence the relief map of Greenland. What were you doing on Sunday morning. In bed huh? In the words and actions of the ausie comedians Lano and Woodly. "Here's .....
A Hitch Hikers guide to the ocean
Or how to sail around the world on someone eles's boat. Topics will include:Where and when to find a boat.What it costsWorld Weather patternsLife on board a yacht.People you’ll meet.Things you’ll see. I Tom (Oceanhippie, Order of the .....
Achiveing great things
I have achieved great things, those of you who've accidentally been reading this since the interesting? bits about ocean travel dried up may have noticed some ranting. modern western life does that to people.The Rants were targeted at the Volvo Ocean .....
Volvo Ocean Race
Screen Shot of Map Here's a map of the current location of the Volvo Ocean race yachts for those like me who can't get the official one to work. Well, I'm not entirely happy with the Volvo Ocean Race Website. Let Me list: Video's won't go full .....
Virgin / NTL's weakness
Ok so its not much of a weakness. But I'm absoluty certain that the absolutly useless NTL call centre arne't allowed to hang up. So long as you have suficienet skype credit they won't hang up. The'll repeat them selves over and over again, they'll put .....
NTL and now Vodafone and volvo abuse.
Start of the Volvo Ocean Race NTL set an enginner arround today, to fix our phone. We know there was nothing wrong this end and NTL had done something at the customer services end. He poked he fiddled, and spent an hour or so on the phone to various .....
March of the Morons
NTL, aka virgin muppetfest army of morons is marching into battle with the all the intelegence of a public schooled young officer leading his lambs to be slaughtered at the Somme. Going out and ringing the door bell of an NTL customer vctim is as .....
You must have ninja focus to complete your mission.
Ok so I couldn't sty off the old blog. Firstly can I say a big think you to Dave who's been looking after my server wot runs this. Or ran this, thanks to my former colegues its now running on there server. I was going to bring it back home. BUT my poor .....
Move along, nothing to see here
Move along, nothing to see here, this website is closed, Tom is watching TV at home in Brighton. Go travel and make your own blogs. Next time something annoys me I'll probably use this to rant about it (watch out the abrahamic religions, you .....
OMG the Pomms are winning..
Have any of you attached ANY significance to the Medal Table of the olympic medals and more to the point the relative possitions of Austrailia and Great Britain? We're doing quite well for us, sailing's helping. Were above the aussie Its produced yelps .....
Its not a yacht
Sunsets on Sydney Harbour Its a dinghy with a cabin. Mind you the cabin is in Mei's garage (weighs too much). Just moving it back to the mooring we got a score of 10.9knots on my GPS, got 10.2 yesterday, aiming straight into to a bay with rather a .....
Radiator Springs
I think I see the problem.... When I were a lad we used to break down all the time, could fix anything, with chewing gum. When we could aford chewing gum, upper classes would pay us half ha'pney a week just to chew it for 'em. Tell that to the youth of .....
Wine Tasting the Hunter Valley
Dunno who the lass on the righ is.... Been out wine tasting. Read drinking. Some of it was right good. Roos in the road, chilli schnaps (eugh). Took in a cheese factory (yum), 5 wine tastings at various vinyards. Many of them fortified. White Port? .....
Evil Cow and Chicken
Not the tallest tree in NSW Cow and Chicken is sitting in a garage, with its lights on, the fuse resolutly refusing to blow. I KNEW this would happen. I've checked into the YHA in Newcastle, even in midwinter the locals don't wear jackets. Actually .....
No real mechanics available
whats this bit do? Now Wicked campers come with 24 hour roadside assistance. Which it turns out is a bloke called John. Nice guy. Say the fuse on the tail lights of your van keeps blowing, who ya gonna call? John. When he gets round to finishing a .....
Tom tops out?
Cow and Chicken at 4300 ft I took a tour of GC ages ago, been up the top of southern St Lucia and up the volcano in Vanuatu. However today I hit 4600ft, according to the GPS. Dunno what that is in meters but its a lot. Its higher than england, all of .....
The Pub with no Beer
The Aussie pub culture is a Myth. Brisbane's best pub is the Fiddlers Elbow in City Backpackers. The rest are soulless over prices and full of suits wtith silly coluored ties. Brabane only has a hand full of pubs (against brighton's hundreds). So i wen't .....
Any port in a storm
Went a blasting south to Port Macquarie, Al wanted halp with the boat. Of course the plan changed when I got there, but hey, warm bed, internet, meat raffle twas good. Meat Meat Raffle? Meat Raffle? Yes its a raffle for meat. I got 10 bucks of .....
Health and Saftey (gone mad)
Up a mountian in Vanuatu, trying to get the Lava out of my hair, being told not to stand near the edge cos it some times collapses into the caldera full of red hot lava, Christian says how we'd never be abole to do this in Austrailia, the volcano would .....
