A bit expensive though:
The floating bed designed by New Zealand designer, David Trubridge is made of natural latex, bamboo and wool. The designer bed comes for a designer price tag of $25,000.
What’s it rate?
Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
1,500 gallons of gas leak into Carquinez Strait after tug hits pipe
(05-14) 09:42 PDT MARTINEZ — A tugboat struck and ruptured a pipeline near the Tesoro refinery in Martinez early today, spilling as much as 1,500 gallons of gasoline into the Carquinez Strait, the Coast Guard said.
The incident happened at 12:20 a.m. when the tugboat Independence struck three pipelines at the Avon wharf at Tesoro’s Golden Eagle refinery on the southern shore of the Carquinez Strait, said Petty Officer Kevin Neff.
One of the pipes, which is a foot in diameter, was damaged and began leaking fuel into the strait, which leads to San Francisco Bay. There were no vessels at the wharf and no activities there at the time of the accident, authorities said. No injuries were reported.
The pipe was not transferring gasoline at the time, and the fuel that spilled was a residual amount that was in the line, Neff said. The Avon wharf is used to load vessels for transporting motor fuels throughout the West Coast.
64,000 gallons of sewage spills into bay off Marin
(05-14) 10:04 PDT TIBURON — About 64,000 gallons of partially treated wastewater spilled into the bay off Tiburon because of an overflow at a treatment plant, the latest in a spate of sewage spills in Marin County, authorities said today.
The sewage from a Tiburon Sanitary District plant at 2001 Paradise Drive spilled into Racoon Strait between midnight and 7 a.m. Tuesday. People have been warned to stay out of the water as a precaution while health officials await the results of tests.
The spill occurred because of a short circuit in a backup system, district manager Robert Lynch said. “I think we rely on technology too much sometimes,” he said.
The sewage had already been partially treated after being chlorinated and dechlorinated, Lynch said. The plant serves Belvedere and parts of Tiburon.
Just in time for Bay to Breakers, the Million Pirate March, and the StFYC Stone Cup.
Men may little note nor long remember, but this blog started one year and ~865 posts ago.
That’s a lot of mermaids!
The readership is world-wide:
And we are now entertaining about 250 unique visitors per day: 
The most popular posts and pages are:
- Today’s (real live) mermaid (also has the most comments by far)
- Gallery of mermaid tattoos (a Google-search fave)
- Today’s mermaid: 200th post! (obvious)
- Pictures from Port Townsend Wooden Boat Show (my own photos)
Thanks and keep reading!
A neat little online game where you can help whale strike back a (Japanese-flagged) whalers. There is also a place to sign an online petition to ban all whaling.
Save the Mermaids by Edward Horn
Endangered mermaids of Weekiwachee Springs.
Regular NSL readers will notice a few recent changes to the site. We now feature a three column format, and I am experimenting with putting up advertising, partly to offset the cost to host the site, but mainly to extend my blogging skills. Hopefully the ads will not be too irritating, and will be for items of interest to readers, like sailing hardware and clothing, bareboat charter companies, and mermaid tail lotion.
FYI, last Saturday 12 Jan 08 the 10,000th post went up on the “Couple Cruise for 1000 Days, This is Totally F*cking Ridiculous” thread on Sailing Anarchy (LINK). While a great many of the posts actually have little or nothing to do with Reed and Sonaya’s quixotic voyage, it is safe to say that never has so much has been spewed on so few about so little. I have to say, even though Reed comes off like a flake and even a jerk (and has inspired some pretty funny parody), most of this reaction must just be sour grapes from all the middle-aged desk-bound wannabees out there. Who wouldn’t want to be on an extended schooner voyage with a woman 20 years his junior? I am guessing that Reed will have the last laugh, and Tillerman agrees.
NSL wants to thank the Academy and Tillerman for the award for Top Ten Sailing Posts of 2007 for our Mermaid Series. Tilley hat pic on the way!
Tired of all those dressy evenings on cruise ships? How about a cruise where you don’t have to get dressed at all?
It’s called nude cruising, and it’s alive and well, with clothing-optional tour organizers such as Bare Necessities and Castaways Travel offering quite a few cruise departures for 2008 (as in the past, the firms have chartered mainstream cruise ships to offer the trips).
