Spring Has Sprung
I have received some e-mail about my absence. It's simple, spring has sprung and with it sailing season has started. So I have become quite involved with instruction of both adults and children. Our Junior fleet class has 29 kids, mostly between the ages of 6 and 10.
Additionally, I have become interested in the thought of bringing the Bill of Rights to traffic court. I was given a totally bogus ticket for "disobeying a no passing zone" during a snow storm. The officer gave me the ticket while driving in the two eastbound lanes of a divided four lane highway! I am fighting it in court! To make his case believeable to the judge, the cop mis-reported our position by twelve miles. The whole thing stinks, but the conventional wisdom is that, in traffic court, you're guilty until proven innocent. It is an interesting question, how to level the playing field? When I asked for the video from the cop's SUV and that of his backup's SUV, it seems there is none. Once again the cynicism of the public was validated! Court date is July 5.
For those of you with an interest in our science questions, you could look back in the comments section of www.sailingscuttlebutt.com archives in late April for some good questions, such as our favorite about how the Blue Angels fly upside down. Watch some of the world's best sailors make fools of themselves! They never really got the Panama Canal question right, so here it is. Should the Panamanians worry about water usage due to the transit of individual yachts through the Panama Canal? Obviously, they displace much less water than ships do. So is there a problem? (Hint - Is the water in the canal salty, fresh or brackish?)
posted by MachiasPrivateer at 9:33 AM
2 Comments:
Glad to see you`re back!
The opening of the waterway to world commerce on August 15, 1914, represented the realization of a heroic dream of over 400 years.The 50 miles across the isthmus were among the hardest ever won by human ingenuity. Some interesting facts: * A ship traveling from New York to San Francisco can save 7'872 miles using the Panama Canal instead of going around South America. * In the fiscal year 1994 there where 14'029 transits, which carried 170.8 million long tons of cargo and paid US $ 419.2 million in tolls. * The highest Canal toll was US $ 141,344.91 paid by the Crown Princess and the lowest toll ever paid was 36 cents by Richard Halliburton for swimming the Canal in 1928. * The average time spent in transit from port to port is approx. 8 - 10 hours. * Until Lake Mead was formed by the building of the Hoover Dam, Gatun Lake was the largest artificial body of water in the world.
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