mark's Newest Blog Entries

Hiked up to Camp Muir and skied down

mark — 2008-07-21T00:23:15-08:00

An awesome trip with Joe and Tom. We hiked up to Camp Muir and skied down. The entire trip took about 6 hours and the ski down was spectacular. I've imported the GPS track so you can see our route.

Tips:

Make sure you book the campsite ahead. When we got there the campsite at Cougar Rock was full so we hiked into the bush and slept under the stars.

Fly Fishing South Platte River - The Dream Stream

mark — 2007-08-10T22:25:48-08:00

This stretch of river is known locally as the "Dream Stream". It's home to some very large brown trout and rainbow trout - up to 27 inches. I arrived at 8am and fished until 3:30pm.

I got lucky when I first arrived and immediatelly hooked two rainbows on a PMD with a tiny PMD emerger dropper. Then I switched to a streamer, didn't hook anything, switched back to a dry fly - a caddis pattern and didn't hook anything.

Then I switched to a wooly bugger and immedially caught a very nice 14 inch brown trout.

After getting a few nice nibbles, I figured it out. Cast the streamer across the river using a floating line. Let it drift down stream and swing back towards the bank you're on. As it starts it's swing, start stripping using a random pattern and strip quite quickly.

My streamer got chased many times, by some very big fish and I hooked a few more, but not 27 inchers.

I had loads of fun with my black wooly bugger and later I switched back to a Caddis. I let the caddis drift downstream as I walked along the bank and caught two more.

The best technique on this river is the following:

Find a meander where you are standing on the outside of the curve on the concave bank. If you're using a dry fly, cast the fly into the stream and let it drift back towards the bank. As it gets close to the bank, start walking downstream so your fly is slowly drifting along the undercut bank. If you don't get a hit in 10 minutes, you're using the wrong pattern or the fish aren't feeding on the surface.

If you're using a streamer, cast into the stream, let the streamer drift back towards the undercut bank and then strip quickly back towards yourself so you're stripping in the undercut. If you don't see something chasing your streamer in 10 minutes, change patterns.

With a streamer, I would cast my second cast into the stream and walk downstream with my floating line and then strip. That way I slowly moved downstream and I covered a lot of ground and saw a lot of fish chase my streamer and caught a few.

Have fun!

Mark.

My test post

mark — 2007-05-05T12:30:08-08:00

Testing if posting works.

Seattle Seattle

mark — 2007-03-26T18:54:54-08:00

The weather is awful, the fishing is crap because the rivers are blown out but Seattle still has some great coffee. I've been going for coffee with friends in the city and really enjoying catching up.

We're working hard on new features and plans for GJ and will have something awesome for you very soon.

Mark.

Back in Sunny Cali

mark — 2007-03-13T08:46:39-08:00

We're back in California with a bit of jetlag. Going to be here for another day or two and then driving back up to Seattle.

Tokyo for 12 hours

mark — 2007-03-11T01:10:07-08:00

We just spent 12 hours in Tokyo city. It was awesome although we were very tired from a red-eye flight from Singapore that didn't offer much chance for sleep. We checked out the Sony Center in Central Tokyo and walked around the city a bit.

I'm a little tired right now and our flight to LA is boarding so gotta go but will fill in details a little later.

Mark.

Touring Singapore City

mark — 2007-03-10T05:22:36-08:00

Today we stopped in Singapore for 12 hours on the way back to LA. We spent the day touring the city. I am totally in love with this place. The people are incredibly friendly, the city is clean and beautiful. Even the customs official offers you a sweet from the bowl on her desk.

We caught the free shuttle into the center of town and walked around. We saw the Arabic district, the Indian district, the main shopping area (can't remember the name now) but it's awesome and puts Rodeo Drive to shame.

