christmas at sea
Posted on December 31, 2009 @ 10:50 am by massimo | Filed under: blog, books, fear, sailing, travel

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seamen scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.
They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But ’twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.
All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.
a surprising man…
Posted on August 22, 2008 @ 10:52 am by massimo | Filed under: animals, another green world, blog, fun, people, philippines, travel, ukiyo-e, wordpress

I like to edit again an old post written on November the 22, 2006…this fellow had a totally anti-routine life…it’s worth taking a look at his “biography” whic my friend Gino edited recently…
enjoy
Among the strange people I met, Max Maxwell is certainly the most unfathomable. I firstly met Max in Boracay Island, in 1990. Max comes from Bombay and belongs to the Parsee upper-class.
At that time he was a fit, middle aged man who enjoyed beach-tennis, wind surfing and excellent Italian food. He basically travelled between Boracay, Koh Lanta, Laddak and Hong Kong, making his earn out of fashionable batik-shirts, rattan-bags, Tibetan amulets and first rate (yet fake) Ray-Ban sunglasses. Max had an enormous ego, he was desperately scornful and selfish and, for some reason, he always surprised me. He had seen the World, that was the fact! When some harmless tourist, tried to approach him by asking silly questions such us “Have you been…?”, Max’s provocative answer simply was: “thanks for not talking to me!”. And that was all. As I said Max loved food and he was in the selected circle of acquaintances of my friend Gino.
Gino ran the cosiest restaurant in Boracay according to Max’s parameters and one day at Gino’s, for some unpredictable reason, Max allowed himself to talk to me! Max abhorred “stupid talks” but, after a good beer (he used to sip beer always by the same special glass that he-himself carried in a bag), Gino and I had the chance of glancing over his wonderful life…Finally Max decided to present Gino his photocopied biography. The document (his masterpiece) stated the man “born in Bombay during a devastating cyclone” and amazingly went on with Max ”making friends with Miles Davis, art-directing Vogue Magazine, etc…”I still have that rattan-bag he sold me and –still- I wear those fake pair of Ray-Ban and Gino and I still dispute about his reliability, his clever scorn and puzzling behaviour.
On December 8, 2006 I received a stunning report from Gino…
BREAKING NEWS:
MAX MAXWELL DIES IN GOA AFTER COMMITTING SUICIDE. HE LEFT A NOTE IN WICH HE SAYS :
“DON’T BE SORRY FOR ME. I’M THE ONE TO DECIDE MY TIME WAS OVER”
Illustration Friday ’s topic is: routine
canned food!
Posted on July 26, 2008 @ 6:06 pm by massimo | Filed under: blog, fun, news, sailing, wordpress

I’m going to be off-line till mid august. I’ll be sailing on board the Natahel, heading east to beautiful Kornati Islands. and further south to Korcula…I guess I’m going to have plenty of canned food and this is a pity…actually, I can’t stand it, since I love eating fresh fish, fruit and vegetables…hopefully this is not only what I’ll end up to do while on vacation!
Off course I’ll glad to catch up with you all as soon as I get back…
Have fun!
Illustration Friday’s topic is:canned
threadless T-shirts
Posted on July 22, 2008 @ 12:04 pm by massimo | Filed under: blog, fun, news, wordpress
My Threadless submission is in the running and my design will be voted on by other Threadless users for 7 days…
I’m editing this post to help spread the word about and promote my own submissions.
Please click the two banners provided for viewing and scoring.
Thank you Threadless and everybody!!!…
fierce
Posted on June 29, 2008 @ 4:10 pm by massimo | Filed under: blog, indonesia, people, travel, wordpress
The train from Jakarta to Surabaya had slowly left in the late afternoon; sitting in my second class berth, I was contemplating the nearby thriving tropical landscape from one of the wagon’s window, when a fellow swiftly entered my compartment. He was an elderly tall man with …
sunken treasure
Posted on June 23, 2008 @ 10:53 am by massimo | Filed under: blog, diving, fun, wordpress
Practically every diver has fantasized about discovering sunken treasure. Although there is more treasure still lost in the ocean than has been recovered, the average diver is unlikely to accidentally find it. The chances of stumbling upon underwater riches are minuscule, and the coast of intentionally seeking it out is …
herons
Posted on May 30, 2008 @ 6:25 pm by massimo | Filed under: ancona, another green world, blog, news, wordpress
I have been visiting once upon a time, the little natural reserve of “Ripa Bianca”, just a few kilometres from home, on May, the 25th. It is a very little area, sponsored by Italian WWF , bordering the river: actually an ideal spot for bird watching.
And I was trilled by …
split tongued spirit
Posted on May 24, 2008 @ 4:28 pm by massimo | Filed under: blog, fear, philippines, sailing, swimming
Swimming in open sea is my favourite sport: yet it scares me a little. As soon as I jump into the water, some sort of split tongued spirit talks and says out of the vast sea: “maybe you should sink and die”. When the spirit talks louder …
elettricity
Posted on May 10, 2008 @ 5:54 pm by massimo | Filed under: blog, indonesia, philippines, sailing, travel, wordpress
Lightnings are electrical discharges, giant sparks of electricity, from mature storms. Lightnings cause a lot of electric current to pass through water; wooden boats are not safe at all since the vast majority of lightning injuries and deaths occur on small boats with no cabin…
The short sea …
fail faith
Posted on April 13, 2008 @ 1:55 pm by massimo | Filed under: another green world, blog, news, people, wordpress
Buddhist teaching is clear and logical: that we can neither define, describe, nor usefully discuss the nature of that which is beyond the perception of our consciousness. According to the teaching the ideas of eternal self or eternity in nature may be described indirectly by analogy and symbols. …

