Archive for 'Adversity'
Ordinary Catastrophes
So the other night, we left a few candles burning as we went to bed to help ward off chill and condensation overnight. Around midnight, while both of us slept, one of them burnt its wick overlong and started smoking excessively. Our superbly over-sensitive smoke alarm duly began to screech, shocking us both awake. I [...]
Full StoryEvery man for himself
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. – popularly attributed to Edmund Burke Obion County, Tennessee, is a long way from the water, but very near to the vision that some folks have for the future of our Coast Guard and other maritime rescue agencies. Obion County [...]
Full StoryA sad night in Ganges
Sadness permeates the boat here at anchor in Ganges, even as the rollicking background noise of a hundred happy fellow vacationers drifts in the open hatches. Four people are dead, though not here. Only one we knew, and we knew his passing might be soon, but the other three have added to the already oppressive [...]
Full StoryInexperience and Ineptitude
I’ve been reading The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande recently and it has really resonated with my personal experiences in sailing. For instance, I’ve discovered that I’m not stupid, I’m just inept. How is that for reassurance? Gawande makes the distinction between a lack of knowledge that results in failures (“inexperienced”) and a lack of [...]
Full StoryAll is well
Pretty well, anyway. I just wanted to post a quick update on the sailboat that ran aground yesterday up here in Port Hadlock. As of this morning, it’s back afloat again, a little battered, but still above water. It looked like the rig was a little torn up… I think I saw a spreader hanging [...]
Full StorySpring Storms, Round Two
Not quite a week after the last severe windstorm blew through the Pacific Northwest, causing havoc and creating controversy north of the border, it looks like we are in for round two starting this afternoon. Unlike last week’s storm, the winds today are from the north, giving Mandy and me a front row seat to [...]
Full StoryShould you have to pay for rescue?
So I was watching CNN the other day and they were running a story about some folks in Spartanburg, South Carolina who experienced a small kitchen fire, and decided to fight it themselves because of a previous CNN story reporting on a neighboring jurisdiction in Cherokee County which had passed a law that would allow [...]
Full StoryFrom near-death to jail
I have often wondered, in passing, what happens if you wreck and are rescued in a foreign country before clearing customs. Now I know: you get arrested. This story has already been making the rounds on nautical websites here in the Pacific Northwest, on Three Sheets among others. So far, though, all that has been [...]
Full StoryThe Great Tsunami of 2010
Actually, it’s early in the year to make a proclamation of that sort, so I may be tempting fate a bit… there could certainly be an actual Great Tsunami at some point later in the year in which case I’ll probably regret my sarcasm here. Let’s hope not, for reasons other than the potential wounding [...]
Full StoryDecadent Living
My timing of the tides and currents through the San Juans en route to Seattle proved to be masterful and heroic in scale… yet deficient in one particular: Spieden Channel. I’d worked out our trip from Sidney to Seattle precisely accounting for the tides and currents at Sidney, through Haro Straight, down San Juan Channel, [...]
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Marty McOmber
Scott Wilson