They currently have an IT Exp on at the convention center and entrance was free today so we checked that out. The gadgets were awesome but so was the crowd. Olympus has just come out with this incredible little 7 megapixel digital camera that they were demo'ing. It's waterproof, shockproof, crushproof and even freezeproof. And just to prove it they put it in a freezer, got someone in the audience to stand on it with their full weight and bounce, and drop it from shoulder height - and of course submerge it. It still worked perfectly. Sells for about $500 US. I ALMOST bought it but managed....to....resist.

After an hour we escaped out of there and back to the airport where I'm writing this now.

Tomorrow we're off to Tokyo and we have 12 hours there too where we plan to do the same thing and explore the city. I've been warned by those in the know that it may take that long to get in and out of the city.

Mark. & Kerry.

Karan Beach, Thailand

mark — 2007-03-01T04:30:11-08:00

We decided to spoil ourselves to some airconditioning and checked into a hotel for 2 nights at Karen Beach. The boat is anchored just south of here at Kata Noi Beach.

We got online yesterday and booked into the local Best Western on a website called Phuket-hotels.com. And oh what a glorious catastrophe it was. We got to the hotel and the had not received our booking and even though the hotel said they had 20 rooms available they said they were completely full. BUT... they have this little room that we can stay in because they understand we have nowhere to stay. Would we like to see it? Sure I said.

We get led outside down the street and to this little room that makes the grimiest hostel I've ever stayed in (which was pretty grimy) look like blessed luxury. FYI we booked a room with a king-size bed, aircon, balcony and sea view.

So I tell the bellboy no thanks as politely as I can (why kill the messenger when you can murder the manager) and I go back into the hotel and get the manager on the phone who is at home. And we get into the mother of all arguments. If you have any red-head friends or family (I'm a red-head) you know what I'm talking about. Don't mess with the red head. Sandy, deep down inside I know you're a red head too. (my crazy sister in law)

Anyway, so I'm explaining to her that we have a booking, bought and paid and they authorized the website we booked with (which is local) to take the booking and now they won't honor it and are trying to charge us for the best room they have and put us in a little cave down the street etc...etc.. and all this just isn't getting through. None of it. She isn't budging. Until I ask her name, first and last and the spelling because I'm going to get hold of the Best Western hotel head office in the states and we're going to have a little chat about her performance. That got through. Now she wants to find us another hotel that has rooms and next thing she actually has a room for us, and lo and behold folks, it's the best room they have to offer.

Groovy, so we have a room. Next couple walks in, they've booked with a large online travel service, and surprise surprise, they can't find their reservation. I chatted to the guy and told him the "get the manager to spell her name" trick and apparently it didn't work because I saw them this morning and they stayed at another hotel down the street which wasn't so bad.

Moral of the story: If you book using phuket-hotels.com or stay at the Best Western in Karon Beach, Phuket, get your war face on because you're going to need it to get past the lobby.

Moving swiftly on.....

Once you get inside (which took us 90 minutes) the hotel is actually not bad. Nice view, nice aircon, clean rooms, nice pools if a little crowded and the breakfast is great.

To complicate matters, we're technically not supposed to be in Thailand because we checked out at immigration because we didn't expect to leave the boat until we get to Langkawi in Malaysia. So we're illegal. And of course once we got a room and were signing in they wanted to see our passports to record our visa numbers. So I just blagged it (as the brits say) and used the language barrier to my advantage for a change. Pulled out my Washington Drivers license, AAA card, costco card, library card and put on the blank thousand yard stare. He gave up after a while.

We needed some spoiling after all that stress so we went down the street and bought 11 movies for $30. Yes officer, the nice man who took us into the back room with the padlock on it said they were all perfectly legal. What do you mean there is no Zone 9 for DVD's?

Seems like about 30% of them are screeners (filmed with a camera in a cinema) but the ones that aren't are pretty good.

We're sitting at Andaman Coffee Company, the Starbucks of Phuket which has the fastest wireless internet we've found, the best airconditioning and their espresso frap rocks my world.

