Open the BOX!!!

You know all the Shrinks say that its a normal emotion.....?
"What? what? what?" you say. "Whats this yahoo talking about now?"
The feelings of despair we get when we know that we lack something that we wish we had. Those feelings we internalize when we finally come to the conclusion that we are inadequate at something that we wish to be good at..............and then we finally realize that we could live as long Methuselah and that we would never acquire this thing that we wish that we possessed.  For me....its musical talent. I am totally devoid in any form of musical competence..........I'm tone deaf, can't carry a tune, suck at humming, can't remember or understand the words of most songs........I'm just a musical KLUTZ! Tana on the other hand sings like an angel! Actually, at one time, she was a performing professional musician and played venues with allot of biggies like Willie Nelson and Bob Hope and Dean Martin and Kristopherson and Captain and Tenile and the Cowsills and Soupy Sales.....I really don't know all the details but she sometimes talks about partying with Willie in his tour bus at the Houston Rodeo..............although she doesn't really tell me much..........anyways that's another story!
So how do I compensate for my lack of musical acumen? Well..........I'll tell ya......I listen to music and  appreciate and respect the marvelous talent of others.
"OK....good for you" you are thinking...."where is this going?"....you wonder.
We all have Internet access now.......I presume. Even our cruising comrades in the far reaches of the Bahamas and the Sea of Cortez and Mazatlan and Roatan and Belize and the Windward and Leewards now have Internet access. With the new generation of wi-fi boosters we can piggyback off of shore side wi-fi or off  the connection on multi million dollar yachts that are anchored downwind.
"OK Mr. 'IT' SO WHAT".....you're thinking. I'm thinking one of the greatest Internet inventions ever!!!
 PANDORA FREE INTERNET RADIO!! If you haven't already done so, check it out and if you really like it sign up for the premium version. Its only $36 per year. I've been giving the premium version as gifts............you don't need me to tell you how to find it online. Once you get there, you can play around and decide for yourself it this isn't the greatest music venue on radio and while you're there check out the music that these guys make: Walter Trout, Friends of Dean Martinez, Dick Dale, The Blue Hawaiians, Norman Blake, Peter Green, Calexio, and The Pizza Tapes by Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, and Tony Rice. If you're a music person, you should have many hours of fun on this site.
Seeya.................take care my friends

Dinner, Speed, and Disappointment

Every now and then we all get it I suppose.........what? you ask!!!  BLOGGER's BLOCK!! the inability to create something for your blog entry. Well I've got it. Trying to get rid of it but it's lingering....Well! lets see............haven't got any work done on ZOSHA for about a week.....the weather hasn't been cooperating......raining every day.....hopefully this weekend will be nice......Oh....ho-hum.  OK...how about this........Tana is really really disappointed today. Why?  I'll tellya.......about six weeks ago we were at a boating thing at a brokerage company and ran into an old friend of mine whom I hadn't seen in a few months. While BSing with my old buddy, he invited us to a party at his house on March 21, 2012 which is today. He said that we could meet Bob Bitchin who was going to be there........well let me tellya I thought Tana was gonna have a BIG O right there!  "Bob Bitchin!!!! OMG my dream man" she exclaimed..."Oh I can't wait." And it has been like this for the last six weeks. Almost every day she asks if I RSVP'd the date with my friend. She absolutely could not wait to shake ole' Bob's hand and visit with him and get her copy of Letters From the Lost Soul autographed by Mr. Bitchin himself. My friend's sweet wife emailed me this afternoon and.............you know where I'm going here don't you?.....yes, you guessed it........Bob won't be there! He got stuck in California and will miss the party tonight. Well Tana was devastated when I dropped this bomb on her!! She told me that she is going to stay late at work tonight so she will have something to keep her mind from her abject disappointment. "Why come home?"  she asked.
"Uhhh you gotta a cat here" 
"Oh its not the same not meeting Bob Bitchin! Life sucks" she bemoaned.
"We all gotta deal with life's disappointments" was my retort. "I never got my Vette or my 43' CABO Sportfish."
"Yeah I guess" said she.
On the sailing side of things......today I was surfing around the Internet and in between checking out the weather in the Caribbean, dropping in on my favorite cruising blogs, and looking for recipes for something different for dinner, I stumbled across a site that chronicled some boat speed records.
Check this out!!!!
1. Fastest 24 hour run in a sailboat:  Banque Populaire V -131' trimaran......908.2  miles !
2. Fastest all out speed in a sailboat: L'Hydroptere -  60' trimaran.....59.33 MPH!
3. Fastest circumnavigation: Banque Populaire V- 131' trimaran......45 days 13 hours  42 minutes!
4. Fastest monohull:  Mari-Cha IV- 140'........37.366 MPH
5. Fastest 24 hour run in monohull:  Ericsson-70'...........596.6 miles.....average speed....24.86 MPH
6. Fastest circumnavigation monohull: Fonica- 84'........84 days...average speed 12.41 MPH
7. Slowest circumnavigation monohull: SVZOSHA.....TBD
As for dinner??? still don't know what to fix tonight? I think I'll check in with Steve and LuLu at yodersafloat........they are always fixing sumptin' good.
Take care my friends..............seeya

