Showing posts with label the. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the. Show all posts
Monday, 24 April 2017
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Saturday, 1 April 2017
Paddling in the mourning
It is the first day in over 3 months where I cannot enter the beaver forest. The water has dropped a few inches this week, the narrow gaps that I had squeezed through are even thinner, the shallow spots where I just cleared beaver felled trees are now land bridges. I can come back in nine months.
I stop among the lotus pads - something I more often complain about because they restrict my paddling during the summer, but today the pads are alive, or I should say, today I notice how alive the pads are. Bees move among the blossoms and rest on the pads themselves, dragonflies are all around, and something stirs under the pads as I move. I don't mind them much today.
The surviving female adult eagle from the south nest flies by. Her mate was killed yesterday by a vehicle on the stupid bridge that passes through this beautiful area, a dead scar, an obscene gesture of progress. I have no response to it other than my own verbal obscenities. So, the sunny warm day has a certain somberness to it. I saw their eaglet in a tree two days ago... "so it goes".
Saturday, 25 March 2017
Harvesting Gum for Sealing the Canoe
While taking a break from the monotony of lashing the gunwales, I've been eagerly collecting any pine or spruce gum oozing from trees in my area. At first the process was frustating as I could only find tiny droplets of gum that didn't seem worth the effort. But after I started paying closer attention, I began noticing several large gobs of gum on these trees, typically emanating from below a branch wound.
The most gracious source was a white pine under which we BBQ all the time! A copious amount of gum had accumulated under a branch wound and had already begun to dry out and turn grey. Using an old broken knife, I harvested the gum into a can and scraped off other sources
Gob of gum; Harvesting with an old knife
When I started harvesting from these sources, I would notice a large grub wiggling around in the bark. Further research has pointed out that I've been getting assistance from the Pitch Mass Borer (Synanthedon pini), a type of moth that deposits eggs on the bark of the host pines and spruces during June and July. The larvae bore in the inner bark and sap wood excavating tunnels and cause copious amounts of sap to flow as a defense mechanism. Usually a single larva is found in one glob and don't damage tree extensively.
Apparently removing the larva causes the wound to seal off completely and stop flowing so I've been careful to ensure that I don't kill the delicate larvae while also leaving some protective gum on the wound as well. Afterall, these little guys have made my harvesting sufficient quantities of gum much easier and the trees are supplying me with a fantastic waterproof sealant.
At anyrate, with all plenty of pines and spruce in the vicinity that have been trimmed for landscaping purposes, I've been able to collect a whopping load of gum. I ended up transferring all the collected stuff into a plastic bag and then stuffed it into a 1kg tub (formerly containing some fantastic Medjool Dates). After softening a bit in the summer sunshine, the 2 pounds or so of softened gum has taken on the shape of the container.
1 Kg of gum in the container
The unsightly mix needed to be filtered to remove bits of bark, soil, needles, and other debris. So I rigged up a cooking station with an Trangia alcohol stove, used an old cheapo pot to melt the gum and poured the resulting brew into an aluminum foil lined pan topped with a cheese cloth "filter". The pitch melted easy enough into a bubbling brew and occasional flared up like a flambe so doing this outdoors with a lid nearby to smother the pot was a must. After thoroughly boiling to cook off the bulk of the pitch smell (apparently making the gum less brittle), it was poured into the cheesecloth and the clean gum squeezed. This required some quick work because the cooling gum would solidify rapidly.
The set-up; Melting globs of gum
To reduce the extreme stickiness of the gum and limit the mess, I put the pan into the freezer for a while and that allowed the resin to break off the aluminum foil quite nicely. The chunks were then stored in a zip lock bag. After repeating this process a few times, I ended up with about 500 grams of purified resin (from the original 1kg amount). This isn't enough to seal the boat so I've been actively collecting more gum from any and trees I come across (eliciting strage looks from passers by).
Purifed batch of gum; Putting it in the freezer
Purifed Pine Resin; The total harvest
I also found that the cotton cheesecloth tended to trap too much liquid gum, so my filtered yield wasn't as much as I had hoped. Both Jim Miller's DVD and Cesar's Bark Canoe video show the gum filtered with a burlap bag whose woven fabric seems to allow much more liquid gum seepage. After searching for burlap bags in vain, I posted an ad on Toronto's Freecycle and Bill responded to me request with plenty of burlap bags. I intend to use this with the next batch of gum preparation and expect to get better results. Thanks Bill!
