Jan 25th, 2012 at 10:00AM: Port Lockroy -- If there is a human population center along the Antarctic Peninsula, this is it. While there may be hundreds of thousands of penguins, tens of thousands of seals, whales and sea birds that call this remote stretch home, few people do.
But at the height of the austral summer season -- December-February -- more people congregate in the protected harbor here at the former 'Camp A' ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
ocean posts
Bowermaster's Adventures: Finding civilization in Antarctica
Jan 25th, 2012 at 10:00AM: Port Lockroy -- If there is a human population center along the Antarctic Peninsula, this is it. While there may be hundreds of thousands of penguins, tens of thousands of seals, whales and sea birds that call this remote stretch home, few people do.
But at the height of the austral summer season -- December-February -- more people congregate in the protected harbor here at the former 'Camp A' ...Bowermaster's Adventures: Paradise Harbor, Antarctica
Jan 23rd, 2012 at 11:00AM: Paradise Harbor -- Its common knowledge among Antarctic veterans that no two days here look or feel alike. Ever.
The reality is that no quarter hour looks alike. Or can be predicted, no matter how many months or years you've spent here.
We spent the night in a small, protected bay about 400 miles down the coastline of the Antarctic Peninsula. The tricky thing about sailing a small yacht here ...Teahupo'o: the world's 'heaviest' surfing wave
Jan 16th, 2012 at 5:00PM:
Teahupo'o, site of a legendary surfer break on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, has developed quite the reputation among big-wave surfers. Due to a shallow coral reef just off shore, waves here tend break as massive, chunky walls of water, a phenomenon that has earned Teahupo'o the distinction as the "heaviest" wave in the world.
The video above, filmed at ...
Bowermaster's Adventures: Protecting the Maldives
Dec 30th, 2011 at 11:00AM:
Laamu, Maldives-- The recent four-day, ocean-focused conference -- dubbed WaterWoMen by its sponsors, Six Senses Resortsand +H2O-- was a first-of-a-kind blend of water sport activities and intellectual athleticism.
Equal part coming out party for the resort on this remote Maldivian atoll just a100 miles north of the equator included were not just some of the world's top water athletes ...Maldives in Peril: An interview with Daryl Hannah
Nov 7th, 2011 at 10:30AM:
Given her decades of success in the movie business, environmental activist and actress Daryl Hannahcould be lounging on any beach in the world today, drinking rum punches, working on her tan or perfecting her mermaid's kick.
That she recently spent a week in the Maldives, much of it indoors participating in a pair of eco-symposiums focused on climate change and the future of island nations -- ...Maldives in Peril: SCUBA surveying with Fabien Cousteau
Oct 21st, 2011 at 9:00AM:
There are few places on the planet as remote as the Maldives. Landfall is a thousand miles away from much of the long string of 1,200 islands, most of which are little more than thin, uninhabited atolls. Diving into the heart of a Maldivian lagoon it is easy to imagine you are alone in one of Planet Ocean's most distant paradises.
Yet when I did just that a few days ago, in the heart of the ...Highest numbers of whales in 25 years in Hervey Bay, Australia
Oct 13th, 2011 at 1:00PM: Right now, Hervey Bay, Australia, is seeing the highest number of whales in 25 years. According to Wally Franklin of The Oceania Project there are a record number of whales migrating down the coast. In fact, he estimates 14,000 whales in the humpback population of eastern Australia. Franklin also strongly believes that this trend will continue into November, as mother humpbacks teach their calves ...Rescue crews rush to aid naked Irish solo adventurer
Jun 25th, 2011 at 10:00AM: The headline was too horrid on so many fronts to pass up.
It turns out 29-year-old Irishman Keith Whelan, attempting to become the first of his nation to row solo across the Indian Ocean – despite as far as I can glean having little rowing experience, just naked ambition and a Twitter account – had been slapped by a big wave 128 miles off the coast of Australia, cracked his head on ...Time lapse video: Queen Mary 2 sails the Atlantic
Jun 19th, 2011 at 11:00AM:
Queen Mary 2: Atlantic Timelapse from Adonis Pulatus on Vimeo.
Adonis Pulatus took these time lapse shots while aboard the Queen Mary 2 as it sailed from New York to the Caribbean last December. The luxury ocean liner appears to stay perfectly static as waves crash all around, making the boat almost appear to be photoshopped over a video of the deep blue. But Cunard's ship isn't really ...
Exploring Richard Branson's Virgin Oceanic
May 30th, 2011 at 3:00PM: The first time I met Richard Branson we were in the kitchen of a small bed and breakfast in the high-Arctic Inuit village of Clyde River. Taller and blonder than I expected, he was dressed in full cold-weather gear and had just flown in by private plane to join a dogsled expedition. Slightly bemused, he was struggling to figure out how to microwave a cup of tea.