We're back on the boat tomorrow. We've decided to skip going up to the Similan islands. It's 60 hours of sailing for a day or two of exploring and - ok I'll admit it - the run back up to Phuket from down south had us both a bit seasick, so we wussed out. Instead we're taking a two day break and then taking a nice slow ride down to Langkawi.

Lots of love to all our friends and family. See you back in California on the 10th and then Seattle about the 15th of March.

Mark & Kerry.

Blogging on a map from a boat

mark — 2007-02-25T20:12:34-08:00

I'm at a very low bandwidth internet cafe in Ko Phiphi, so I thought I'd write a quick entry about how we're posting from the boat and submit it to digg. What the hell.

We're using a service called Sailmail to send and receive email via HF radio on the boat. Here's an extract from the sailmail website explaining what it is:

*snip*

The SailMail Association is a non-profit association of yacht owners that operates and maintains an email communications system for use by its members. SailMail email can be transferred via SailMail's own world-wide network of SSB-Pactor radio stations, or via satellite (Iridium, Inmarsat, Globalstar) or any other method of internet access. The SailMail system implements an efficient email transfer protocol that is optimized for use over communications systems that have limited bandwidth and high latency. Satellite communications systems and SSB-Pactor terrestrial radio communications systems both have these characteristics. The SailMail email system's custom protocol substantially reduces the number of link-turn-arounds and implements compression, virus filtering, spam filtering, and attachment filtering. The combination of the protocol, compression, and filtering dramatically improves communications efficiency.

The SailMail Association also maintains its own world-wide network of SSB-Pactor private coast stations in the Maritime Mobile Radio Service. Email that is sent to a SailMail member's email address can be seamlessly retrieved via SSB radio, via satellite, or via any other access to the internet.

*snip*

I've built remote posting into Geojoey's map blogging platform so that you can post via email. Simply send an email to post@geojoey.com and the subject of your email becomes the title of your blog entry and the body becomes the posting. The first two lines of the message must contain your remote posting password (configured in your blog settings) and your latitude and longitude. We support 5 different formats for lat/lon coordinates.

Your posting is automaticaly put on your blog/map at the coordinates you specify. You can also set all remote posts to be cross-posted to a custom map and to be added to a journey which is what I've done for my blog. That way your journey is plotted on a map as you travel. You can also include the keyword TRAVELMETHOD: in your posting with a travel method like (Airplane, yacht, etc) and we'll put little icons on the lines showing how you're traveling.

When I want to post an entry, I use sailmail to email post@geojoey.com with my entry. Most of the time we get a throughput on the HF radio of about 200 bits per second. The best we've ever had is 5000 bits per second. During daytime we use 10MHz or 13MHz and at night we use 6 or 8 MHz. Higher frequencies are better because they provide higher bandwidth.

The transmitter we're using is an ICOM marine HF radio and I can't remember the exact model number. It is 100 Watts and has an antenna tuner. We use a Pactor III USB modem attached to the radio for comms with Sailmail. I'm often amazed at how resilient the modem/encoding is. We sometimes have bad interference with pops and whistles and it still gets through. Switching off all fans and flourescent lighting on the boat improves the received signal quite dramatically.

The best time for transmitting is night time, but it's also when the frequencies are the busiest so I often upload during the day.

That's all for now. If you're interested in getting a blog on a map, then signup with Geojoey and check out your blog settings page for remote posting.

Leaving Yacht Haven

mark — 2007-02-22T16:33:46-08:00

This is our last entry using the wireless internet at Yacht Haven. From now on we'll be posting via HAM (HF) radio using sailmail. Gotta go, I'm about to lose the internet because we've already cast off from the dock.

