Tuesday, August 24, 2010

An underwater hotel


How's this for something interesting on your next vacation? An underwater hotel. The hotel is located in Turkey. This is not your typical log cabin in the woods type of vacation. You won't find log furniture or stuffed animals adorning the dinning room wall but you will find the most spectacular scenery you have ever seen from a window or your bed.

Man overboard!


The title above is one of the worse 2 words for someone to hear while on a ship or boat. While most people have some common sense and wear their life jackets, you do get the occasional yahoo who thinks that they are immortal and refuses to wear one. The life jacket is just added insurance for those who not only can't swim but those who do swim too.

Another thing that I really hate to hear is when someone has knocked or accidentally dropped a piece of valuable equipment overboard. Cameras, phones and recording devices have all seen some deep water action at one time or another. Most of them have been rescued but not all. One of our team has even gone so far as to purchase ipad insurance for her iPad since it would cost close to $600 to replace it. She does not want to see that go in the water but she uses it on board all the time.

Water damage can be nasty to electronics but there are a few things we do. First take any batteries out of the equipment if it gets wet. Wipe as much of the moisture off of it as possible. Let the equipment air dry for a few days before trying to turn it on. Just doing those simple steps has manged to save most of our equipment from permanent damage.

Piranha found in landlocked lake - USA

Some idiot let a piranha or 2 loose in a fresh water lake in the USA. That is not as strange as the fact that a couple of kids caught it on their fishing line. Below is the video of the event and the actual piranha they caught.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Shoreline trash


Have you been to the beach lately? Was it pristine and clean? I am betting not. Put aside the oil washing up on the Gulf coast beaches and what other bits of human trash do you see? I think I have come across more can and bottles than anything else. A close second is used diapers and broken up Styrofoam coolers. I thought that Styrofoam was being outlawed? The most unusual item I saw in the last few months was a king size mattress that someone tried to set on fire and only burnt part of it. The mattress could have come from an off shore ship wreak or brought to the beach to be dumped. You guess is as good as mine for that one.

The one burning question I have always had: If people come to the beach to enjoy its beauty, then why do they trash it?