Leaving Avalon

Here she is, the old beauty. She was built in the early nineties and completely refit in 2000. She weighs around 200 tons and is 125 feet from bow to stern. There are 2 tenders (dinghies) on the boat deck(second story) which can be lifted into the water via hydraulic davit(crane). This picture was taken in Chula Vista, CA where we lived during the month of June. It is 7 miles from the border just south of san diego and kind of a boring place to be. I hung out in San Diego on evenings and days off.
Heres the crew at a bar in Newport Beach along with some friends. Penny is the stewardess(blue sweatshirt and scott is the captain
Ready for the 4th of July in uniform along with Chef Alex
Here is me working. Picture was taken while watching the LongBeach/Catalina waterski race. The boats used to pull the skiers are gofast/cigarette boats that pull at 70 miles an hour over the length of a 50 mile roundtrip race across open and usually choppy ocean. We saw a high speed crash just before the finish line. The boat we are in is a 28 airship that can do 70 miles an hour. Quite a fun boat, I still haven't perfected the art of docking and have had some bumpy landings, especially in high seas.

This must have been what shel silverstein was talking about.

Lots of stuff since last time

So a multitude of events have raced past me since the bike trip. We finished with many stories and had the most fun-filled adventurous month life of my life. On the trip, I cot a call from a captain that I used to work with, scott, and was offered a job in California. I moved out to san diego on june 4th and began work on "Last Call" in sandiego. We we there for a month, working hard but also generating some awesome stories. Now we are in Newport Beach, Ca. and enjoying the boat, the beach and the crazyness of the Real OC. Im gonna try to get back into this whole blogging thing, so this is a start. This is the moonrise from the aft deck on the boat.

The Big Bike Ride

Sorry for my delay in this blog, but I am alive and well. Last I wrote, I was living in West Palm Beach on a 130' privately owned yacht. The boat was for sale and as a result was just sitting in west palm beach. So I left that job for the end of the ski season in Steamboat, Colorado. A lack of internet coupled with laziness prevented a posting of pictures and stories, but they were numerous and usually well documented. Once this thing is over and I get back to my computer in steamboat, ill get them on the net.

As for "this thing." It is a bike ride from Athens, Georgia to Key West Florida that I am embarking on with to others: Joe Boswell and Josh Turner. Both have blogs that can be found at myspacetimebicycle.blogspot.com and crazyguyonabike.com/alphanuroswell. The cause is Multiple Sclerosis. Anyone wishing to donate can do so through the spacetimbicycle blog.

We left from Athens on April 27th. Due to some complications at the bike shop, we left in the late afternoon and were only able to get 15 miles down before night, so we spent the first night in Lexington, Georgia on 78. We slept in the yard of a nice man who let us watch the hawks game and use his facilities. Day number 2 was a long but good day from Lexington to Wrens, Ga for a 75 miles. There, we slept in a sketchy field in the hood. We awoke to a prison work bus unloading guys with landscaping equipment. Day 3, we pushed it all the way to Statesboro, which was 85 miles from wrens. There, we stayed at the sig ep fraternity house with a really cool couchsurfer named Bennett. That night saw some beers and a relaxing sleep in a bed. The next night we had decided to take a day of rest to hang out, sit at a pool and check out the nightlife. After a long day of the aforementioned hanging out, we made it to the bars and had a great time. The locals were really nice. While leaving the bars, we hopped on the back of a taxi bus for no other reason than to see where it would take us. Once it began moving, Turner hopped off. The bus turned onto the road and immediately began accelerating. I had nothing to hold onto and was just using the friction generated by the palms of my hands to hold on. at about 20 or 25 mph with no slowing in sight, I realized that either I was going to plan my escape or the van would do it for me. So, clad in flip flops, i made a fantastic leap, hoping to run it out. My hopes were not realized. Instead I took one step and immediately tripped and slid across the pavement, mostly on my face. Turner comes up to find me dripping with blood. We hail a good samaritan and get a lift to the hospital where I get eight stitches. We order a pizza from a place that was near by the frat house and convince the delivery girl to give us a ride home. Good sleep, though waking up in the morning means stretching scabs and lots of pain. Boz, in the meantime, had managed to hold on and ride across town to a MacDonald's, where he found some people with which to spend the night.

Day 4 was a late morning ride to Savannah (50 miles) to stay with Boz's friend Jesse in Savannah. She was another excellent host and though we didn't have the energy to make it out on Friday night, we did hit up the bars on Saturday. Again, the most excitement happened after the bars closed. We decided to get a late night slice of pizza before riding home and stopped outside a pizza shop. There was some confusion about who was eating and who wasn't, so the bikes were not locked automatically. Once we realized that all four of us would be inside, we went back out to find that Boz's bike had been stolen. A cop gave me a ride home while the others rode the remaining tandem and single.
Day 5 was spent hanging out hatching a plan. Options included a longboard, the tandem bike, a boztaag(a homemade craft similar to redbulls flugtaag) and getting another bike. In the end, cost and viability overrode coolness and we ended up with a 50$ mountain bike rental on day 6. The same day we loaded up and rode 15 miles over to skidaway island for a home cooked meal from my mother who was down here helping out Mary Smith fix up her new home. Also in the mix was Aunt Julie, Bev and partner Laurie, and Cibby from Rhode Island. Some scrabble, then bed. Today we head towards Brunswick, but as we are not sure about an 85 mile day, we are considering an earlier stop.

