adambolonsky

Good Morning Gloucester has posted time-lapse and video coverage of the race: 2012 Blackburn Challenge timelapse video/coverage at bit.ly/7yGKTS

It is time for round 3 of horseshoe crab tagging as a full moon approaches on June 4th. Our last tagging effort was successful at tagging over 280 HSC, so lets keep it up! This is an initial email looking for volunteer availability on June 2 or June 3. We are looking for 6 - 10 who can help us on that date. You must be physically able to get in and out of our boats from the water. Tagging requires a lot of walking, reaching into the water, wading in the water, and of course picking up crabs. YOU will get very wet/dirty. Likewise you will need to be able to bring a lunch, water, sunscreen, bug sprays, sunglasses/hat, etc. Tagging takes 3 - 4 hours and we ask that you arrive at our headquarters an hour and a half before high tide on the day of tagging. High Tide on the 2nd is 10:33am High Tide on the 3rd is 11:30am Volunteer opportunities are on a first come first serve basis and spots will fill up fast! So please respond at your earliest convenience. Please keep in mind that tagging efforts are weather dependent and I will need the best way to contact you in case we need to cancel due to inclement weather or any changes that may occur. I look forward to hearing from you and working together. Thank you in advance. Marla E. Hamilton, M.S. SCEP, Biological Science Technician Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge (508) 945-0594 ext. 12 (office) (978) 460-7342 (cell)

I've got a story in the pipeline for a late winter story in On the Water Magazine on kayak camping/fishing and need some camping photos to complement the ones I already have. Anybody have high-res photos (at least 1 mb.) I could use? You'll get a photo byline in the magazine. I'd pay for the pics, but the rate I'm getting paid, though competitive with other regional fishing mags, is pretty low. email me at adambolonsky@yahoo.com

Camping out on the island for much of the fall, a volunteer team coordinates the assessment, weighing, banding and releasing of birds they catch with long nets strung along the east of the lighthouse. Meanwhile the lighthouse and related structures continue to undergo their extensive historical renovations. Video:

Video: Launching in fog off the northeast shore of Thachers Island in the cove at the foot of the north lighthouse. Thachers Island Association: Contact them to camp overnight at Thachers for $5.00 per night. Shot with a Kodak zi8 HD waterproof video camera and Kayalu camera mount.

There's usually only one partner in a couple willing to sleep out overnight from a sea kayak. Here are three well-reviewed 3-season tents solo available for cheap from Amazon. They're all made by Eureka, are well-reviewed, and ship free. Eureka Solitaire: $65 See the listing Read the reviews Buy one Eureka Spitfire: $89 See the listing Read the reviews Buy one Eureka Backcountry: $129 See the listing Read the reviews Buy one One handy way to kayak camp is to pack a large base-camp tent to set up on a homebase island. Keep the the solo tent stashed in a hatch. Set out one morning for another island further away, and if like the place so much you want to spend the night there, you have a second tent. Or say you land on island large enough that a hike to an inland campsites is attractive and feasible. No problem. Solo tents are small enough to stash in a daypack: a feasible tactic on large backcountry camping islands where long hikes are very much worth the effort.

Hi Gene; here are three well-reviewed solo tents available through Amazon. All are 2010 closeouts: Eureka Solitaire: $65 See the listing Read the reviews Buy one Eureka Backcountry: $129 See the listing Read the reviews Buy one Eureka Spitfire: $89 See the listing Read the reviews Buy one

For the sea kayaker and kayak fisherman who wants to sleep outdoors: a well-reviewed sleeping bag for $28 at Sea Kayaking Dot Net's online Amazon store: See the listing at Amazon Read the reviews Buy one

Electric bilge pumps: I remember when NSPN first started that several members experimented with electric bilge pumps. David Lewis brought one to Mystic Lake to test. No one really knew what to make of the idea. But then again, none of us really knew what we were doing, and everything was an experiment. Hand bilge pumps always struck me as dicey on a solo trip. Capsize in rough conditions when you're solo and the drill is, if you can't roll, wet-exit, get the kayak upright and re-enter. Allright, done. But then you're still in the conditions that capsized you, and now you have to use two hands to run the hand pump. Meanwhile, you can't use your paddle to brace in the swell or chop or wind or breaking waves that dumped you. Both hands are fully occupied. Always a scenario that has unnerved me to think about. Moreover, your skirt is either fully open or partially so. So even while you're bailing, you're getting swamped. Rule bilge pumps, by the way, are made in Gloucester up on Kondelin Road in West Gloucester. Boat bilge pums use a float switch. Once water rises in the bilge, the float switch activates the pump. That's why at docks you see often see unmanned boats at abruptly burping water from their blige ports above the water line.