Surfs up - I'm not
this is NOT me - obviously Went surfing, well I say surfing, it was more like being beatern up by waves and holding a board. Cool fun. Water conciderably warmer than the air. The photo right is NOT me for one he's standing up, for 2 he's on a short .....
Main Beach
"Esoterica" In Main Beach, Gold Coast. And yes I'm back on a yacht already. I'm on "Estoterica" Campbell's yacht. Its much larger than Dreamtime IV his previous boat, which I sailed accross the Atlantic on in 2001. He's kindly let me stay on board a .....
Crikey!
Just a piece of glass away Well I've got my van, its therefore started to rain in biblical proportions. Damn. Even the "save water" signs are soaked through. I've got "Cow and Chicken", IE thats the graphitti paint job on it, wich is fine by me. Photo .....
Culture Club
Brisbane by Night from the Backpackers Still here in Brisbane, but definatly leaving. I'm going to visit Steve Irwins's zoo. Now Spike Millagan, of the goon show fame, when he died had the words "I told you I was Ill" inscribed on his tomb stone. Wich .....
Thigs to do in brisbane when your bored.
Now what? Ok I'm not ready to be released into the wild. I'm used to boats. I also suspect I'm the oldest person in the Backpackers, which is cool in way, no guit there. I also appear to be the richest. Which isn't saying much, if I were to put my card .....
I'M ON A TRAIN!
There's no need to shout the whole train can hear you. Today's Train, Electric? Nope. Single Track, Yep. 7.5 Hours to Brizy OK those ferverish awaiting my missives and wondering whether I sunk will be disapointed taht I didn't. If your wondering who so .....
The Trouble with being an Athiest
The trouble with being an athiest is that if your wrong the one thing thats really going to get on god's goat (apart of couse from Ant and/or Dec) is Athiests. Maybe there is a god, and he's punishing me for not beliving him. More likley I'm right and .....
End of the Road?
The 2 nights ago we were horribly dispirited. We've gotten used to our main sourse of weather underestimatint the wind strenght. Its been doing that since about Fiji. But we'd had 2 days of strong hard on the wind when it should have been a light beam .....
Getting Cold Feet
Its the bleak midwinter here. Well not bleak, sunny but down to only warm now. Didn't wear shorts all day today. I'm now as far south as I've ever been. 21°15' South being a previous record. Temp inside the boat is now 22°c at 22° South .....
Million Lira Point
Luganville has a famous atraction called "Million Dolar Point" where at the end of WWII the americans drove all their surplus equipment into the sea. Unvortunatly there's not much of it left. Either that or I was snorkeling in the wrong place. The rusted .....
The Great beer Mission
Actually not a serious mission, compared to northern Pentecost. Where me Al and Jackie march about half a mile through the village to find "the store". The Store was security concious. It had corigated iron walls. As a posed to woven palm leaves as every .....
Bath Time
In Asanvari Maewo, never made it to the village, though we did sort of go spear fishing with some conservationists and the Chief's son. We did however bathe in the waterfall. Which was loverly. Washed in the waterfall and I did my laundry in their .....
Pamplemoose
Pamplemoose Is the local word for Grapefruit. Here endeth the lesson. Hmmm thats gotta be a good google search term. I'm proably the only website with the word "pamplemoose" on it. We're in Loltong, northern Pentecost. Went to the local tourist .....
Testicles swinging in the breeze
that's gonna hurt come morning They call it land diving. Alexander lemming eat your heart out, plummet to certian pain (noody actually died). You may have heard of the South Pacfic Islanders who tie vines to their feet and leap off a rickety wooden .....
Still no Tanna write up
Wer'e in Port Vila, Vanuatu. its much posher than I remember. Its also spelt "Vila", ive been spelling it "Villa". No there's nothing wrong with me, I've not seriously started worrying about spelling mistakes. As designated englishman, I'm making a fry .....
Where do I start?
Tanna, Vanuatu. South Pacific. Damn. I'm sitting here wondering how to put this down. I knew I wanted to come here. Really wanted to come here. Al said when I stepped on board back in St Georges "if there's any where you want to go just say and it goes .....
Booby on Board - The south pacific welcomes carefull drivers
Booby on board We had the sunburn for a couple of days, then had a booby stay for the night again. What I want to know is where do they sleep when they can't get yachts? They do sleep, they tuck their heads in to their wings. Before they land they .....
Sunburn
Don't try this at home, you can't see all the small boats behond the reef, presumably stripping it. We left Suva yesterday in the tag end of the bad weather. About sunset, as we were passing through the passage south of Pacific Harbour it came up to 35 .....