Muay Thai

mark — 2007-02-22T16:19:28-08:00

The night before last we went to see some Thai Boxing or Muay Thai at Bangala stadium in Patong. A word of advice. If you're going to do this, don't get there early. There's a truck that drives through the streets during the day promoting the fight with a recording of music and this guys voice saying "Thai Boxing, big fight, real fight, super real fight...etc..". Well they take that recording at play it in the arena at unbelievably high volume to promote the fight for an hour before it starts. So we got there half an hour early and had to listen to the super-real-fight soundtrack for half an hour. Sounds like I'm whining? Don't say I didn't warn ya. ;)

The boxing itself was pretty awesome. There were nine fights and they start off with the youngest fighters who are about 8 years old and the last fights are the experience fighters. There's a religious or spiritual ceremony before each fight where the fighters walk around the ring and go through a series of movements which is quite beautiful. The fighting is extremely agressive and there were three knockouts during the evening. The best knockout was a chinese fighter who I thought I heard the announcer say was cross-trained in kung fu. He knocked out his opponent with a kick to the head.

Sightseeing in Patong

mark — 2007-02-20T20:41:12-08:00

Yesterday we were sightseeing around Phuket Island spending most of our time walking and driving around the city of Patong. The temperature here is very hot and humid and takes some getting used to after only being a week since we were skiing near our home in Seattle.

Patong is very busy with nice beaches and shops to visit. While we were eating lunch, a van drove by with boxers standing on the roof in a boxing ring advertising a match that night. We plan to attend a boxing match tonight if we can organize tickets.

We spent our first night on the boat and slept like the dead. Nice thing about jetlag is we were wide awake at 6:30am and watched the sun rise while fishing off the back of the boat.

The photos below are clickable and show pictures of driving through Patong and visiting the Patong beaches.

At Phuket waiting for little sis

mark — 2007-02-20T01:36:41-08:00

We arrived in Phuket this morning at around 9am. Met mum and dad at the airport and went exploring around the island. We've had our first cocktails, almost gotten killed by the insane scooters around here and bought our first pirate DVD's. The front of the pirate store was a massive Hello Kitty store and you get taken into the back room, then upstairs, then another back room and there's a huge collection of pirated everything - from XBox games to Music and DVD's. They have a TV with a closed circuit camera pointed at the front door. Why, I can't imagine.

So we're back at Phuket Airport waiting for little sis to arrive on a flight from Bankok. Can't wait to see her. It's been waaay too long. It's awesome to see mum and dad again. Trying to do 9 months of catchup in an hour. We have 20 days here, so we'll have plenty of time.

I have a few photos I took today but I'm at an internet cafe right now and I don't see a USB port anywhere. Will upload them later.

Mark.

Singapore Airport

mark — 2007-02-19T15:45:08-08:00

We just spent 7 hours sleeping at singapore airport's transit hotel and are about to leave for Phuket. The transit hotel is awesome but you have to book more than a month ahead and people were getting turned away in droves.

The sun's rising and it looks to be a spectacular day!

Mark.

Tokyo Airport

mark — 2007-02-19T01:31:34-08:00

We're in Tokyo!! We don't get to leave the airport and have about 15 minutes until our flight leaves for Singapore. The airport is immaculate and everyone is super friendly. We're not going to get to see any of the city now but have a 12 hour layover on the way back when we'll leave the airport.

I think it's about six hours to Singapore, then we have a 6 hour layover there and then 2 hours to Phuket.

Hope you're having a spectacular Monday! - or is it Sunday there? Jeez we can't even figure out what day it is here. Well it's 6pm and the sun just went down so I guess it's either the 19th of the 20th. OK, apparently it's the 19th. We crossed the international date line and lost a day and I still haven't quite figured out how that works. It's this massive warp field or something.

Mark.

Last minute feature - auto centering

mark — 2007-02-17T21:39:41-08:00

Any software engineer will tell you I'm nuts for doing this. I'm leaving tomorrow morning at 9am for fuckitt - or is it Phuket I can never remember. Anyway I just pushed out a last minute feature, auto-centering.

You can enable autocentering on your blog and your map will automatically be centered over your newest entry. I did this because when I'm remote posting I don't want to have to worry about where I positioned the map and whether my newest post is going to be in the center.