What was that like, having the CG show up? I was surprised to see in the photo that they placed you between the rescue boat and your kayak. Did they haul your kayak aboard and take you ashore? I'd love to hear what the rest of the rescue was like: the details of what happened once the CG picked you up and you were in their boat.

I wrote an article last year for the Yahoo Contributor Network on Monomoy, off Chatham at the southernmost elbow of the Cape. There's been a third island, for three years now, on the western edge of the northwest flats. The Fish and Wildlife Service named the island Minimoy. You can't land on Minimoy: it's refuge land. Minimoy's been steadily gaining in size, bulk, and height over the time I've padddled past it. Here's a link to the story. It doesn't feature Minimoy so much as describe the whole area. Lots of typos though: Monomoy and Minimoy Islands, Chatham

Here's a picture that tells a whole story: exhausted paddler, sleeping pad attached to aft deck, paddle float deployed, paddler too tired and weak to get back into the boat. The Coast Guard shows up to help. This one's from Gulfport, Mississippi. The guy was okay,used his vhf to call for help.

Info from our friends at Kayalu, right here in Cambridge, Ma.: crummy night paddling lights sold to kayakers. Most of the lights are flimsy; many of them, flat-out illegal. Link: http://www.kayalu.com/k/kayak_light_paddlesports_industry_epic_fail_coast_guard_regulation_solas_compliant_paddler.php Also, don't turn on your strobe at night unless you're in distress.

The same area, this time at the Brewster Harbor channel. The channel shifts monthly -- the local harbormaster sticks trees into the flats to mark it. A dull paddling area but very productive if you're kayak fishing for stripers or bluefish in the fall. Photo © 2011. Write for permissions.

Dee Hall at Cape Cod's Brewster Flats on a hot August afternoon just before a huge thunderstorm broke loose. photo © 2011 Adam Bolonsky. Write for permissions.

UMIB's (urgent marine information broadcasts) get sent over ch. 16 all the time as securite ("say-cure-ee-tay") calls. Both warn of safety hazards. Often they have to do with weather. We hear them locally all the time here in summer, usually as warnings of fast-moving thunderstorms spilling into Massachusetts and Ipswich Bays and Salem Sound when dry northwesterlies hit the humid shorelines to the west and southwest. We hear the warnings on the radio before we see the ugly sky. Here's an impressive UMIB securite call. Listen all the way to the end and you'll hear a boater call the CG plane on 16 to ask for permission to use a waterway to duck in out of the weather: http://www.associatedcontent.com/audio/24333/us_east_coast_hurricanes_coast_guard.html?cat=16 Keeping the VHF tuned to 16 during the summer in Massachusetts, especially the North and South Shores, is a good idea. You'll hear thunderstorm warnings all the time.

VHF radio use is nowhere near as technical as it may seem. Here's one instance: sometimes the Coast Guard needs help locating someone in trouble. You might overhear their request on channel 16. They'll broadcast their request as a pan-pan (pronounced "pon-pon"). Here's an example from Virginia's Hampton Roads area. Listen as the watchstander takes in a mayday from a guy in trouble, then makes a pan-pan call on 16 asking all boaters in the area to look for the guy in trouble. Mayday to pan-pan: http://www.associatedcontent.com/audio/24154/vhf_radio_use_from_mayday_to_a_pan.html?cat=16

Last year the NY and Ma. Coast Guard conducted nearly 100 unnecessary person-in-the water searches after receiving reports of kayaks, gear or pfds afloat in the water. The searches are costly and time-consuming and divert resources from what might otherwise be real emergencies. The CG's making a direct appeal this year to kayakers asking that we place Paddlesmart stickers in our boats and on our gear. That way, if our boat or gear goes adrift while we're on land, or if we lose gear overboard, all the person who finds our stuff has to do is relay our contact number to the CG. I spent half a day at the CG base on the Cape last April, and several hours aloft in a helicopter with a rescue crew. Watching these guys work from the open door of a cargo bay in an aircraft that shudders, whines, emits fuel fumes that hurt the eyes and throat, and that are cramped and uncomfortable...let's give these guys a break. Let's not them have them out there looking for us when we're safely at home. CG's direct request to kayakers: http://www.piersystem.com/go/doc/802/97 ... witterfeed CG's audio video PSA: http://cgvi.uscg.mil/media/main.php?g2_itemId=742089