Wednesday, 15 March 2017
Mapping the East River in My Head
I ask S where she wants to go. I have three new rivers for her to see. They are all worthwhile, and all a bit different. One is freshwater with forests and meadows and lots of tight meanders. Another is tidal, but above the brackish water, and well treed with lots of shade for a hot day. The last is tidal and open land starting near the sea, but the bird life is excellent - the East River.
We set out from the state launch on a long sand point that is way too exposed for the dozen houses that are built on it. The low tidal flats marsh has the short variety of spartina grass, the kind that prefers places where it doesn't get inundated with every high tide, only with the highest of high tides. The willets and osprey are active, and when we get upstream to the second osprey box, which is well back from the river, we spot 5 great egrets and eight glossy ibises all in one small area. The sparrow counting team is on the opposite bank and they report a slow day, only six of the sparrows that they are counting in three hours.
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| Glossy Ibises |
The tide is near high and the current in the river is slack. The ocean wind pushes us upstream when the river hasn't turned to one side or the other. We notice that the river changes character with each bridge. Passing under the railroad bridge, the ocean tidal flats give way to a wide marsh valley that is constrained by rising forest lands. Passing under the highway bridge, the valley narrows more and the surrounding land rises higher. The willets disappear and the singing of marsh wrens dominates.
We continue pass my previous turn around point and come to a older stone bridge. The river valley narrows more, and now the osprey are gone, although they surely come here. I spot a stand of miniature cattails.
"We'll just go up to that flat topped tree and see what the river looks like." And, it looks like it will go a mile or a few farther as far as any canoe is concerned. But, we turn and paddle with the current, back into the ocean breeze when the river isn't turning to one side or the other.
We both agree that this might be the best tidal rivers that we have paddled in Connecticut.
Sunday, 12 March 2017
Parsing the NMEA press release
"NMEA TAKES AIM AT UNAUTHORIZED USE OF ITS STANDARDS
Action designed to protect ownership rights
SEVERNA PARK, MD—Every year the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) and its volunteer members spend significant amounts of time, effort and money to create data exchange Standards that benefit the entire marine industry. Many users comply with the NMEA licensing agreement, which requires purchasing use of the Standards, but some do not. NMEA has announced that it will take whatever action is necessary to protect its ownership rights to these Standards and collect payments for their use.
“The NMEA is a member-supported industry organization that supports the marine electronics industry by providing technical training and the development of various Standards,” said Johnny Lindstrom, Chairman and Acting Executive Director of NMEA. “The Standards developed and released are the sole property of our members.
“Over the years we have been too lax in enforcing our rights under various copyright and intellectual property rights laws. By doing so, our members have missed benefiting from the revenue that should be realized from the use of these technologies. We are embarking on an effort to aggressively enforce these rights and collect for the use of our technologies by numerous individuals and businesses around the world.
“Did you know that the cell phone network infrastructure timing is, in some cases, using the ‘UTC Time’ sentences from our NMEA 0183 Standard for synchronization? I have a major cell carrier ‘air card’ that has NMEA 0183 functions in it; I find no record of this carrier ever purchasing the rights to use this Standard.
“This is just one instance; there are numerous cases where ‘NMEA 2000 compatible’ or some variation of this description is used. There is no such thing as ‘NMEA 2000 compatible’—the product is either certified or it is not, as stated in the NMEA licensing agreement.
“By allowing this abuse of our Standards we are cheating those that play by the rules and by doing so support the maintenance of existing Standards and the development of future ones. In the past, the only way NMEA has known about any of these violations is by members contacting us. I ask all of our members to be more diligent and to alert the NMEA National Office of any abuses of our rights, so that we may pursue enforcement of these rights by whatever means available.”
About the NMEA
Founded in 1957, the NMEA has led the way in establishing technical Standards for data exchange in marine electronics, with the widely accepted NMEA 0183 data protocol, NMEA 2000® and certification Standards for marine electronics technicians. NMEA Standards and programs focus on insuring that the boating consumer is provided with reliable products and professional service. For more information, visit the NMEA website at www.NMEA.org or call (410) 975-9425."