To use this feature, log in to geojoey and go to your blog page. Then click the menu and you'll see an option for auto centering your map. It will be auto centered at the current zoom level so if you want it to be permanently close up then zoom in further and select auto center again.

It's funny how development schedules collapse from days into hours when you're using your own product.

New Version of GJ and leaving tomorrow

mark — 2007-02-17T19:09:43-08:00

I spent most of today coding and I've pushed out a new version of Geojoey this evening. Some improvements:

We now have RSS feeds for all blogs (Thanks Kate for the suggestion!). There's a link at the top right of each blog to the RSS feed and we have all three formats (RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 and Atom) and if you're using firefox your browser will show an orange icon in the location bar so you can subscribe.
The icons that show your travel method (Car, Truck, Boat, etc) that appear on your journey were floating on top of the blog icons - they now appear below any blog icons on the same map layer as the journey line.
Place and Country are now optional when posting a blog entry. They were optional for remote posting, so now it's consistent.
The GPS coordinate parsing routine is a little more forgiving (forgives my stupidity) for certain formats. I recommend using HDD MM.MMM format which is what both my garmin GPS's use.
The 'posting success' email that you get confirming that your remote posting was succesful now tells you what country your posting is in or nearest to. I added that as a double check to confirm that we parsed your coordinates correctly. On the drive from Seattle one of my postings ended up in Asia, hence this fix.
The posting success also includes your GPS coordinates in HDD MM.MMM format as another check.
The time for blog postings now includes time of day.
Fixed a minor javascript error on the blog home page.

We leave for Thailand at 9am tomorrow morning.

Home Again Home Again Jiggiddy Jig!

mark — 2007-02-17T01:25:15-08:00

aaaah. It's 1:19am and we're back in LALA Land. Or just south of there anyway. For some reason that drive felt a lot shorter than Denver to Seattle.

That was such an awesome way to test our software. We have a few minor bugs that shook out and a ton of feature enhancements. For example, if you're posting remotely by emailing post@geojoey.com, and your GPS coordinates are in Degrees/Decimal Minutes format and you leave out the single quote off your minutes, then it totally screws up the coords. That little mess up had me SSH'ing into the database server while Kerry was doing 80MPH on the I5 so I could manually delete the entry that messed up.

So I'm thinking it might be useful if you can also remote delete an entry and it'd also be nice if we emailed our users some sort of confirmation that we interpreted the coords correctly - like "The nearest city to your coordinates is ..."

We catch a plane tomorrow (Sunday) to Thailand and we'll be posting from a HAM radio set while sailing.

Mark.
ps: Thanks to our friends who have already given us some really great feature suggestions!

North of LA

mark — 2007-02-16T22:05:04-08:00

We're being tailgated and someone just cut us off. We must be getting close to LA..

Shutting down for the night

mark — 2007-02-16T03:25:04-08:00

The caffeine worw off and we're stopping here for the night.

Somewhere in rainy sth WA

mark — 2007-02-15T20:15:04-08:00

Just passed a place called resta rant. Lots of rain and trains but the rd is nice and empty. Portland is in 36 miles. Ziggy is on kerry's lap while she's driving. Joey is asleep in the back.

Oooops

mark — 2007-02-15T15:44:40-08:00

We launched, everything worked perfectly, a friend emails and says there's this error on the website, I log on and oh it's just something minor and easy to fix and then we're getting ready to leave. Well turns out it wasn't something simple.

For the last 2 hours everyone's being seeing FORBIDDEN on GJ's home page. I'm such a dumb ass. I pushed out my test web server config file and blocked everyone except our home IP addresses so everything was working perfectly - for us and no one else.

OK, I'm really walking out the door now.

Mark.
PS: Thanks Laurel and Tim for saving us!