Sunney Suva
Suva, Still. Its been raining worse than an English bank holiday for ever. Well it seems that way. With gusts of 50 knots being forcast outside 2 days ago we remained here. Being rained on. Al uses a rusty old umbrella. Which keeps him dry and diverts .....
Makongai
We left Savusavu bound for Koro, wind on the nose again so we bore off for Makongai. Population 50, a former leper colony. Turned out to be an exelent choise. The reef pass was a little traumatic as, as usual the marker beacon was missing and the chart .....
The smell of boiled eggs
Pefectly cooked eggs, under the jacket is a bowl of rice. Do you know why hot springs smell of eggs? Now I do, the local hot springs in Savusavu (Vannu Livu, Fiji if your interested) are used by the locals for cooking. There a bit utidy about it wich .....
Never been this far a way from home
Play K.Chiefs Well technically thats not true, in fact last time through here I probably passed further south as we were bound for Suva not Savusavu, what is true is we're going to cross the 180 west (or east) meridian in a couple of hours. .....
Haapi Place
Cos's need hollidays too Finally wen't up to Ha'apai group. Its raining. Still raining. We stopped at Uonukuhihifo. The sun came about for about 1/2 an hour. We went to the island in search of errr anything. Saw some cows which was wierd. Some coconuts, .....
Turned out nice again...
Errr . Errrm. Well the suns finally come out and we want to go to the Hapai group. Customs say we cannot checkout on a Friday and leave Saturday. I.E. When the rain stops. Well we can pay 100 Panga. For a Saturday. We warn boat next door, which is the .....
Tonga tied in Nuku'lofa
Spot the mistake Events seem to be conspiring against us. First Dingo arilines cocked up Jackie's flight, marooning us till she (hopfully) arrives tonight, then we can sail off to the loverly Ha'apai Group (know on board as the happy islands - mostly .....
Patience is a virtue
Ok the last gallery I uploaded doesn't work yet, nor does the video. The reason. Tongan internet (formally the best in the Pacific) is absolutly dreadful. Now a modem can theoreticaly do 56000 Bps. Entry level broadband is (in theory) 521000. My upload .....
I hate Mondays
Ok at present I usually don't know what day it is. Mondays are less of a problem. But years of work mean I still dislike them. Three things are eternal. Death, Taxes and Mondays. They follow the weekned, in my case, usually equiped with the pain and .....
Tombstoning the royal bath
Tombstoning Nuie a trully exelent Island. Think the Chrisian Piety might be as a result of snubbing geologists. Now I'm not a geologist, but I belive that islands that stick out of the sea near plate bounderies should be volcanic. The rest of the .....
My Perfect Sundae
Promising title for a blog post. I just thought it was funney. Gin and beer suplies arrive There is no icecream here, sorry. Its not Sundae or Sunday. But yesterday evening was pretty nice. I think my perfect Sunday or (Sundae) would probably involve .....
Mirror, Signal and Manoover, Glory, Glory, Glory ,Hallelujah
Road Legal in Rarotonga Play Carter USM Damn the cook Islands beurocracy , they've lost me licence records. I had to apply for a new driving licence. They noticed I had no motor bike entitelment, didn't last time. In fact the only place I've .....
Wet Feet.
"Wet Feet" may not sound like a partilularly serious title for a blog post. Its all about context. Wet feet when stepping out fo the car, one driver having parked with the passeger door next to the only puddle in south east England is merely annoying. .....
loody polynesian rolling papers
French polynesia has higher booze an fags tax than even the UK. Last time me Borrje and Ros took up rollup smoking. Now even Al has. Unfortunatly the only papers you can get are ungummed. They're a bloomin nightmare. Thats all. Wonder why you botherer .....
The time has come
"The time has come to speak of many thing, of fishing reels and generator things" Bits of boat keep going wrong at present. Some are minor. Chris's tea, minor, that was sat on the gimbaled stove (the stove is on hinges and can swing so it stays upright, .....
for a given value of true
The weather forecast was for 15-20kn's. This has turned out to be true. For a given value of true. Currently, as near as I can figure, rounded up, allowing for boat speed and subejectivly I'd have to say we had none. Therefore the given vaue of true .....
Boring Boring
Approaching the island of Boring Boring,In bad weather. Bora Bora, the most beautiful island in the world, or a contender for it. Shame the weather is rather like that of an English Bank Holiday, damn that's bad luck. Well were here, its Sunday and .....
Destination Port Macquarie - a veiw from Moorea
Accidentally visited Moorea, took so long to get diesel we figured we'd arrive in Bora Bora in the dark. So we stopped at Cooks bay Moorea. Cooks Bay Moorea In Papeete Christian received a parcel from home, laptop diving stuff etc. Also is parents .....
