SeaWayBLOG: May 2008

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Water: one day, five pictures

Every day writing this Blog I try to show you what in our world has happened related to water and each day I realize more and more how water is everywhere, deeply involved in our lives, society and culture.
Let's choose a day , yesterday for example... than take a look to the pictures from REUTERS, the famous news photo agency, which are always a great mirror of what's happening in our world.
Here are the results, five different images from very different places and situations.
Water.

18 year-old Benjamin jumps from the 10 metre platform in a public swimming pool in Germering, west of Munich, Germany, May 27, 2008.
REUTERS/Alexandra Beier

A hippo swims in the surf at Thompsons Bay, about 50km (31 miles) from Durban, South Africa, May 27, 2008. It is thought that the lone young male hippo has wandered from its habitat in Richards Bay.
REUTERS/Rogan Ward

A buffalo waits to pull a cart loaded with fish at Beserah beach in Kuantan, 250 km (155 miles) northeast of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 27, 2008.
REUTERS/Zainal Abd Halim

An Israeli soldier gives water to a blindfolded Palestinian, detained during an Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, at an army base near kibbutz Kissufim, just outside the Gaza Strip May 28, 2008. An Israeli air strike on Wednesday killed two Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical workers said.
REUTERS/Amir Cohen

New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi (R) gestures as he stands on the field looking up at the rain pouring down in the top half of the ninth inning of the Yankees' MLB American League game against the Baltimore Orioles in Baltimore, Maryland May 27, 2008. Orioles catcher Ramon Hernandez (L) looks on. The umpires allowed the top half of the inning to be completed before calling for a rain delay.
REUTERS/Joe Giza

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Soldini and Peyron are the masters of the Atlantic (once again)

Giovanni Soldini with Telecom Italia wins Artemis Transat

Giovanni Soldini, the italian famous solo sailor, crossed yesterday the finish line of The Artemis Transat race in Marblehead, USA. On a crisp, clear early morning with a biting 18-20 knot north-westerly breeze, Soldini and his one year-old Proto Class40, Telecom Italia, completed the North Atlantic crossing in 16 days 22 hours and 11 minutes, having lead the 11 boats in the fleet since passing Lizard Point on the south coast of England during the first night of the race thanks to his great experience and tactical analysis.
The Artemis Transat is the third victory for Soldini’s one year-old, Guillaume Verdier-designed Class40, Telecom Italia, after first place in the double-handed Transat Jacques Vabre in November 2007 and the Grand Prix Petit Navire in France earlier this year.

Giovanni Soldini with Telecom Italia wins Artemis Transat

The Imoca 60 race finished saturday when Loick Peyron sailed Gitana Eighty across the finish line of The Artemis Transat in Boston and the clock stopped counting at 03:15:35 GMT, claiming a third victory in the event as well as a new race record for this legendary sailor

Floating lantern ceremony

REUTERS/Hugh Gentry

This monday, as every year on Memorial Day, thousands of people have gathered at Ala Moana Beach, Hawaii, to honor and pray for those who sacrificed their lives in war and natural disasters, for loved ones who have passed away and to aim for a harmonious and peaceful future. Thousands of "japanese lanterns" were released on the water during what is known as "Buddhist Floating Lantern Ceremony", even if the organizers loves to say:“It’s not a Hawaiian thing or a Japanese thing. It’s not a Buddhist thing. It’s a ‘Human Thing’”

REUTERS/Hugh Gentry
Floating lantern ceremony

REUTERS/Hugh Gentry

Monday, May 26, 2008

Oracle capsized

This Wednesday, while the 33rd America's Cup challenger BMW Oracle was carrying out a two-boat training sessions, one of the two Extreme 40 catamarans capsized. This is the photo sequence captured by Gilles Martin Raget.

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BMW Oracle capsized

All pictures by Gilles Martin Raget

ROLEX Capri Sailing Week 2008

ROLEX/Carlo Borlenghi

The 2008 edition of the ROLEX Capri Sailing Week has come to an end and it will remembered as one of the best due to great sailing conditions in the first day. The most fashionable and exclusive of the sailing events has been, as always, photographically interpreted by Carlo Borlenghi and you can find these and hundreds of other fantastic pictures on REGATTANEWS.COM, the official media site for ROLEX yachting events.

ROLEX/Carlo Borlenghi

Friday, May 23, 2008

Fish Therapy

REUTERS/Victor Fraile

"Fish Therapy" in a hotspring bathing pool at the Sanya Pearl River Nantian Hotspring Resort in south China's Hainan island province, May 17, 2008.
The hot spring water softens dead skin cells, which are nibbled off by the fish.
Fish Therapy is also used to cure skin diseases like Psoriasis

REUTERS/Victor Fraile

fish therapy

REUTERS

Flying Fish World Record!

A Japanese film crew has shot a 45-second-long video of a flying fish in the air, in what may be the longest recorded flight of the acrobatic species. The flying fish was seen flying in parallel with the ferry, which was moving at about 18.6 miles per hour.
The fish was able to continue flying by occasionally beating the surface of the water with its tail fin when it began to lose altitude. The flight time of 45 seconds beats the previous record of 42 seconds reported by an American researcher in the 1920s and must be close to the fish's physical limit, as brachial respiration is impossible while flying in the air.

Flying Fish are a marine fish family comprising about 50 species grouped in 7 to 9 genera. Flying fish are found in all the major oceans, particularly in the warm tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. Their most striking feature is their pectoral fins, which are unusually large, and enable the fish to take short gliding flights through air, above the surface of the water, in order to escape from predators.

Flying Fish

Photograph by Peter Parks/Animals Animals-Earth Scenes

A miraculous survival

This incredible image shows Joe Peroceschi thrown from his boat, on the left you can clearly see one of his shoes

Who's this guy that seems to run on the water?
He is Joe Peroceschi, a professional speedboat driver, and these are the dramatic images showing how close to death he has arrived.
Remarkably, this man will walk again after flying out of his boat and then being hit by another.
Windy conditions caused his speedboat to flip during a Budweiser Drag Boat Nationals race this Sunday on Wappapello Lake in southeast Missouri, he was thrown from his boat, Smokin Joe, the force of being thrown forward makes it appear as though he is running across the lake, but he is actually about to be hit by his opposition's boat.
That was Poppa's Toy, driven by Rick Conklin of Ottawa, Illinois.
Peroceschi survived, and was fished from the water and rushed to hospital with a shattered pelvis.

miracoulous survival in speedboat crash

Joe Peroceschi "running on the water"

miracoulous survival in speedboat crash

Joe Peroceschi being hit by another boat

Thursday, May 22, 2008

A race against time to save 100 beached whales in Senegal

Reuters

More than 100 pilot whales, which have bulbous foreheads and can grow to over 4 meters long, beached themselves overnight at Yoff, a traditional Lebou fishing community on the Cap Vert peninsula, mainland Africa's most westerly point.
Local fishermen struggled through the night to drag the animals back to sea from the sloping sandy beach, using their brightly colored open wooden boats known as "pirogues" and attaching ropes around the animals' sleek, black bodies.
By afternoon, as many as 60 whales had released back into the ocean, 38 whales sadly died on the beach, but they were able to save a pregnant whale and her calf shortly after the whale gave birth on the beach.

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Beached whales in Senegal