Rush Rush Rush!!!!

mark — 2007-02-15T13:17:07-08:00

I am in such an unbelievable rush today. Firstly we just launched the new site so welcome! Honestly the main reason Kerry and I have worked our behinds off for the last few weeks is so we can use the site ourselves. We're about to leave for a drive from Seattle to CA and then flying to Thailand to go sailing with mum and dad for 20 days. YAAAAAY!!!! So we're going to chart our trip on Geojoey.

Why have we moved from rating the best experiences to a blogging platform? Because it's more useful and fun and something WE want to use.

We have some awesome new features. Here are the highlights:

Floating or pinned blog widgets
- You can create a "widget" on your blog using a WYSIWYG editor. Once you save it you can edit the border, opacity, background color and image, and lots more.
- You can either float it (the map moves under your widget) or pin it to the map.
- If your widget is pinned to the map, it will auto-resize as you zoom in and out
The thing I dig the most is that you can edit your widget HTML source. That means you can embed flash objects into widgets and do things like make them 50% translucent using the widget style controls.
You can save the zoom and position of your map, so if you're traveling in Australia or blogging about fishing spots in Washington you can save your map so visitors only see that area.
We support multiple maps, so if you have 10 trips during a year you can have a map for each. You can create a new map when you add a blog entry. Each map has it's own distinct widgets.
A blog entry can appear on your home page and a custom map or only on a custom map if that's what you'd prefer.
For now all blog entries also appear on Geojoey's home page. Come on, share the wisdom!!
We support remote posting via email. I'm about to leave for a trip to Thailand for 20 days (yeah, launch and then bail, I know, I'm insane) and I'm going to be using remote posting both from my blackberry and on a HAM radio while we're sailing in Thailand (assuming everything works ok). For details on remote posting go to your blog settings page once you've signed up.

A few caveats: This software is Alpha. That means that we're testing it and should probably not even have launched it. We're not announcing this to the press at all and we'd appreciate it if you'd keep things quiet around here and not break anything until March 10 when we're back in Seattle and have time to fix stuff. :-)

We also support remote posting of blog entries. More about that later, but check out your blog settings page for details. I'll be posting remotely via my blackberry on the drive down to OC and then (if everything works as planned) I'm going to be posting via something called sailmail while we're sailing.

I've had about 3 hours of sleep so if I'm babbling stop me. The weather in Seattle is unbelievably crap right now. There's a 50mph wind howling across lake sammamish and my house is literally shaking.

Gotta go get a damper plate for the boats transmission before I leave.

Mark.

Elevation Restaurant

mark — 2007-01-09T08:07:57-08:00

On Friday night we had diner at Elevation in Aspen. The hostess managed to invent us a table even though we had no reservation and the place was packed.

The food was pretty good although my rare lamb was a little tough. The atmosphere was spectacular and they have a well stocked bar. The bar really livens up after 10pm.

If you're in Aspen and looking for a good meal at a good restaurant that doesn't price gouge and who will take good care of you, check out Elevation.

Skiing at Snowmass, Colorado

mark — 2007-01-09T07:57:25-08:00

This weekend we went skiing at Snowmass which is next to Aspen. We drove through a snowstorm to get here and drove back through one. But Saturday when we went skiing was perfect weather and the morning had not a cloud in the sky.

Snowmass is awesome if you're an intermediate skier like me. Lots of blue and some fun black stuff that isn't too terrifying.

The GPS track on the map shows one of my runs. The straight line is the lift to the top. The first half of the run is a black diamond and the second is a green.

Be sure to check out Aspen village which is a 10 minute drive from here, especially if you're into designer gear and enjoy a good restaurant.

This photo is from halfway up the mountain.

Surfing The Wedge at Cape Town Harbour

mark — 2007-01-03T16:51:04-08:00

When it gets really big in Table Bay, this is an awesome and slightly scary surf spot. Big swells bounce off the harbour wall without losing much force and turn into big cross swells.

The cross swells join up with swells coming straight in to create a wedge effect and 4 ft waves turn into 8 ft peaks that make for a very hairy takeoff but can give you the ride of your life.