Papeete
Pap Arived in Papeete, all this time I've been spelling it wrong. Mostly however its the ear ache I'll remember, straight off the boat down the hospital. On antibiotics(very expensive ones) and ear drops. Not to mention pain killers. Not allowed to .....
Nervious
Hmmm tis nights like this that make me nervous. Were less than 2 miles from the corner of Rangiroa, an island who's maximum height is 6ft inducing palm trees. Al claims he saw a 3 storey building, but I don't believe him. There's no moon, less than 10 .....
Close encounters of the Coral kind.
We attempted to enter Manhie, twice, going aground the first time, slight damage to the rudder. Second time we hit the ebb tide. Got forced back out the pass again. Third time the current was still running. The entrance looked like the area behind an .....
How not to navigate the south pacific
Oh boy I wish I had a copy of "Charlie's Charts of French Polynesia". Actually I do. I permanently loaned it to Sam on Ramprasad when I brought it home from Ornen in 1999. It would be churlish to have ask for it back after 9 years, when he is now .....
Which hand do you use to wipe your bottom?
Its Alive..... When your bottom is covered with barnacles, its not which hand, but how many. All three of us had a go at it. Finally we've a clean bottom. Its wonderful. The boat feels like its sailing on butter. The ride is so fast and smooth. The .....
Comont?
Mon Capitan: posilble "Check in"Gendarme: Non, retornez sept heur a onze heur Lundi (return 7 till 11 monday)Capitan Alan: Posible "check In "nooky Nooky"Gendarm: Comont? (What?)Mon Glorious Leader: Niky Naki?Gendarme: Comont?Al: Niky Nooney?Gendarme: .....
Bloggin may be curtailed.
Blogging May be curtailed. Some time last night somehow my laptop got broken. Dunno how its usable but the screen is shot. This may curtail my web development. Damn. Hiva Oa is gorgeous, the scenery is stunning. The locals are great. .....
The allure of a lure, on a tripple word score
The allure of a lure, well I hope that's how you spell it. There are a few minor problems on board, and 2 major ones. The Minor one I’m alluding to is we've run out of fishing lures. The last one went a few days ago and was replaced by Al .....
Captian Haddock
Billions of blue blistering barnacles. Literally. Cheap year old Greek anti fouling paint. We were going a bit slow, I wanted to stop for a swim. So over the side I go, equipped with a mask snorkel and scrubbing brush. I was viciously attacked by a .....
All russinas are billy no mates
I've now read so many cold war thrillers I can finally draw a conclusion as to why the USSR lost. Its entirety due to social pressure. You see (according to my reading) the Russians defected all over the place, by car, plane, walking over the .....
Nobody came to our party :-(
Party Well we got the nicknacks out and I put on my least scummy T-Shirt. Had a shower (aka a bucket), but nobody came. Its really hard to meet girls in this ocean. We had a ball anyway, when I said nobody came. We did have a Dolphin and a .....
Party Invite
Mid Way The party is on Jackal Position, 6°56'N 113°56'W. Car parking can be found at Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz, Galapagos Ecuador, 1500Nm West North West of the Party or at Atuona, Hiva Oh, Marqusas, Polynesia Francais 1500Nm West South .....
The turning of the melon.
Melon 13 day's into the passage and we're defiantly in the trades. Jackie our weather girl says we've got steady wind for the next seven days. There's fresh bread in the oven we've 48 beers left. Half a bottle of rum. That's the good .....
Definatly in the Trades
Precilla, Queen of the Desert(toy Camel) We've been barrelling along with good wind for 2 days now. Its wavered a little, we're making a mere 5.7Kn at present. Yesterday we were running for hours at an average of over 7. Definite improvement over .....
Fastnet, Force 10
The 1979 Fastnet race was carnage. The biggest ever disaster in yacht racing I've just been reading the book, written by one off the competitors. Some of it hit home. Dragonfly, Duncan's race boat I served my yacht racing apprenticeship on was 32 foot .....
Is this the South East Trades?
Many of you may have heard the term "Trade Winds", other words like "Azores High" sometimes appear. I'm hoping we've found the south east trades that will drive to the Marquesas. High Pressure = Good weather so open a bottle of Wine!Low Pressure = .....
Steath
We found a movie on board. Called "Stealth". Now I've seen some complete tosh in my time, and, when your being rained on "like Manchester" to quote Al, have been at sea for a week and have 2 more at least, probably three to go anything that will pass .....
Disk 4 of 37
Life is slow, very slow we've been going since about noon on the 1st. Looks like I'm missing March this year. Not much loss. Its the month before the sailing season, before the weather improves enough to be bearable, but after the fun of winter and .....
A good nights Sleep
Not as think as you drink I am Now there are 3 of us every three nights one of us get to sleep properly from 10:00pm till 6:00am. Last night was my turn The wind on the other hand had other ideas. As soon as my head touched the pillow, the wind .....