When I first read the press release I was a startled. There certainly was more than some righteous indignation present mixed in with a dose of "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going going to take it anymore." I also maybe sensed a bit of fiscal concerns peeking out from under the covers. Why else the threat of aggressive enforcement after all these years?
To many NMEA 0183 is a slow and very simple serial data communications protocol that unlike NMEA 2000 can easily be parsed without any formal standards documentation. Verify this with 14 year old kid that can parse a 0183 sentence for his Ardunio project.
In today's world NMEA 0183 is very alive and doing well. It's not just for boats anymore. The sales of GPS chips are approaching an astounding one billion units per year driven by costs of about $3.00 for a GPS chip. Add a few more cents for the antenna and you're done. They live in tablets, laptops, smart phones, cars, airplanes, trucks, drones, watches and even inside people and pets. They provide timing synchronization for networks and systems, and provide data for precision farming.
Johnny Lindstrom is correct in his assertions. Unauthorized use of NMEA's 0183 standards and formats have become rampant. How did this happen and who are the possible culprits?
The above is the list of the most common NMEA sentences transmitted by a GPS, although many do not directly transmit NMEA sentences.
NMEA 0183 version 2.3 was released in 1997, and this is where I consider the modern NMEA 0183 era starting. The intervening 17 years saw few structural changes in these sentences making them very stable from a software developer's viewpoint.
The "How" part is NMEA's proprietary information up to around version 3.1 (2002) has been slowly leaked over the years and widely disseminated on the internet. This has been exacerbated by the sense of many that NMEA 0183 is older technology, so who would care? In reality it's more relevant and useful today than at any other time in it's past. In effect the combination of simple technology coupled with all of the technical information regarding the above sentences makes it available to anyone who desires to use it. Many do so without paying for it, and many commercial users may not even realize they should.
Who are the unlicensed users? In part only NMEA knows, but let's start by eliminating a lot of them. Here is the NMEA list of manufacturer codes, as of April 7 2014 and this list just a subset of licienced users. The implication is I hope, that they have purchased the standards or they wouldn't be on the list. In the case of the pictured SiRF GPS, the company appears twice. Once as SiRF technologies, and via an acquisition path as CSR.
There are two major groups to look at. Hardware manufacturers who use NMEA o183 I/O, and software developers. There are fuzzy areas and this can be a mixed bag of tricks. In one case I found a PC manufacturer who has a GPS chip set in their computer. The GPS chip set by itself doesn't speak NMEA, but a software driver update provided by the PC manufacturer translates the GPS data into NMEA sentences. It isn't clear if the software driver was actually written by the PC manufacturer, but even if it wasn't there are several free downloadable drivers that will do the same job.
Also on the hardware side of the fence are USB based GPS's for PC's. Most speak NMEA but in many cases you can't immediately tell whose technology is being used inside. Now include a huge number of offshore manufacturers that use NMEA 0183 in their products that may be effectively out of reach of any practical action at all.
There are many software products that use and parse NMEA 0183 as a data source. This includes GIS applications, generalized mapping programs, and analysis of GPS logging data to name a few. In addition there are literally hundreds of freeware applications that use NMEA 0183 formated data.
My advice to NMEA regarding its potential efforts to claw back 0183 standards revenue is to do it in a very careful and pragmatic way. There are endless scenarios with varying complexities and many yet to be answered questions to deal with. Look for the the blatant offenders that will make up the majority of the possible revenue, don't get greedy, and remember principles are always very costly. Chasing users who either don't have money, or don't make any money (freeware and open source projects) using NMEA 0183 is a fruitless and fiscally unproductive venture. Lastly gird your loins for the inevitable flak. You're going to get some and how you go about this will determine the amount of shrapnel you will have to deal with.
The SiRF Star III GPS and antenna was taken by Wikipedia user Pardus2
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| SiRF Star III GPS and antenna |
To many NMEA 0183 is a slow and very simple serial data communications protocol that unlike NMEA 2000 can easily be parsed without any formal standards documentation. Verify this with 14 year old kid that can parse a 0183 sentence for his Ardunio project.
In today's world NMEA 0183 is very alive and doing well. It's not just for boats anymore. The sales of GPS chips are approaching an astounding one billion units per year driven by costs of about $3.00 for a GPS chip. Add a few more cents for the antenna and you're done. They live in tablets, laptops, smart phones, cars, airplanes, trucks, drones, watches and even inside people and pets. They provide timing synchronization for networks and systems, and provide data for precision farming.