I think of that scene whenever ...
Fishing in the French Polynesian waters
May 27th, 2011 at 10:00AM: Fakarava Atoll, the Tuamotus, French Polynesia – Maru's 16-foot, plywood fishing boat, steered by one metal rod coming straight out of the floorboards in his left hand and accelerated by another rod held tightly in his right hand, hugs the eastern edge of Passe Garuae. One of only two passes accessing the atoll's thirty-six-by-twenty-one mile lagoon, twice day big water rushes either in or ...The coral reefs of Bora Bora
May 26th, 2011 at 6:00PM:
Bora Bora, Society Islands, French Polynesia – I dove in the beautiful lagoon that surrounds the tall island to have a first hand look at how the coral reef is doing in this South Pacific resort island. The report is not good.
Descending to ninety feet it was immediately clear that the reef has been hammered in the past few years. I've come here every year for the past decade and have ...Sea Shepherd boat "Steve Irwin" heads to Somalian pirate waters
May 19th, 2011 at 1:00PM: In a not-too-surprising move last week the Sea Shepherd took its ship the "Steve Irwin" – proudly waving its skull-and-crossbones pirate flag – straight into the heart of real pirate country.
While the Shepherd's are regarded among conservation groups as being rebels and outsiders, willing to go to nearly any lengths to protect whales, dolphins, baby seals, tuna and more, happy to ...Photo of the day - A day at the beach
Apr 21st, 2011 at 5:00PM: Sometimes a perfect day at the beach isn't all cerulean blue skies and crystal clear water. Sometimes it's a windy afternoon, after the season is over, but you can enjoy the solitude and serenity of the ocean. Flickr user t2mujin took in such a scene on a March day in Lisbon, Portugal for today's Photo of the Day. We might be looking at a fisherman's gear or just someone eager for summer, even if ...A conversation with the founder of Swim to Empower
Apr 21st, 2011 at 2:00PM:
Named for the Greek for "freedom," Eleuthera is 110 miles long and just a mile at its widest. To the east is the occasionally wild Atlantic, to the west a shallow, almost-always-calm Caribbean Sea ... waters on both sides that literally beg to be swum.
Unless, of course, you don't know how to swim. Which is the case for 80 percent of the islanders. Taught to be scared of the ocean, even a ...The spread of Somalian pirates
Apr 20th, 2011 at 2:00PM: Should we be concerned by suggestions that terrorists are taking clues from the Somali pirates and considering hijacking ships across the Indian Ocean for reasons other than ransom?
Absolutely.
There is increasing evidence of links in Somalia between the mafia-like organizations that run most of the pirating and the Somali-based terrorist group Al-Shabaab, which controls most of southern and ...Photo of the day - The Old Man and the Sea
Apr 7th, 2011 at 5:00PM:
Context is a funny thing. If this man were, say, working on his car in Passaic, New Jersey, we wouldn't find him very romantic or interesting. But put him on a boat on the Adriatic Sea in Slovenia and he's now a perfect travel photo subject, thanks to Flickr user SummitVoice1. He makes us sigh and think, "That's the life. Just a man, a simple boat and the open water."
He should still probably ...Eleuthera Island, Bahamas - "Fishing is a Good Life Here"
Mar 29th, 2011 at 10:00AM:
French Leave, Eleuthera -- Under a cloud-studded sunrise at the end of the two-and-a-half-mile long beach I watch a 14-foot plywood boat back into the morning surf. A trio of Bahamian men readies it for a day of spearfishing along the near-reef that parallels the 110-mile long island. One will drive; another will watch and stack fish. The third – a lithe, fair-skinned black man with ...It's time to end Indian Ocean "Adventures"
Mar 24th, 2011 at 1:00PM: With news that seven Danish sailors, including three children aged 12 to 16, had been captured by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean on Thursday, February, 24, it's time to reevaluate the legacy of four Americans shot to death by pirates in those same waters off eastern Africa just two days before the Danes issued their distress call.
In the obituaries of the four Americans killed aboard their ...Aleksander Doba successfully sea kayaks across the Atlantic
Mar 20th, 2011 at 5:00PM: An obscure Pole named Aleksander Doba has pulled off a somewhat obscure first: Sea kayaking across the breadth of the Atlantic Ocean in 98 days, 23 hours, 42 minutes, the longest open ocean kayaking adventure ever.
Leaving quietly from Dakar on October 26 and spending much of the first two months fighting into relentless winds and currents which kept pushing him north, it seemed – if you ...