Plodding along (the race is on)
Well we're at sea on the big one. So far so good. We've not had much wind yet. But that's not as bad as it was the other side of the Galapagos. We can bimble along on minimum revs and the current helps a bit. Our speeds therefore not been great. Foods .....
and then there were three
Moooooon Riiiiiivvvver, wider than a mile.... Leaving Galapagos tomorrow. 3000Nm miles to the Marquesas, French Polynesia. Owch. Remind me again why I want to sail the Pacific again. For most people its the dream of a lifetime. I've already done it. .....
Phew we made it
you are NOT here Well, we're here, got it at about 4. The wind gave up an the current came back at about midnight. We motored in at about 4am. Praying the engine wouldn't run out of fuel as we cut the corner over uncharted bottom at 2.5 knots against .....
I don't understand
At about 8:00pm yesterday we were motoring at 5.3 knots. But due to the current making a mere 2.9knots forward progress. We stopped the engine and went backwards, initially at 2.2 knots. Before we got even the faintest hint of a breeze at 7:00am this .....
Heatbreak
22 miles from the destination, we've stopped the engine, and are floating backwards at 2 knots We took the lid off the fuel tank and looked there's about an inch above the fuel inlet pipe. We decided that we might not make it and eventually even I was .....
Nail biting stuff
Nearly there? We've got about 55Nm to go, we're in the red, there's zip wind. Current seems to be abating. My handy mk1 eyballometer says we've 14 hours of fuel left. Assuming the gauge is linear. I'd like to assume that, like most gauges zero isn't .....
We're not going to make it....
Gps Say 155nm to go We're not going to make it, there's no wind, we've half a tank of fuel and the GPS says we've one hundred and fifty five Nautical Miles to go. Theoretically that's half a tank, however we've got at least a knot of current against .....
Still in the Doldrums
Ships Log Hmmm we've got 250Nm to go, we've got half a tank of Diesel and three small gerry cans left. When I say "gerry cans" I mean were using them as gerry cans the writing on the side says "sunflower oil". I wonder if the oil would have been .....
Yet more doldrums
Morning of the 6th day out from Panama Still in the doldrums, saw a couple of hours of sun yesterday, that's it for this trip so far. Wind has been slightly better, though we had to beat most of yesterday morning and afternoon. That's painful if your .....
Any one want to see my boobies?
Tom's Boobie Well actually there's only one booby, and, disappointingly it not blue footed. I like blue footed boobies. Wow Firefox actually spell checks "boobies". Well this is seriously getting to be character building. As is I'm actually having to .....
More Doldrums
Doldrums Day 3 - Sunday the 18th Feb Boy did it rain last night, I mean biblical, I changed sail config about 15 times and achieve about 5 miles. Its pretty frustrating out here. At least we don't have David Beckam's "My life in football" on board, or .....
More Doldrums
Doldrums Day 3 - Sunday the 18th Feb Boy did it rain last night, I mean biblical, I changed sail config about 15 times and achieve about 5 miles. Its pretty frustrating out here. At least we don't have David Beckam's "My life in football" on board, or .....
More Doldrums
Doldrums Day 3 - Sunday the 18th Feb Boy did it rain last night, I mean biblical, I changed sail config about 15 times and achieve about 5 miles. Its pretty frustrating out here. At least we don't have David Beckam's "My life in football" on board, or .....
More Doldrums
Doldrums Day 3 - Sunday the 18th Feb Boy did it rain last night, I mean biblical, I changed sail config about 15 times and achieve about 5 miles. Its pretty frustrating out here. At least we don't have David Beckam's "My life in football" on board, or .....
Doldrums
The Doldrums Defiantly in the doldrums, Squally black clouds are gathering. Wind is very light and right on the nose, we've been on both tacks, sailing, motoring or motor sailing at random intervals since we left Panama City yesterday lunch time. I get .....
Doldrums
The Doldrums Defiantly in the doldrums, Squally black clouds are gathering. Wind is very light and right on the nose, we've been on both tacks, sailing, motoring or motor sailing at random intervals since we left Panama City yesterday lunch time. I get .....
Updates
Panama Canal Video Been doing some updates, there's a video medley of the Panama Canal, a write up of the Panama Canal in Tom's Travels I've also updated Pilotage with a Panama Canal mini Howto and a little bit about where to put you boat in Panama .....
Visa does not work.
Use your card in millions of cash points around the world they said.... The Eastern Caribbean chain works intermittently. Some days it doesn't. In Venezuela, in 4 days and more than 2 dozen attempts in a dozen cash points no money was forthcoming. .....
Bugger Humbolt and his penguin
Some Pacific Ocean What's the first thing you do when you reach another ocean? Jump in it of course. I tried this last time, the Caribbean is a balmy 27 degrees the Pacific a few hours travel through a ditch is not. This is because of Humboldt, .....