Johnny Lindstrom is correct in his assertions. Unauthorized use of NMEA's 0183 standards and formats have become rampant. How did this happen and who are the possible culprits?
NMEA 0183 version 2.3 was released in 1997, and this is where I consider the modern NMEA 0183 era starting. The intervening 17 years saw few structural changes in these sentences making them very stable from a software developer's viewpoint.
The "How" part is NMEA's proprietary information up to around version 3.1 (2002) has been slowly leaked over the years and widely disseminated on the internet. This has been exacerbated by the sense of many that NMEA 0183 is older technology, so who would care? In reality it's more relevant and useful today than at any other time in it's past. In effect the combination of simple technology coupled with all of the technical information regarding the above sentences makes it available to anyone who desires to use it. Many do so without paying for it, and many commercial users may not even realize they should.
Who are the unlicensed users? In part only NMEA knows, but let's start by eliminating a lot of them. Here is the NMEA list of manufacturer codes, as of April 7 2014 and this list just a subset of licienced users. The implication is I hope, that they have purchased the standards or they wouldn't be on the list. In the case of the pictured SiRF GPS, the company appears twice. Once as SiRF technologies, and via an acquisition path as CSR.
There are two major groups to look at. Hardware manufacturers who use NMEA o183 I/O, and software developers. There are fuzzy areas and this can be a mixed bag of tricks. In one case I found a PC manufacturer who has a GPS chip set in their computer. The GPS chip set by itself doesn't speak NMEA, but a software driver update provided by the PC manufacturer translates the GPS data into NMEA sentences. It isn't clear if the software driver was actually written by the PC manufacturer, but even if it wasn't there are several free downloadable drivers that will do the same job.
Also on the hardware side of the fence are USB based GPS's for PC's. Most speak NMEA but in many cases you can't immediately tell whose technology is being used inside. Now include a huge number of offshore manufacturers that use NMEA 0183 in their products that may be effectively out of reach of any practical action at all.
There are many software products that use and parse NMEA 0183 as a data source. This includes GIS applications, generalized mapping programs, and analysis of GPS logging data to name a few. In addition there are literally hundreds of freeware applications that use NMEA 0183 formated data.
My advice to NMEA regarding its potential efforts to claw back 0183 standards revenue is to do it in a very careful and pragmatic way. There are endless scenarios with varying complexities and many yet to be answered questions to deal with. Look for the the blatant offenders that will make up the majority of the possible revenue, don't get greedy, and remember principles are always very costly. Chasing users who either don't have money, or don't make any money (freeware and open source projects) using NMEA 0183 is a fruitless and fiscally unproductive venture. Lastly gird your loins for the inevitable flak. You're going to get some and how you go about this will determine the amount of shrapnel you will have to deal with.
The SiRF Star III GPS and antenna was taken by Wikipedia user Pardus2
Wednesday, 15 February 2017
the Apprenticeshops Ambitious Adventure
Matthew Stackpole, lead historian at Mystic for the CW Morgan restoration.
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Matthew presents Tim Jacobus with an award for his work as project leader for the whaleboat build' |
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Obligatory champagne ritual |
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And she's in! |
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Sail on! |
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A truly archetypal scene, man going to sea. |
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Sunday morning preparation for setting off. |
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Heading toward Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse, outside Rockland Harbour. At the helm is Bryan McCarthy (shop director/skipper) with apprentices: Rachel Davis, Garrett Farchione, Simon Jack, Daniel Creisher, Tim Jacobus and Christopher Konecky. |
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June 18: Day 3 --The apprentices had another fantastic day on the water. They rowed clear across a very clear and calm Casco Bay, from Small Point to Portland, averaging over 3 knots. |
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Sailing, from Portland to the Kennebunks |
Yes!
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Up the river... |
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To a warm welcome. |
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all photos courtesy The Apprenticeshop and
John Snyder/MarineMedia
In keeping with the true spirit of Lance Lee, the Apprenticeshop of Rockland, Me., has not only completed their whaleboat build but are also rowing and sailing their boat to Mystic, hopefully in time for the Woodenboat Show. They're on schedule to make it by the 28th, if not before. A noble undertaking to say the least, hats off to them all. Splashed their boat on Saturday, took off on their adventure Sunday. As of Thursday morning they were in Kennebunkport, shooting for Portsmouth NH.
