Picture This: Above the Palms
Above the Palms (Osprey on Cayo Costa by K. Walters)
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The Best Sailing Blogs of 2012
"The sea is a great university of the story-telling art." -Norman Freeman I really enjoy writing content for SailFarLiveFree.com . In fact, writing sailing related content is second only to time spent with my family and actual sailing in bringing me fulfillment. The more I write and the more I get to interact with readers, the more I find I'm inspired to continue writing. So thank you to my longtime readers, new readers who have started following my blog sometime during 2012, and to all those who comment and contact me. There's a lot of great bloggers in the sailing and cruising community and I also get a lot of inspiration and enjoyment out of reading their content. And so, this blog post is an attempt to recognize and thank some of my fellow sailing bloggers. If you read SailFarLiveFree via the webpage (as opposed to an RSS feed or email subscription), you're probably familiar with a lot of my favorite sailing bloggers from seeing them listed in my blog r...
Picture This: Storm Warning
Storm Warning ( by K. Walters, Grand Haven, MI) NOAA & the National Weather Service are forecasting a storm warning for the next couple of days on Lake Michigan: THIS STORM WARNING IS IN EFFECT FROM 1 PM THURSDAY TO 4 PM CST FRIDAY. THE STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT. * WINDS...NORTH TO NORTHWEST STORM FORCE TO 55 KT . * SIGNIFICANT WAVES...TO 25 FT. * OCCASIONAL WAVES...TO 33 FT. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... A STORM WARNING MEANS WINDS OF 48 TO 63 KNOTS ARE IMMINENT OR OCCURRING. RECREATIONAL BOATERS SHOULD REMAIN IN PORT...OR TAKE SHELTER UNTIL WINDS AND WAVES SUBSIDE. COMMERCIAL VESSELS SHOULD PREPARE FOR VERY STRONG WINDS AND DANGEROUS SEA CONDITIONS...AND CONSIDER REMAINING IN PORT OR TAKING SHELTER IN PORT UNTIL WINDS AND WAVES SUBSIDE.
iPhone Chartplotter Review: MotionX-GPS
"Odysseus spread his sail...while he sat and guided the raft skillfully by means of the rudder. He never closed his eyes, but kept them fixed on the Pleiades, on late-setting Bootes, and on the Bear...which turns round and round where it is, facing Orion, and alone never dipping into the stream of Oceanus - for Calypso had told him to keep this to his left. Days seven and ten did he sail over the sea..." - Homer from The Odyssey , 700 BC My sailor's cap comes off to those of you who know celestial navigation and can competently find your way across oceans with little more than a sextant. I'd like to learn to navigate by the sun and the night sky and have my nav station uncluttered by wires and spent batteries, but until that day I'll be relying on electronics as my main means of navigating. Mobile devices have rapidly leveled the playing field for the marine navigation market. It wasn't long ago that color LCD GPS chartplotters cost thousands of d...
Racing Towards Insanity: The Vendee Globe
If you've been following SailFarLiveFree.com for long, you know my interests and passion are for cruising and exploration rather than racing and speed. I've spent a season crewing on a race team, but I did so to learn about sail trim and to see the other side of sailing rather than to scratch some competitive itch or see how far to the right I could get the knotmeter needle to point. However, if you're a fan of sailboat racing, there are a ton of huge events that have occurred over the last several months ( Volvo Ocean Race ) or will take place in the very near future ( America's Cup ). But the only sailing race I really pay attention to is the Vendee Globe . The Vendee Globe is more than a race, it's a non-stop solo adventure around the world the hard way. In fact, it's the ONLY non-stop single-handed 'round the world race (the VELUX 5 is raced in stages with stops in between). I personally think this race is for the insane and ranks in my book as the m...