Forum A-Holes..................

Is it me? In my vintage years have I morphed into a defensive, critical old fart? Hope not! let me start from the beginning: I subscribe to a number of online sailing forums as many of you probably do too. Alot of this information is useful, valuable, and well intentioned..however.....sometimes..... you encounter the "Know It All Forum A-Hole" who finds some kind of sick pleasure in attacking. A coupla of weeks ago I sent a query into one of these sailing forms asking if anyone knew the cost of bottled water in the Bahamas.....I didn't go into the fact that I can't afford a water maker and that I would have to supplement my meager H2O tanks with either jugged or bottled water.....all I did was post a inquiry....Well, the first reply was something to the affect that "people like you make me sick....trashing our environment with plastic bottles and polluting our beaches and waterways .....yada....yada...ya" this guy rambles on! Whats this all about? I thought. I'm a card carrying environmentalist.....I don't pollute.....I pick up other peoples crap!  Anyways, Only one guy answered the question. The other dozen or so counseled me on how I am not doing this right and I should do this or that...... Oh by the way ...the guy who led the attack....is a power boater on a 46' or 48' Defever which probably burns 20 gallons an hour at cruise......and adds unmeasurable fuel to atmospheric pollution as well as helping deplete oil reserves at an accelerated rate.....that boat is a seagoing Hummer I...........so much for this guys contribution to a green planet.  Ah well-I blew this off and probably won't do much with this forum. Down the road a ways, I'm on another one of these forums and some guy is blabbering about how my boat the Westsail 28 is the second worst designed boat in naval architecture!!!! and that it really was not designed by a naval architect at all. It was carved out of a Westsail 32 mold.....supposedly Westsail just cut 4 feet from the center of the W32 mold and stuck it all back together and Walla!! the W28 is born.  He didn't get into explaining how the differences in beam, draft, sheerline, etc came about!  Just another example of how anybody can put anything on the Internet. But I'm sure there are people out there repeating this nonsense. A number of the W28's have circumnavigated and many others have completed substantial offshore voyages....so if you hear this story about the W28, don't believe it......it's "Forum Know-It-All" drivel.  Oh! you wanna know according to this guy what the #1 worst designed boat is?  According to him its a MacGregor 26........hmmm.....I seem to recall a lady down in the Florida Keys who sails a MacG 26 all over the place......Marquesas, Dry Tortugas, offshore in the Gulf Stream and has video of these trips all over You Tube and, to me, the boat looks to be doing great......but then again I'm not a Forum Expert.......

SVZOSHA

Second worse boat design in history my A__ __!!! 
Take care my friends.........