Matthew Stackpole, lead historian for the Morgan restoration at Mystic, was on hand to send the crew off, after giving a second lecture on the design of the Morgan in Rockland last Thursday. The whaleboat project has generated such an outpouring of scholarship, craft, collaboration and education, as well as learning, adventure and generosity, it is truly amazing. I count myself fortunate indeed to be a small part of it.
Every institution involved could still use some help with funding, so if you have the pockets, please do.
Follow the progress of the expedition daily at the Apprenticeshop blog.
I'd like to thank the folks at the Apprenticeshop for their aid to me, and in particular Sandee Havunen, without whose assistance I would have been lost.
copyright Thomas Armstrong
Saturday, 11 February 2017
Narrowboat Planning Designing the Interior Of Your Boat
Narrowboat Planning Designing the Interior Of Your Boat
Narrowboat Planning Designing the Interior Of Your Boat: Find the best boat plans matching your budget. Visit the forum for users' submitted boat designs. Download the guide with 1000s of boat plans of several unique models.
Tuesday, 31 January 2017
At the boat doctors in Palma Mallorca
From Cala Portals Alcheringafound her way home to Palma harbour yet again with no trouble at all. By lunchtime she was lifted out of the water and sitting in Audax Boat yard ready to have her repairs done. We were told the job should take eight days and as they didn’t work weekends September was going to be all but run and done before we got her back. Between the delays with the VHF radio and now the collision repairs, our planned schedule for the late summer of cruising Menorca, Corsica, Sardinia and then on to Monastir in Tunisia to bed down for the winter was looking well and truly stuffed. We were going to need to give some serious thought to what we were going to do now.
If you haven't read the story of how Alcheringa suffered her damage click back to the chapter here
http://dreamtimesail.blogspot.com.es/2012/10/ambushed-by-storm-gods-in-santa-ponsa.html
You can’t stay on the boat while it’s in the yard so we also had to get some accommodation in Palma. Luckily enough we were be able to get an apartment in the same block we’d stayed in right next to the Cathedral back in June. It was in a great location, extremely well priced with its own kitchen and laundry facilities and had excellent wifi. All of which certainly helped keep costs down.
http://dreamtimesail.blogspot.com.es/2012/10/ambushed-by-storm-gods-in-santa-ponsa.html
You can’t stay on the boat while it’s in the yard so we also had to get some accommodation in Palma. Luckily enough we were be able to get an apartment in the same block we’d stayed in right next to the Cathedral back in June. It was in a great location, extremely well priced with its own kitchen and laundry facilities and had excellent wifi. All of which certainly helped keep costs down.
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| Karen at the window of our Palma appartment beside the Cathedral |
As we started reconsidering our plans for beyond Palma a new factor also came into play. The release via You Tube of an anti-Muslim movie produced by an idiotic extremely bigoted moron in the USA had sparked Islamic protests in many parts of the world including Tunisia. We had loved the country when we were there earlier in the year and at no stage felt threatened by anything worse than our encounter with the rug mafia in Monastir. Catch up with that story at http://dreamtimesail.blogspot.com.es/2012/04/monastir-tunisia.html
But now things appeared to be getting a bit dodgy. There had been a couple protestors killed by security forces at a big demonstration in Tunis, the capital, and there were also reports of some extremist attacks on businesses catering for western tourists. As a result we began looking at possible alternative places to spend the winter in case things didn’t settle down in a hurry.
Karen embarked on extensive web research regarding facilities and prices at suitable marinas where we may be able to spend the winter months. One distinctly limiting factor is that as Australians we can only spend a finite amount of time in countries covered by the Schengen visa zone. Karen found a number of very good and cheap marinas on the Spanish coast but while Marc and Alcheringacould stay there for the November to February period, we couldn’t.
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| Couldn't resist this shot. Poor girl on the wall has had a serious brain explosion |
Meanwhile Rob got stuck into a serious blog catch up and was getting a new chapter posted nearly every day. Considering we were approaching three months behind it was probably about time. It wasn’t all work though as Rob made the most of the wifi and caught up with some of the television coverage of Australian Drag Racing that was available to view online. He may have retired from it but a lifetime addiction is hard to break. We also spent plenty of time on Skype catching up with family and friends back at home. Of course Karen continued to wade through numerous books on her IPad.
