Andy Irons Memorial Paddle-Out

Surfers raise their arms in honor of the late Andy Irons during a paddle out memorial service in Porta Del Sol, Puerto Rico, Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2010.

A few hundred surfers from the northern beaches community gathered for a tribute paddle-out to celebrate the life of American surfer Andy Irons.
The three-times world champion died suddenly last week, aged just 32, just a month before he was due to become a first-time father. The three-times world champion was found dead at a hotel in Dallas, Texas on Tuesday, November 2.
Irons had reportedly been suffering from Dengue Fever in the lead-up to his shock death and had pulled out of a surfing event in Puerto Rico late last month to battle the viral infection.

Gales batter Scotland

all pictures ©Getty collected via Daylife

Scotland was braced for a battering last night, with 80mph gales and torrential rain set to sweep in.
Flash-flood warnings were issued for many waterways, including rivers in Argyll and Dumfries and Galloway and the River Tay, as well as Loch Lomond.

There were also alerts on the Clyde - with unusually high water levels - as well as the River Earn in Perthshire and the Argyll and Bute coast. The River Leven in Dumbarton burst its banks.
Forecasters say Northern Ireland, Wales and the north of England will also suffer. Ferry sailings, bridges and roads have all been hit.
The west coast, including many parts of Ayrshire, was slammed by strong winds. Residents in Port Ellen on Islay were given sandbags as high tides threatened homes.

Paul is dead!

The most famos Paul after Sir McCartney, also known as the Oracle Octopus, passed away in the night aged two and a half years, when all three of his hearts ceased to beat at once. He was unmarried and leaves no larvae so unfortunately he couldn't transmit its magical genes leaving the world without its unerring forecastings.
Be become famous correctly predicting Germany’s results throughout the championship and also the final between Holland and Spain. He did the predictions by selecting mussels from boxes draped in the colours of teams about to meet on the pitch in South Africa. The chances of him getting all eight predictions right were one in 256 – but he succeeded.
Management and staff of the Oberhausen Sea Life Aquarium were devastated when Paul was found dead and the will erect a monument ad memoriam!
Farewell Paul

Chicago's river dyed green for St.Patrick Day

©Flipped Out

If you're one of the readers of SeaWayBLOG, looking at the picture here above, you may think that I'm going to speak about some environmental issue concerning river chemical pollution but if you're a Chicagoan you already know that this is a completely different (and more pleasant) story...
Two days ago it was St.Patrick Day, the yearly holiday celebrated on 17 March, named after Saint Patrick (AD 387–461), the most commonly recognized of the patron saints of Ireland. It began as a purely Catholic holiday and became an official feast day in the early 1600s. However, it has gradually become more of a secular celebration of Ireland's culture.
During their celebrations Chigaoans dye their river green and have done so since 1962 when sewer workers used green dye to check for sewer discharges and had the idea to turn the river green for Saint Patrick's Day. Originally 100 pounds of vegetable dye was used to turn the river green for a whole week but now only forty pounds of dye is used and the colour only lasts for several hours.
Chicago is not the only American city celebrating this way:
Indianapolis also dyes its main canal green. Savannah dyes its downtown city fountains green. In Jamestown, New York, the Chadakoin River (a small tributary that connects Conewango Creek with its source at Chautauqua Lake) is dyed green each year. Columbia, SC dies its fountain green in the area known as Five Points (a popular collegiate location near the University of South Carolina).
The picture above and the two following were taken on this year celebration. Unfortunately weather was dark and gloomy.


©Getty Images via Daylife

©Getty Images via Daylife

The following pictures instead were taken in previous editions and the sun makes them really spectacular:


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©jshueh

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©yuan2003

The church that resurfaced

The image of a church emerging from the water just with the bell tower is quite distinguishing indeed, but it's not so rare, there are at least half a dozen example in the world (and a wonderful one, I've already spoken about, is in Italy) and the story behind it's more or less always the same: a dam built for hydroelectric purposes causing an entire village to be submerged. The bell tower, which often is the highest spot of a village remains as a picturesque recall (of economic interests overwhelming people's interests).


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This time however, even if the first part of the story is just the same, there is an unexpected (and somehow worrying) turn in the plot. The church has resurfaced!
It's in Venezuela and the cause is a severe drought which is hitting the nation, exposing a church, pictured in 2008 (left) and on February 21, 2010.


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The 82-foot-tall (25-meter-tall) church and the Andean town of Potosi were flooded in 1985 to establish the Uribante-Caparo water reservoir to power the plant, which is currently operating at just 7 percent of its capacity.

©Reuters

The church is now an ominous symbol of energy shortages in the country, which gets around 68 percent of its power from hydroelectricity. The droughts spurred Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to declare an energy emergency in February.

©Reuters

In a little over a year, the Venezuelan church went from almost fully submerged to bone dry.

The drought that caused the rapid decline has been linked to El Niño, a climate phenomenon that occurs every two to seven years and changes worldwide weather patterns. During an El Niño event—such as the current one, which began in summer 2009—the Pacific Ocean warms up near equatorial South America and disrupts large-scale atmospheric circulation.

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Collision between Sea Shepherd’s Adi Gil and Japanese whaling boat

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's vessel Ady Gil had its bow sheared off and was taking on water Wednesday after it collided with the Japanese whaling ship in the frigid waters of Antarctica. The boat's six crew members were safely rescued. The clash was the most serious in the past several years, during which the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has sent vessels into far-southern waters to try to harass the Japanese fleet into ceasing its annual whale hunt. Each side routinely accuses the other of dangerous activity during what has become a cat-and-mouse chase in one of the world's most remote regions.



Video from the Japanese boat:


Video from another Sea Sheppard boat:


Some frames of the collision