Friday, August 11, 2006

A Whale of a Time



While transporting a boat down from Portland, Maine to Nantucket last week the Captain and I agreed a slight lenghtening of the journey through Stellwagen Bank would be cool. Stellwagen Bank is a massive shelf, or upwelling of sand in Cape Cod Bay, and for the obvious reason (food), the Humpbacks and Right Whales love it there. In the Mid-Summer, the Right Whales are much farther North, but the Humpbacks are there in huge numbers, and they are huge, huge. Not only did we find the whales, but we found them feeding. Thanks to a lifetime of watching outdoor-themed television programming, I am somewhat of an expert on whale feeding tactics - the whales find the fish, circle, or "ball" the bait and then swim down and blow bubbles below the ball - disorienting the bait. What happens next is great, one lucky whale (the largest male, as it is in the wild kingdom, and my household) gets to jam up through the bait, leap out of the water with a mouthful of Sashimi. It really is spectacular.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

RayMarine Charplotters


I mentioned we have the RayMarine E-Series Multifunction Navigational Systems onboard our boats at BGMC and we really like them. There are a dizzyingly high amount of features and functions. I have a logged a lot of time with the system and really like the results, but the UI in the system is troubling. Looks like you can now add Sirius's digital weather to overlay on the charts for a extra $1000 and a monthly subscription. I like the idea of having redundant systems in order to avoid over-reliance on one system, so a big screen with multiple inputs make a lot of sense.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Shark Week


We are half-way through Shark Week and dear lord do we love our televisions now. In the middle of summer is rude because we should be out live-lining kittens for sharks ourselves at night, not in front of the television . . . however, squeemish losers who watch Shark Week will be terrified and never come down to the beach and yell at us for live-lining kittens because they don't want to go the way of Cap'n Quint, so that's nice, thanks Discovery Channel. Additionally, iTunes has Shark Week available as a download, and having hours of poorly compressed shark footage on your laptop is sort of requirement if you consider yourself salty in this modern age.

The Tuna are Coming


Well, actually they are here. I saw a bunch of them on the docks of Nantucket this past weekend. They did not appear to be too happy to be there. I have been finding myself farther offshore than in the past this year and am contemplating purchasing a proper Tuna set up. I have read about what is proper in On The Water and other places, and I have lovingly gazed at the rods aboard the Battle Wagons on the docks, but am still not sure exactly what to get. I saw this new Penn Reel this morning and thought it might suffice with 300/30 Line Capacity and 4.2-1 Gear Ration, but again, what do I know, my average sized fish is a rat-like striper.