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| On our self guided audio tour. If we had a cent for every tourist photographed in this guard box we could retire and go sailing. Oops - too late, already done that. |
We also spent a day doing a fantastic, self guided audio walking tour around the oldest parts of the city. We downloaded the app (Mallorca Deluxe V2.0) from the Apple App Store direct to both Karen’s I Pad and Rob’s I Phone for $4.49, plugged in our headsets and were guided from spot to spot complete with very comprehensive historical information and even appropriate music selected for each place we went. The Royal Palace, Cathedral and ancient Moorish baths were great highlights but many of the lesser known spots were equally as interesting. We could move at our own pace and stop along the way and were enjoying it so much we felt sorry for the tour groups we passed being herded like mindless sheep from place to place by their guides.
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| The Cathedral is almost as impressive inside as out. |
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| Another very serious set of doors. |
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| The Moorish Baths and gardens dating back many hundreds of years were a real highlight of our walk |
Discovering parts of the old town we hadn’t previously been, we also found an amazing second hand book store run by a very eccentric old Brit. He had every form of literature imaginable spread over four levels was keen to tell us about much of it. We had over an hour’s entertainment just wandering through the lines and lines of floor to ceiling bookshelves. Karen stocked up on a number of cheap paperbacks but Rob had spied something he thought might be more interesting. Published in 1930, ‘Child of the Deep’, was an autobiographical narrative by a woman, Joan Lowell, who’d been raised from infancy to her late teens by her ship’s captain father in the totally male domain of a four masted, windjammer rigged, schooner engaged in the copra and sandlewood trade between Australia, the islands of the Pacific and the west coast of the USA at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.
His interest waned considerably when our strange old host said he wanted 28Euros ($35) for it. When Rob balked at the price he said ‘You know books have a life of their own and become more valuable over the years.’ Rob explained he understood that but wasn’t a collector and simply thought it might be nice to read if he could of bought it for ten Euros or so. This produced a reply of ‘Oh well. You are Australian and seeing you chaps can’t play cricket too well anymore I’ll let you have it for a tenner. I suppose I’ll still have plenty of books left won’t I.’ Done deal.
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| The old parts of Palma Mallorca are spectacular |
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| Add caption |
Rob and Marc visited the boat yard most days to keep an eye on progress which thankfully was proceeding nicely on schedule. The only hiccup was that it would take four weeks to bring in a replacement section of aluminium toe rail from France. Seeing this particular damage was limited to a couple of dents and a long scratch and was in no way structural, we got agreement from the insurance company that it could be done elsewhere over the winter and struck it off the job list.
We’d been ashore a full week by the Friday but were all still finding it strange being off the boat. Discussing what we should do with ourselves we asked Marc what was a normal, pre-sailing days, Friday in London for him. He came back quickly with ‘Friday’s POETS day.(Piss Off Early Tomorrow’s Saturday). Let’s have lunch.’
So we did. A very loooong lunch at a quaint little outdoor café we’d come across during our wanderings. It was in a small plaza in front of yet another impressive old stone church but away from the main tourist areas. Lined with trees whose leaves were just starting to change colour and drop in the early autumn, un-intrusive flamenco music filtered through the square from a busking guitarist playing in one of the doorways. Three bottles of very enjoyable local wine disappeared along with a feast from the menu of day as we simply relaxed after our stressful week at work.
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| A fine way to spend a Friday afternoon |
OK. We didn’t work and our week wasn’t stressful but it was definitely a great way to relax on a Friday afternoon. So good in fact that Rob thought maybe we should continue the theme. ‘So Marc, back in London what happens after POETS day lunch? Again he was forthcoming with a short but speedy reply, ‘Wine bar.’
Karen, being the practical one at this point, declared that faded t-shirts, sailing shorts and rubber flip flops probably weren’t appropriate evening wear, even in relaxed Palma. It was a good call so we trooped back to the apartment to smarten ourselves up before heading out on the town. Karen jumped through the shower first but by the time Rob had followed she was fast asleep in the bedroom having a rejuvenating nanny nap. Very wisely the boys decided to let her have an hour or so to recharge her batteries. The wine bar would still be there and besides, pop!, there was wine in the pantry.
