March 2008 Archives

The observant among visitors to this site will have seen the email subscription option in the right hand column.

Every day the system sends an email which lists newly posted items on a number of relevant Australian cruising sites. It makes for a very convenient way of keeping up with local cruising news.

If you know of other sites which should be included, leave a comment with the site details.

Here are the sites currently "monitored":

• Alfreds Cruising
• Sail-World.com Cruising Australia News
• Skipr's Notebook (this weblog)
• My Sailing - articles from Cruising Helsman etc.[added March 09]

as well as the following weblogs of Cruising boats and their owners

• Crystal Blues
• Diomedea
  
• Te Moana

For those "in the know", this is a "mashup" of Feedburner's email subscription service, the Planet aggregator and the sites listed above which all provide"feeds".

It's been a two years since I built the "Where is" skipr.net map service to allow others to follow along, when I was a crew member on Belage, sailing to Hobart. Since then, Google has made it much easier for mere mortals to mark up a map and sharing it with others. Also, the resolution of satellite imaging on Google has much improved over that time.

So here is a short tutorial showing how simple it is to build your own "Where is My Boat" page. The only thing you'll need is a Google login (a Gmail account), which is easy to get and free.

Step 1

Go to maps.google.com.au and click on My Maps

One of the advantages of having an internet connection while cruising is to have the current forecast at hand at all times. But a wise sailor will still expect the unexpected. As I write this, we're anchored on the Shoalhaven river near Greenwell Point, a stopover on an Easter cruise to Ulladulla. I awoke at 0400 hrs to a few creaks and rattles. The kind you get when something is about to change...