Bahamas

Boss man called today to let us know that we are going to the bahamas tomorrow. Its about 40 miles from here to the west end and another few to Port Lucaya where we will be staying. foreign places

New Year in South florida

December was an enjoyable month in Palm Beach. It has been consistently 70-80 degrees and sunny with water temperatures at 75. Our captain spent the month in Spain with his wife and kids. In his absence, Scott, the former captain of Kaleen, lived with us for the time. Scott is always up for a good time.

Mike and I took the first half of the Advanced Open Water certification with an obnoxious instructor whose only redeeming quality was that he brought his underwater camera along for the dives. I guess thats not a quality. Here are some of those picturesWe saw a loggerhead turtle, a green moray eel, a couple of lobster, some octopii, and a bunch of tropical fish. We have cooler looking spotted eagle rays that swim under our boat, but I havent gotten a picture of one of them yet. Here is the eel that we saw. It had crazy, unblinking zombie eyes. He just sticks his head out of the rocks and and stares at fish until they give up and let him eat them. You can see the frog fish's fat lips in the bottem right of the picture. The fuzzy white splotch just above his upper lip is a clear appendage that is meant to resemble a shrimp. The fish waits for a small baitfish to go for the shrimp-appendage, then it gulps that little baitfish down. Man, do those baitfish ever get it good!

Since then, we have snorkled over to the blue heron bridge. my camera takes some decent underwater photos as well, so we have had some fun with that.Here a picture of a Jack Crevalle that mike caught.

Mom, Dad and Katherine came down for a few days during christmas. We went out on the center console, caught a few snook, hung out on south beach for a day and otherwise just hung out and had a great time. It is weird to wake up on christmas morning and go to the beach. Katherine, send me some of your good pics. Ill put the ones of the monster fish you caught on here. Heres one of the many snook that we have caught down here. Delicious.

I bought a surfboard for $10 at a thrift store. Its only 6 feet tall and very diffucult to ride. waiting for some good surf and ill give it a try again.

Tony from Newport and some of his college friends came down and we went to the Hard Rock Casino in lauderdale for a night, then south beach for the next day, then Key West for the following night. We were able go for a boat ride, snorkel, and see some roosters(everywhere in key west). Mike Bowman and I almost caught one. There were also Key deer, which are tiny deer that only live on one of the keys. They are only about the size of a large dog and and very friendly. That was a fun and exhausting weekend. Here are the cheap memosas that started it all.




New Years Eve was a blast. it was a house party that never ended. The next day's trip down to south beach with the boss and his family went surprisingly smoothly, despite never having gone to bed the night before. I think it is OK to party your face off every once in a while, and I believe that that was my once for a very long while.

This last picture was taken with my camera earlier today. The structure is a sunken sailboat about 100 yards from our boat.

I am still thinking about doing something different. I know I said this a month ago, but I am very hesitant to leave the yachting industry for a ski break if its going to be a pain in the ass to get back in.

UPDATE: I just watched "That's It, That's All," an incredible snowboarding movie. Either this boat starts doing something cool(unlikely) or I get a potential job in the carribean(50/50) or I am snowbound by my birthday, Jan 25th. thats it, thats all.

Palm Beach

Hello everyone. I hope that your thanksgivings were happy affairs. Mike and I spent ours at his college friend's house and enjoyed a huge traditional thanksgiving dinner. I did muss being at home with my family, but not all was lost. We are still in Palm Beach with no plans of leaving. Work is easy, but life is a little boring here. I suppose that I need to find some stuff to do in the community to keep me busy. I don't think that I'll be able to sit around for the full winter, so I am going to look for other opportunities, both in yachting and skiing. Another job in yachting seems a bit unlikely as it is already the middle of the season and the few boats who are doing cool things already have a full crew. I'm going to send some emails out to old captains that appreciated me and see what turns up. I have also applied at several ski chalets in the French Alps. Its a bit late as the season has already begun, but I am sure that there will be some turnover. I'm just not sure that American candidates are going to be their first choice. I have also thought about moving out to join Luc and Brett in Steamboat. The header picture is one of Steamboat before a storm from a couple of years ago. Its such a good place and I can't wait to get back.

I found a cool program that turns pictures into vector images. The link is http://vectormagic.com/main/

UGA vs. Colorado at Nationals in Columbus, Ohio in 2006. We won 17-16.
Bull Sluice class IV on the Chattooga river. The 78 year old woman in front of me nearly died shortly after this picture was taken.
Here is a picture of the boat on which I work, Kaleen