Why bring this up? Because several of you, dear readers, want to know. I’ve gotten several emails not just about clothing-optional cruises, which still are relatively few and far between, but the general state of topless decks on the ships run by mainstream cruise lines. Readers Terry and Jodi Deer of Stillwater, Okla., for instance, want to know if any line has taken the place of Carnival, which touted topless decks on its ships for years but has phased them out in favor of mini-golf courses and other recreation.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to do that and risk being mistaken for a marine mammal.
Joost is a new free video-over-IP service now available in beta. You need to download their free player application, which works as a peer-to-peer client, which is good for on-demand bandwidth, though some might worry about the security issues. The thousands of available shows are organized into “channels”, and I’ve been having fun working my way through the shows on “Boats on TV”. There are hundred of other channels as well.
Links: Joost home, Boats on TV channel
Shows available at present:
- Into the Eye of the Storm (Sydney-Hobart Race)
- Bang the Corner (Volvo around-the-world)
- Rolex TP52 World Championship
- The Record Stands
- Rolex Farr 40 World Championship
- Sardinia Rolex Cup
- Sailing in St Maarten
- Scott’s Knots
- The Life of Brunel
- Multihulls To Mexico
- Spinnaker Sailing
- The Basics of Boating
I have been sent to Hawaii on business this week, so won’t be posting for a while.
I know, it sucks, but someone had to go. 
Over at Proper Course, Tillerman has the floor open for nominations for Top Ten Sailing Blogs of 2007. I don’t imagine NSL will make the cut, there just isn’t enough sailing in either this blog or my life, for that matter. But click on over and join the discussion, you are sure to find something interesting.
Not nautical, but this really spoke to me.
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[Stan’s house, day. In the living room, Stan and Kyle stand before the TV with guitar controllers in their hands. Nine boys from class watch them from the sofa and the floor. A game starts up. Stan and Kyle immediately begin to play and the other boys begin to cheer them on. The song playing is “Wayward Son”] |
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Cartman: |
Stan, you guys are good! [Stan and Kyle more their right arms around during a power chord, then quickly return to playing. The score is 15,594 points and climbs quickly. Randy watches from the kitchen doorway] |
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[The kitchen. Sharon is washing dishes. Randy turns and walks towards her.] |
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Randy: |
[sounding tired] Sharon, what are the boys doing? |
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Oh, Stan and Kyle bought a new video game together. |
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Randy: |
They can play guitar now? |
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No, no, they’re just little plastic controllers. You hit the colored buttons and it makes the guitar track on the game play. |
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Randy: |
Ohhh. |
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If they spent half the time learning a real instrument as they do playing that game, who knows what they could accomplish. |
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Randy: |
Hey yeah… |
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[The living room. The round ends and the boys cheer.] |
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Stan: |
Dude, listen to that video crowd! They love us! [a shot of the cheering CG crowd on the TV] |
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Randy: |
[walks up to Stan] So you boys like this music, huh? |
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Kyle: |
Yeah, dude. It’s Guitar Hero. |
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Butters: |
Stan and Kyle are really good at it. |
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Randy: |
Well you kids wanna see something really cool? [the boys pay attention] Check this out. [walks away and picks up an electric guitar, and plugs in the amplifier. He puts his right foot on top of the amplifier and begins to play “Wayward Son” a half-step up] Once, I rose |
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Stan: |
[irritated, interrupting] Dad? Dad! What are you doing?! |
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Randy: |
[brightly] I can actually play a lot of these songs on a real guitar. You want me to teach you boys how? |
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Cartman: |
Uhh, that’s gay, Mr. Marsh. |
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Stan: |
Yeah, that’s stupid, Dad. |
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Randy: |
But… But this is real. |
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Cartman: |
Real guitars are for old people. |
Never Sea Land traffic has been growing exponentially, thanks to you, dear readers, and Heather.
Since this is the Internet, we can confidently forecast this growth to continue until, on average, every man, woman, and child on Earth will have a look at NSL once per day. This will happen in early 2012, less than five years away.
I hope I can get Google AdSense working by then.
Delightful pen-and-ink drawings (mostly non-nautical) by Mattias Adolfsson, a freelance illustrator from Sweden.
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