Panama Canal Webcam
I will be transiting the Panama Canal Tomorrow and Saturday. You can see us going through the Gatun Locks on Webcam tomorrow (friday) night. Were leaving here at 18:30 local (23:30GMT). So Estimated lock time is about 7:30-8:30 at GATUN. That early AM .....
Rss Feed Improoved
I've tweaked my rss feed, to allow it to show small pictures. I'll be working on it some more. But new posts should no include illustrations. If you don't use RRS, its very cool. If your using a descent browser (opera or firefox) it will notify you .....
Pilotage
Woot! I had a cold and wrote up some info on Rodney Bay Marina. A few weeks ago, I can also tell where people are coming from when they visit my site, and what they're searching for. I'm only page 4 of google for Rodney bay Marina. Not bad huh. Better .....
The bowels of South America
Approaching Colon, the nicest spot in South America, described by the rough guide as "Colon is a dangerous slum, unless you have a pressing reason to come here, do yourself a favor and give it a miss." The trouble is that after 5 days at sea I'm .....
Are the Andes?
Those of you that remember your Molesworth (you probably don't its a public scool thing). Remember me publick scool educated, ok Educated is over generous to Sedbergh, I think we can say I attended it, while the teachers were in the pubs.. However .....
Floating bloody office blocks
Take a 1960's high rise office block. Rotate through 90 degrees. Pack it with the overpaid, over weight and unfortunately over here and you have a cruise liner. EDIT: Ship I've found out since this a liner is something totally different. Broadly .....
Aruba
oooh err its posh here. The marina is owned by the 5 star hotel ($6US a beer), that means we get to use the gym, pool etc. Or in my case nick towels. The boat next door has been hear a year. They have covered everything in a towel. The must have .....
The demise of te h key
My h key is dying, from now on this website may be missing this unappreciated letter. From now on you may ave to add tem your selves. For instance erring, means herring, muc is much. I'm sure you'll all get te hang of it. I'm in Aruba, to save money I .....
Crew Wanted
Jackal the boat I'm sailing on is in need of an other Crew member. A third person to cross the pacific. If your interested. Get in touch with me and I'll put you through to Allen the skipper. Panama to Australia, Via Galapagos F. Polynesia, Tonga, .....
Flying Fish
Arrived in Bonaire, things relatively cheap, English well spoken. Town awash with Americans of above average girth (well maybe not above average for Americans), sporting T-Shirts from every island in the Caribbean. They'll be from that cruise liner .....
Bolivars and Bog Paper
The Currency of Venezuela is the Bolivar. Its about 2000 old bolivars to the US Dollar officially or up 5000 changing cash. That's if we had any cash, which we don't. Wish someone had said. I've got some us travellers cheques. However checking in .....
Hittler has only got one ball
Apparently the other is in a famous concert establishment in the British Capital. This is not the only lost testicle out there. More can be found in a small group of Venezuelan Islands approximately 2/3rds of the way from Grenada to Isla .....
Hittler has only got one ball
Apparently the other is in a famous concert establishment in the British Capital. This is not the only lost testicle out there. More can be found in a small group of Venezuelan Islands approximately 2/3rds of the way from Grenada to Isla .....
Barbados?
In Grenada, flew here via Barbados, on board "Jackal" a 42ft beneteau. We'll be heading off for Isla Margarita in Venezuala with in the next few days. My Zaurus has died, so those of you who had to miserably type you Addresses into it had better send .....
Barbados?
In Grenada, flew here via Barbados, on board "Jackal" a 42ft beneteau. We'll be heading off for Isla Margarita in Venezuala with in the next few days. My Zaurus has died, so those of you who had to miserably type you Addresses into it had better send .....
Tom messes up again
Fixed my little upload failure. Those Video Clips should now work, hopefully... Kill Your Television, a video shot of the reefs off Anse Chastenet Black Pearl my Arse, I thought I'd lost this and it disappeared off the internet, so I've .....
Karma part II and dental tourism
Some of you may have seen an earlier blog post entitled Karma. About how I lost a pair of sun glasses on Reduit beach, then found a new pair. Well Karma hadn't finished with me yet. The pair I found in the surf on Reduit beach, returned the Davy .....
Kill Your Televison!
I'm sick as a parrot, snot still pouring out of every orifice. Drinking beer makes me feel worse. Sitting around with the laptop is about all I'm good for, its given me some opportunity to work on the website. No, no not the speeling, just the .....
I'm not as old as you think I am
Its New Year 2008, happy new year readers who are listening. Its my birthday the day after tomorrow. But I wont be 33, I'll still be 32. On the way across the Atlantic we put the clocks back 4 times - the sun just kept setting later and later* .....
