Oceanhippie.net - Blog

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 .....

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 .....

The Lost Results of Darwin Sailing Club

                The Darwin Sailing Club has a new website – its quite impressive actually. The video in the .....

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 .....

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:

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 .....

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 .....

$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 .....

Buttock Clenching Terror – Novice Helm round the sand bar. Boat owners are often nervous handing the helms of their preciousesesses .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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. .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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.

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 .....

Driving Miss Shermy (7 inch Single)

Also available on 4000km, Prog Rock style Double LP..

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 .....

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. .....

Windows 8.1 - still sucks

Well My Boss has said "we're going to have to sell windows 8" Cock.

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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. .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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. .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

Nice Picture.....

  This is us curtesy of the front page of Sailing Anarchy. Click for Massive!For those not familure with Matt's boat its the one on the right

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 .....

Merry Christmas

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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, .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

Off-line

I AREN'T DEAD Probably, going to be off-line for a while, till Nuie probably. more than a week. Tom

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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. .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

Darién Gap

 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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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. .....

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, .....

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". .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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. .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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. .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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, .....

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 .....

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 .....

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. .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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, .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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, .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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, .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

Dead badger?

Installing Linux on a Dead badger. Priceless! Tom

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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" .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

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 .....

Righting Moment

How to right a capsized international 14. Can't belive I wasted half an hour animating that.

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 .....

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: .....

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.

Silly Season on the Internet

Stupid Post about WiFi interference does the rounds Last Wednesday I when down the beach to figure out why PierToPier.net had gone down. Mostly it was the problem with node 1's Router. However .....