Congratulations to Gilles and Jordan

Both completed their English Channel crossing!
Gilles Challandon just finished a few hours ago, 14 hours, 31 minutes.
Jordan Waxman finished earlier in the day, 14:06
Epic!
Way to represent CIBBOWS, y'all!

Bonne Chance!

Jordan is cruising in the S-W shipping lane!
Gilles is slated to join him in the English Channel in just a few hours!

BRING IT ON HOME FOR CIBBOWS GUYS!!!

Diana Nyad, you go girl!

Around the age of 12, I became visually driven. After photography school, I moved to NYC in the 80's. Wandering around the Village, in a tiny postcard shop full of iconic images, I came across this image of Diana Nyad swimming around Manhattan.

It burned into my visual cortex, taking up residence. It was the spark for my NY love affair with open water.


Now at the age of 60, Diana Nyad will attempt her 108 mile Florida to Cuba swim once more.
I wish her luck.


From her blog:
On July 11, 2010, at 60 years of age, Diana Nyad successfully completed her triumphant return to long-distance swimming with a consecutive 24-hour swim through the Gulf Stream’s open-water off the coast of Key West, Florida, without a shark cage. While the 24-hour swim is an enormous challenge, it’s merely the beginning for Nyad. Any day now, she will attempt to achieve her life-long dream to be the first person to swim the 103 miles from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage.

The Story of Matthew Webb

As Gilles and Jordan prepare to face the English Channel, my thoughts turn towards the pioneer who got us all started...

Matthew Webb, a 27-year-old merchant navy captain, becomes the first known person to successfully swim the English Channel. Captain Webb accomplished the grueling 21-mile crossing, which really entailed 39 miles of swimming because of tidal currents, in 21 hours and 45 minutes. During the overnight crossing from Dover, England, to Calais, France, Captain Webb drank brandy, coffee, and beef tea to keep his strength and heat up. He was hailed as a national hero upon his return to England, and a triumphal arch was erected in his honor in his hometown in Shropshire. The Daily Telegraph proclaimed, "At this moment the Captain is probably the best-known and most popular man in the world."

One of 12 children, Webb learned to swim in the Severn River below Ironbridge. At age 12, he joined the mercantile training ship Conway. He was not remembered as a fast swimmer, but his fellow cadets noted his endurance. While traveling the world with the merchant navy, Webb made his mark with several brave and dangerous swims. Endurance swimming was popular in the 1870s, and Webb decided to swim the English Channel after reading in a newspaper about an unsuccessful attempt. He trained along England's south coast, swimming distances of 10 to 20 miles and becoming acclimatized to the cold water. In August 1875, his first attempt to swim the Channel ended in failure, but he decided to give it another try.

On August 24, 1875, smeared in porpoise fat for insulation and wearing a red swimming costume made of silk, he dove off Dover's Admiralty Pier into the chilly waters of the Channel. He began the race in the late evening because of the tides and kept up a slow and steady pace in the dark, using the breaststroke. Accompanying boats handed him beef tea, brandy, and other liquids to sustain him, and Webb braved stinging jellyfish and patches of seaweed as he plodded on. Seven miles from the French coast, the tide changed, and he appeared to be driven backward, but just after 10 a.m. he approached the French shore. The crew of the outgoing mail ship The Maid of Kent serenaded him with "Rule Britannia," and shortly before 11 a.m. Webb waded ashore.

After sleeping 12 hours in France, Webb returned to England by boat, saying, "the sensation in my limbs is similar to that after the first day of the cricket season." He was honored at a welcoming banquet in Dover, where the mayor proclaimed, "In the future history of the world, I don't believe that any such feat will be performed by anyone else." The London Stock Exchange set up a testimonial fund for him. He toured the country, lecturing and swimming.

For rest of story, go here

Penguins have a special place in my heart....

Swimming Emperor Penguins-Antartica
Credit: Twosixteen at flickr

Sea snot? Really?

Christine Dell'Amore
National Geographic News
Published September 23, 2010

SPECIAL SERIES | DEEP IMPACT
Deciphering the unseen, underwater effects of the Gulf oil spill.

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill sparked an explosion of sticky clumps of organic matter that scientists call sea snot, according to ongoing research.

The boom likely precipitated a sea-snot "blizzard" in Gulf (map) waters, researchers say. And as the clumps sank, they may have temporarily wiped out the base of the food chain in the spill region by scouring all small life from the water column.

In the weeks after the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, scientists surveying the surface near the drill site spotted relatively huge particles—several centimeters across—of sea snot.

These particularly slimy flakes of "marine snow" are made up of tiny dead and living organic matter, according to Uta Passow, a biological oceanographer at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Tiny plants in the ocean called phytoplankton produce a mucus-like substance when stressed, and it's possible that exposure to the Deepwater Horizon oil caused them to pump out more of the sticky stuff than usual.

This abundance of "mucus" made the naturally occurring marine-snow particles—usually about a few millimeters wide—even stickier.

"Everything they collide with in their path they collect and take with them," said project leader Passow, who's currently tracking marine snow aboard the research vessel Oceanus.

(Related: why the Gulf oil spill isn't going away.)

Read rest of article here

Can't believe another summer has passed without Grimmi

you will always be in my heart
.....xoxo Patricia





thanks for sending us this photo, Eli....