Jesus ***** ******* Christ
Sorry to blaspheme so badly, but I have snot pouring out of me faster than Neil from the young ones. The only think thats more inclined to make me blaspheme is the newly acquired extra hot pepper sauce. Our first arrival in St Lucia on Ramprasad was .....
Happy Christmass
Merry Christmas to anyone/ everyone. Hope the English weather improves. Christmas shopping in downtown Castries is more fun than Brighton. That's not saying much, its also a lot hotter, its already 30 degrees outside. Ipod accessories are hard to .....
ARC Prizegiving Carnage
Andrew Bishop, head ARC honcho's microphone don't work. Sound engineer has gone to Castries. The last words we heard from him was "Turn it up". Somebody did, the feedback reached an ear-splitting crescendo. I mean loud (this is the Caribbean) and the .....
Roundabouts - Imperialist Agression
St Lucia now has roundabouts, it didn't last time I was here. The locals blame the English. Apparently they were introduced by the British to keep them down, post colonial medaling and all that. Went zip lining through the rain forest today. .....
Karma
We've all been watching my name is earl. Karma is a very fashionable concept. In 1998 I left my sun glasses on a rock on Reduit Beach. I remembered and went back for them, too late unfortunately they'd gone. Today while wading ashore on .....
An Atlantic Crossing in Pictures
Take one Digital camera, one GPS, an ocean and Google Earth and you can gps your pics and attach them to Google earth. NOTE: you need to have Google Earth installed for this to work, its a free down load! Use the following link to .....
At Sea
Ships Blog, boat date 3.1 days, 28th November. this is Bilge boy Tom talking to an audience of 1. I.E. I've got no way of actually posting this to the internet. Standard quote is: Sail south until the butter melts and then turn right, well we decided .....
Cats and Dogs
This isn't making getting ready to leave any easier. Its chucking it down I want to do my laundry, the block on the boom is held together with insulating tape to make so I can get a replacement screw and its chucking it down. Woot My back hurts, .....
Damn I are good.
He he... Skilled crew. I just fixed the wifi in the marina in Las Palmas. Damn I'm good. Good Job they didn't change the default password on the router!
Arrived
Arrived in Gran Canaria, this time without the 9 hour delay. Boat is great, already fixed the inverter and the ciggy lighter socket, so got power for the laptop. Marina bar has wifi, so geeking is go. Gonna put some photos on face book at some point. .....
Off Today
Well I'm ready to go. Well nearly. I'll find some internet in gran canaria sometime before I head off. Wonder what I've forgotten. I hope it nothing important. My back in 2 kilos over weight. I look like a terrorist. The top of the back pack contains .....
SurvialGear
A big thank you to Brighton Sailing(Drinking) Club, who've bought me some new Olilies. Probably the most expensive and most respectable item of Clothing I own(or ever have). A very big thank you to all of you. However.... They also gave me a "survial .....
Website hosted by Christopher Robin
This website is now countrified, since I'm leaving the country this server had to go. Ok so server is an exaggeration its a MiniITX box running Linux. Well Dave has kindly agreed to look after it for me. Which is very kind of him. He now lives .....
Blogging Tester
Well I'm preping this site for my departure for the Caribbean. To that end I'm integrating Google Maps into it, retiring bits that are no longer relevant and generally having fun. You can watch my chart integration experiments here. I'm going to .....
Wanted
Passage to the Caribbean, NARC or even ARC. Will accept other destinations if they sound warm and sunny. Can sail navigate get along with people very well. Do electronics, computers websites etc. 3 Atlantic crossing previously, and a Pacific .....
Paddle Round the Pier
Paddle Round the Pier, Brighton's seafront charity event is this weekend, (7th/8th July). This year its bigger and spread over 2 days. Tickets for the party are going fast, get them from Adam at Brighton Watersports on the seafront. Other .....
TV Science
Oh dear I actually watched the BBC's panorama program on WiFi "Science" they called it. I already knew it was going to be on. Should have know better than to actually watch it. I had several e-mails in the run up to it, I used words like "watts", .....
Back when my boat was young
This is the 1991 international 14 supercup. According to rumor and other quality info my boat I14 GBR err K 1269 (light blue, with 10 on the bow) would have been 2. Its now 19 years old. This video originates from http:// .....
Muddy Linux
I've finally put Muddy Linux together, it worked well up at glade, this version has been called 0.1 by piertopier. It is missing some bits I want it too have but its also much neater and bug free than last time. Muddy is an offshoot of .....
Glade a success
Glade was a success, PierToPier.net's WiFi network covered most of the site, and worked pretty much flawlessly. We're dead chuffed. For those of you who are interested in my "muddy linux" wireless stuff I will patch in all I learned at Glade .....
