Down down down Just as some lust for the stars others go in the other direction.…
Read More
Whaling
Though hunting whales dates back at least 6,000 years, it didn’t hit its peak until…
Read More
Dawson City: Frozen Time
Is this in the Pacific? Is there a voyage involved? Sort of. Let me explain.…
Read More
The Islands of Califia
California. How did it get the name? The origins of the name date back to…
Read More
The most important single (only one copy) book in the world
Every so often I am going to depart from the Pacific theme (though I will…
Read More
The Glomar Explorer
In the late 1960s the US military noticed a good deal of Soviet naval activity…
Read More
PT 109
Sure you have all heard the name of this WWII naval boat but what’s the…
Read More
Venice
Venice used to be great and it is pretty cool now but when Jim Morrison…
Read More
Ghost fleets
In times of war governments tend to build a lot of warships, and once the…
Read More
Shoo Fly Landing.
From Borax to babes, blow and blackjack Before the freight trains tracks were laid there…
Read More
Kamchatka, land of fire and ice
Unwelcome to Kamchatka! You disuninviteded! I travel all over the world (or did until the…
Read More
PALOS VERDES
In the early 60s I lived in Palos Verdes. This is the stubby thumb of…
Read More
The amazing adventures of James Lick
I love the story of James Lick. He’s largely forgotten except for a two mile…
Read More
All aboard the arks
Sausalito is an eccentric conglomeration of communities, from mega-mansions to floating piles of trash. Sausalito…
Read More
The 9,300 flights of the Fu-Go balloons
It was November in 1944, less than a year before The War snapped to an…
Read More
The tragic voyage of Nicolai Rezanov
Nicolai Rezanov was born in St. Petersburg in 1764. He mastered five languages by the age…
Read More
Cape Horn, no Covid, no panhandlers…no nothing, but snow and shipwrecks
For centuries the most dreaded sea passage in the world was Cape Horn. The Horn…
Read More
Nauru, land of disenchantment
In 1975, the tiny island of Nauru had the highest GDP per capita in the…
Read More
Papua New Guinea, bigtime penis envy down under
The central highlands of the island of New Guinea was the last place on earth…
Read More
Drake’s Bay—Part 2, The Voyage of the San Augustin
In 1565, Phillip II of Spain claimed the Philippine Islands (hence the name) to take…
Read More