Bottle emptied, Karen woken and now wearing one of the two dresses she has with us with the boys in their best (read only) jeans-trousers and most respectable shirts, we made our way into an area of Palma below the Royal Palace. Narrow cobblestone laneways run between old stone buildings that have been given new life as boutique hotels, restaurants, apartments, clubs and bars. We made a bee line for an establishment we’d noticed previously but not yet explored.
‘Wining’ is a wine and tapas bar with a difference. Three walls are covered with a fully computerised wine dispensing system. At the bar we were issued with a ‘Wining’ card and a large wine glass each. We were then able to browse the hundreds of inverted bottles mounted along the walls. If we’d had any Spanish language skills we may have even been able to read each wine’s accompanying description. Once we’d made a selection we simply inserted the card and chose whether we wanted to purchase a quarter, half or full glass of that particular tipple. The price of each was shown on a digital display and whichever was chosen was dispensed into your glass and the charge recorded on your card.
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| Karen and Marc sampling the good stuff at Wining |
How cool. Try a quarter of this, a half of that. That’s nice, give this one a go. We were having fun here. Definitely a grownups’ version of filling your lolly bag at the cinema candy bar. Most of the wines were priced from about two or three Euros a glass but with some ranging up to 40 and 50, if you weren’t careful you could be in for a nasty surprise when you handed over your ‘wining’ card to pay the bill.
We were able to escape without any serious damage done to the back pocket and walked a little way down the lane to a bar that had been recommended to us by Will and Margaret off the boat Atlantiathat we’d crewed on from Bali to Malaysia last year. They’d originally bought Atlantia here in Palma a few years ago and when we emailed them to let them know what we were up to Will responded with a few recommendations of things to do while we were here including describing Abaco as ‘one of the best bars in the world.’ Now that’s a big wrap so we thought we’d better take a look.
Located in the centre of the old town, you enter by swinging open a huge wooden door and are instantly transported to a different world. It feels like you have walked into a theatrical Seventeenth Century Mallorca house. The bar is ornately decorated with huge candelabras, sculptures and large overflowing displays of fruit and vegetables in the entrance area. The wait staff flitting around are all dressed in crisp black trousers and starched white shirts separated by bright satin cummerbunds adding to the extremely impressive visual impact as you enter.
Located in the centre of the old town, you enter by swinging open a huge wooden door and are instantly transported to a different world. It feels like you have walked into a theatrical Seventeenth Century Mallorca house. The bar is ornately decorated with huge candelabras, sculptures and large overflowing displays of fruit and vegetables in the entrance area. The wait staff flitting around are all dressed in crisp black trousers and starched white shirts separated by bright satin cummerbunds adding to the extremely impressive visual impact as you enter.
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| Impressive decor - Unimpressive service |
We found a table, sat and perused the menu/wine list with prices that produced a rapid decision to have one drink each and get out of the place just so we could say ‘been there, done that.’ We never actually got that far though. After being overlooked, ignored or deliberately avoided by the aforementioned flitting wait staff for almost half an hour we got pissed off enough and simply walked out. (We’ve since read a number of reviews on the tripadvisor website recounting similar experiences regarding the service so obviously impressive looks isn’t everything. Somewhere along the way, one of the world’s best bars forgot about customer service)
Instead of dying of thirst at Abaco we had a few pleasant nightcaps at the far less salubrious but much, much friendlier establishment around the corner, O’Briens Irish Pub.
Funnily enough, after our first and only big blowout in Palma we had a very quiet Saturday lazing around the apartment.
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| Museum of Contemporary Art is a very succesful fusion of new and old structures |
We made the most of our time on Sunday though and while Marc headed to the beach we embarked on some more cultural exploration. First stop the Palma Museum of Contemporary Art. This fusion of a totally modern building into the original fortifications of the ancient town walls is an architectural masterpiece in its own right and a very cleaver melding of new and old spaces.
While Karen certainly enjoyed the rather out thereexhibition of works by revered local Mallorcan artist Miro, Rob was underwhelmed and far more impressed by the building itself as we made our way from gallery to gallery with each displaying different facets of both the new and old structures. As you wander the building you’re lead to different areas and levels winding your way up to the parapets of the old walls and then back down to the lowest floors.