Glade
I've been busy, PierToPier.net has been very busy. After a torrent of troubles with Locust World MeshAP on wifi net on the beach. We rather hurriedly rushed my Pebble based system called "Muddy" into service. This was being build ready for .....
Pictures
I've finally got round to uploading some pictures, some of me being Stupid, by stupid I mean going out sailing in an international 14 single handed. I've done this a couple of times. Its fun in petrified sort of way. I can only advise people NOT to do .....
God Bless Freecycle
I recently got introduced to free cycle, basically to save people like me looking dodgy poking around in skips, its a email mailing list that allows people to give away stuff they don't want Its cheaper than a skip, and eco friendly. You'd be amazed .....
Teenagers
Apparently I have been accidentally involved with the elections to the Varndean College SU. Sad b*****s. Some of the particularly geeky science students are presumably standing for election. Do not on any account vote for people like this!
CCIE HIPPIE
I've been working on loads of PierToPier.net stuff. Mostly routed wireless networks. I member when i was abnormal person with "a" computer. At some point in my life it seems my life has changed so that now I need a desk like the one on the .....
WiFi and CAMRA.
WiFi obviously stands for "Wireless Fidelity" and CAMRA, the infamous Campaign For Real Ale. The two appear to me completely incompatible, the sort of pubs that I like are the ones that serve good beer. Ok I'm not a connoisseur, but reasonable beer is .....
Breezy
The Last Race of the Season. Well it didn’t happen, nobody turned up. Bar the race officer, who loyally turned up to cancel the race. I got hired as replacement crew for the CYC snowflake series. The Brighton Surf and the regular crew's .....
Loads of stuff
Been adding a lot of stuff lately. Ironically mostly International 14 related. I was asked by a guy from Plymouth about some advice on handling Penultimates. Must be desperate. So the long reply got edited and added to the list. Why ironically? .....
ShittyLink
I live in a city, not a hamlet, not a town a village or a suburb. A city. Initial Citylink are a courier company, and as such are obviously hate figures. However Unlike EVERY other courier company they take your parcels for collection to a depot in .....
Didn't look so Dodgy at the Time
This was an advert for the Sailing Club during the Council's Rockin "Brighton & Hove Seafront Celebration" As events go it was a disaster - weather was awful, seafront empty, advertising like this means I imagine nobody knew about it - .....
Launch Video
Yeeeee Haaaaa. This video was shot by Roddy, of my self and Paul launching in a bit of swell off Brighton Beach. It conveniently illustrates an article I was writing on High Wind High Wave Sailing Someone I sent it to couldn't play it. He's got a .....
The Metaler vote
Conservative Heavy Metal I have to share this with the rest of the World. This lame letter came thought just before election 2005, the local conservative candidate seems to be targeting the critical heavy metal vote. "In Brighton, you have a real .....
Has Science got rid of God
I've just been to a talk by John Blanchard He describes himself as a "Christian Apologetic" what ever that means, he's author of a famous book entitled "Does god believe in Atheists". He clearly frequently speaks on the subject of science and God. .....
You are what you eat
This book is a joke right.....? Well it made us laugh. The book cost a fortune, and has a look and feel of "spotty dog goes to the beach". Do not buy this book. Its bollocks. Oh and don't take health advice off someone as sickly looking as the bint who .....
Righting Moment
How to right a capsized international 14. Can't belive I wasted half an hour animating that.
Mobile Advertising Hording
After driving the local Sign Writers Nuts, I how have a nice new Advert on my boat. The process was quite simple, though putting them on took a bit of skill. Alex from Moving Edge commented that with my sailing skills I should have stuck them on the .....
CSS Revelation
I think I've finally cracked css. Many thanks (in absentia) to Steve Whitbread ex of the IT dept at College who's CSS I picked to pieces for inspiration. See here". The key to getting around the box model problem of Firefox / Impotent explorer, is to .....
Lock to Gateway
The lock to gateway button in Wiana, does indeed lock to gateway. Even when the gateway dies. I assumes it was a more serious version of "prefer Gateway", but no suicidal as it may seem it LOCKS, STOCKs and both smokin' barrels to the gateway you .....
radius
Been fiddling with radius.... can I go back to configuring sendmail blind fold?. That made sense. I have succeeded in making my temp mesh box look up on my radius server. Mind you I have no idea: What the hell a huntgroup is. How the hell you ban it .....
On the Availbility of Kites
It Seems that Penultimate International 14 spinnakers are hard to come by. A rather nice bloke sold me one last week, and indicated he's got the rest of northern Europe asking if he's got more. If your swiss and want a kite your in trouble apparently. .....
New Website
Finally got arround to putting my origninal ste oceanhippie.org Back where it belongs, and putting this site up to handle the non traveling part of my life. Will put more stuff up soon.