One key to making a vhf radio mayday call is to give your location. In this call, the harried captain of a sinking fishing boat fails to do so. His boat is sinking. Crew have deployed the life raft and survival suits. Listen to the audio and watch the video: http://www.associatedcontent.com/video/632...gulf.html?cat=8 Two separate Coast Guard stations pick up the call, and there is no small amount of confusion. A second commercial fisherman breaks in on the call to remind the captain to give his location, in this case Loran bearings. Backstory: The fishing vessel Whistling Dixie struck a submerged object in winter seven miles off the coast of Maine. The captain made a rushed vhf mayday radio call to the Portland Coast Guard. He struggled to give his loran bearings. His boat rudder post has punctured the boat's hull, leading to catastrophic flooding. A nearby fisherman chimes in on the call to assist, reminding the captain to give his location. The crew members were later rescued from their life raft. Whistling Dixie sank, and was later marked a securite hazard, via vhf channel 16, by the Coast Guard.

It's Liz Neumeier. I took the photo of her off Hammond Castle about seven years ago while fishing there with Jeff Casey, Bethany E., Leon G. and others.

I just published a story on kayaking and kayak fishing Barnstable Harbor and Sandy Neck in Sandwich/Barnstable. Link: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5...eck.html?cat=16 The shoals make for good fishing (and some extraordinarily good rough water paddling) on bluefish, striped bass and bluefin tuna - bluefin especially in Scorton's Ledge area, where I remember seeing spotter planes in years past when I was out there banging around in my kayak trying to stay out of the way of the bft fleet. If you're interested in other worthy Cape Cod fishing destinations, have a look at Monomoy Island off Chatham. I've written an extensive map for kayak fishing the area. The map (it ain't free, will set you back a whopping $3.75) includes put-ins, caution areas and transit routes. Link: http://store.payloadz.com/details/806456-S...ion-areas..html

A Google Earth map showing put-ins, hotspots, caution areas and gear tips for where and how to fish Manchester, Ma. for striped bass. Also shows transit routes, put-ins and roughwater areas and resting spots of interest to sea kayakers. You need Google Earth (free) to download and view the file: Google Earth Manchester, Ma. map Manchester, Ma. inshore striper waters/Google Earth

Can you guys give me a better idea of which of the three is the purest non-profit? I'd rather send the unit along to a group that is service-oriented, does not require that kids pay high fees to take trips, and which has a tradition of volunteerism. Something along the lines of the Boy Scouts or Sea Scouts or a program for at-risk kids. I haven't the time to assess the three you've mentioned, so will take your word for it and will contact get in touch with whichever you recommend. Thanks.

SPOT has given me a couple of fully-functioning, 911-enabled SPOT beacons to give away. If you know of a youth group, public school or other non-profit that serves kids by taking them outdoors, please let me know, and I will ship the unit to its director so long as they cover postage. SPOT is good for sending back email and text messages, when out of cellphone range, that the group is okay or needs help. The message includes the group's exact lat/long coordinates and a link to the group's location in Google Earth. The unit can also be used to activate rescue through local rescue services. Moreover it saves locations to Google Earth's satellite views of the world, creating a viewable and downloadable database. adambolonsky at yahoo......

Chris; thank you for your comments. As always, illuminating. Fortunately, a license for VHF use in the US isn't required, making the vhf airwaves that much more accessible. For what it's worth, as far as I'm concerned, it's always a good idea to repeat calls --- pan-pan, mayday, securite, general hail --- to make sure you were heard, didn't garble, didn't get stepped on, didn't break up, etc., actually pressed your vhg's PTT button, etc. It wasn't a lobsterman or fisherman, by the way, who busted in that day the fog. Commerical fishermen rarely monitor 16, but, rather, stick to channels lower in the spectrum. But of course you already knew that.