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| New meets old at the town walls |
While Karen certainly enjoyed the rather out thereexhibition of works by revered local Mallorcan artist Miro, Rob was underwhelmed and far more impressed by the building itself as we made our way from gallery to gallery with each displaying different facets of both the new and old structures. As you wander the building you’re lead to different areas and levels winding your way up to the parapets of the old walls and then back down to the lowest floors.
The basement level of the Museum featured a spectacular exhibition by Joan Bennassar entitled ‘The Wine I Drink Tastes of the Sea’ made up of a number of large works exploring the history of wine in the Mediterranean. His work was very impressive, this time gaining a big thumbs up from both of us. This lowest level gallery also flowed through to join with what was originally a water storage cistern in the 17th century fort and now a multi use exhibition space.
The museum is much larger than it looks from the outside and what we thought would be an hour or so visit stretched far beyond that and proved to be extremely enjoyable.
With all the back and forth we’ve done by now we’d actually lost track of how many times we’d been in Palma this summer but there has been a constant running through each and every visit. Every time we’ve been here we’ve said ‘We really have to go and see that round castle up on the hill.’
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| Next stop, the castle on the hill |
After out visit to the Gallery we were now in a taxi and finally on our way to do just that. The cab driver wound his way through narrow back streets at break neck speed and then gave his best hillclimb impersonation up to the castle and near screeched to a stop at the base of a set of stairs leading to the entrance. After handing over the 5Euro fare we got out and were considering kissing the pavement in thanks for our divine delivery from near certain death when we noticed a big sign indicating the ticket office was in the car park 250 metres down the road. Bugger! As we trudged along in 38C heat Rob was verbalising his displeasure that Fernando Alonso’s brother had dropped us at the entrance instead of the ticket office. That was until we got there. It was closed. There’s free entry on Sundays so we didn’t need a ticket. Double bugger! Turn around, walk back and no further mention of our racy driver made.
The castle and the views over Palma from its upper levels were outstanding. Different areas contained a series of galleries dedicated to laying out the history of Mallorca from the its earliest human occupation right through to the current day including the origins, various stages and uses the castle itself had gone through. Again it was a lot longer visit than we anticipated because there was so much to see. We were extremely pleased we hadn’t sailed away and not got up the hill to experience it.
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| The stone masonary work is amazing |
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| The castle featured an impressive collection of ancient sculptures |
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| It looks like Lady-Boys might have been around long before the Thailand |
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| This is a model of the stone walls of the oldest man made structure unearthed on Mallorca dating back thousands of years. Mmmm! Would you like frys with that? |
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| All in all a great day of playing tourists |
When we went to the boat yard on Monday morning we were pleased to find the repairs all but completed other than a few final fittings. However looking at the bright white areas of the bow and starboard side that had been repaired and nicely polished we quickly decided to get the entire hull cut and polished so everything was even. This meant another day in boat yard but what’s one more day now.
We spent that day on another massive provisioning buy up at the supermarket and transporting everything back from the apartment.
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| It was great to be underway and undersail again |
After fantastic service by the crew at Audax Boatyard, the yacht was lifted back into the water late afternoon on Tuesday afternoon looking so very bright and shiny. We were able to spend the night aboard on the dock at boatyard which was also much appreciated. The following morning we were up early and had a spirited upwind sail up to Cala Portals where we sat out the day as the winds were far from favourable offshore.
However, early on the morning of Thursday September 27th we finally pointed Alcheringa’s bows away from Mallorca towards Ibiza, the first step on our 480 nautical mile trip to Gibraltar. We certainly hope that her Palma homing device is no longer operational. We’re kind of over it.
For more about our travels check out and 'like' our Dreamtimesail facebook page at
http://www.facebook.com/DreamtimeSail?ref=hl
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| Big seas smashing against the rocks outside Cala Portals while we sit out the rough stuff. |
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| They love their big RIBs over here. This one's only functionality was as a very expensive, high speed floating sunbed. Who said Spain is broke? |
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| Alcheringa is proving to be a very popular backdrop for photographers. The model didn't look too impressed in the bikini shots later. It was windy and cold. |
However, early on the morning of Thursday September 27th we finally pointed Alcheringa’s bows away from Mallorca towards Ibiza, the first step on our 480 nautical mile trip to Gibraltar. We certainly hope that her Palma homing device is no longer operational. We’re kind of over it.
For more about our travels check out and 'like' our Dreamtimesail facebook page at
http://www.facebook.com/DreamtimeSail?ref=hl
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