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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.

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

split tongued spirit

Posted on May 24, 2008 @ 4:28 pm by massimo | Filed under: blog, fear, philippines, sailing, swimming

paraw boracay aynaku illustration travel

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 my worries can’t be denied. But alas, I never gave up. On the contrary I keep my eyes wide open, looking for some potential danger…
The waters out of Boracay’s beach are always damn crowded by fast boats cruising at any time of the day. It is a real hassle, since local pilots seem to care absolutely nothing of swimmers, nor to understand how fragile a floating man is. It’s hard for me to forget the time when a fast paraw nearly broke me down…The reckless driver simply couldn’t see me, I guess because of the dusk…

Illustration Friday’s topic is: worry

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 …

remember

Posted on April 28, 2007 @ 3:15 pm by massimo | Filed under: japan, sailing, ukiyo-e, wordpress

Maybe I should put forward for this week’s topic my whole blog! Actually every Aynaku’s post relates to memory so I consider that my most recent submission should make no exception, and be one of Aynaku’s most typical. My very first time on board a sailing boat is …

navigation

Posted on June 30, 2006 @ 11:14 pm by massimo | Filed under: blog, fun, sailing, travel, wordpress

I’m going to be off-line from tomorrow until next saturday. I will be sailing the Adriatic Sea along the coast, on board the Nathel, maybe heading east to beautiful Kornati Islands. This is what I …

paraw

Posted on September 6, 2005 @ 9:11 am by massimo | Filed under: blog, fun, philippines, sailing, wordpress

Typically Visayan, paraw is a fantastic sailing boat! Two bamboo outriggers and the coconut mid-body make up the craft. Everything is fixed firmly by strong fishing-line. Mainsail and jib, cut away from …

sail away…

Posted on July 27, 2005 @ 8:33 am by massimo | Filed under: africa, blog, fun, sailing, travel, wordpress

Dhow is a typicall Arabic craft. It was originally employed by the Arabian traders sailing the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. I had the chance of sailing by dhow from Lamu to Mombasa in …