Don't surf this break too often because as you can see from the satellite photo the river spews a bit of pollution into the ocean here and I'm not sure how safe it is.

Ruby's Diner on Huntington Beach Pier

mark — 2006-12-09T18:14:08-08:00

Yesterday we ate at Ruby's after walking Joey (our dog) on the dog beach northwest of here. Ruby's is always good and the staff are friendly. The view is spectacular.

The pier is very long and about 50 ft above the sea leavel. There is usually good surf along the side and you can watch the surfers, fisherman and pelicans. Today has solid 8 ft storm swell with a surf contest on the beach, but that's another story.

The old Greenwich Observatory at 0 Longitude

mark — 2006-12-05T11:57:24-08:00

This is one of my favorite places in London and was one my wife and my first dates. Greenwich park is beautiful and it's also the home of the Greenwich observatory which is what defines 0 degrees longitude.

The observatory still has old telescopes pointing toward the heavens and there is a laser that shines directly along zero degrees longitude. There is also an atomic clock that defines Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Be sure to visit the Maritime museum just north of here.

Texas Holdem Poker at the Luxor

mark — 2006-11-28T01:37:26-08:00

My Texan father in law taught me Texas Holdem over thanksgiving. We're busy driving from Denver to Orange County, CA and we stopped in Vegas (Baby!) this evening.

I checked out the $4/$8 tables at the Bellagio this evening which are supposed to be the best in Vegas, but couldn't pluck up the courage to sit down. It's a little intimidating for a newbie to play 4/8 and the crowd kinda stared me down when I walked up to the table.

The Luxor is awesome for beginners. The staff were really friendly and when I sat at the table and announced that I was the noob, they were all more than happy to take my money :)

I played two different tables for about 2 hours. They were both $1/$2 limit holdem tables. The atmosphere at the tables was awesome and the dealers are quite chatty. 3 players left from our first table to join a tournament and the manager set up another table for us and dropped the rake (what the casino takes from the pot) from $4 to $1 at our next table for the inconvenience of us having to move.

If you're a newbie, I highly recommend playing at the Luxor. Just tell the dealer you're a beginner when you sit down and they'll prod you when you need to do something and explain anything you might miss.

If you're wondering how I did, I started with $60 of chips and walked away with $43 after two hours. I won two big pots and lost about 3 big rounds.

We also caught a show at the Luxor, but Kerry will write about that tomorrow.

Catching crayfish at Dassen Island

mark — 2006-11-16T20:51:39-08:00

This tiny godforsaken island off the west coast of South Africa has some fond childhood memories for me. We used to sail here from the small coastal town nearby called Yzerfontein or from Cape Town.

The bay where the marker is is where most boats anchor for the night.

There used to be this crazy lighthouse keeper that would come on board your boat, drink all your booze (depth charges if you had whiskey and beer on board) and leave. He had one hand and the other was reputedly bitten off by a shark. He wore a black rubber glove over the missing hand that made it look more macabre than if he had no glove.

The northwestern point had what looked like a perfect point break that would peel off at about 12 ft. I was too young and chicken to surf it but I've always wondered if it's surfable.

Dassen Island is also infested with wild cats that eat the birds which affects the crayfish population which feeds on the bird guano. It's that whole ecosystem thing. ;)

Freediving at Jorge Greko

mark — 2006-11-15T21:09:23-08:00

This little island is usually ignored in favor of the larger Ilha Grande which lies North of here. But it's well worth a visit if you're looking for some slightly wilder diving terrain and want to get away from the tourists for a while.

Jorge Greko is a little more exposed than Ilha Grande. Most of the shoreline of the island is solid rock that shelves off steeply to around 20 Meters deep. The bottom is rocky. If you can handle the depth it's a great freediving spot.

When I was there we had 20 meter visibility and the water was warm. There are some severe thermoclines though so wear a wetsuit if you plan to sit on the bottom for a while and brace yourself for the temperature changes because it really knocked the wind out of me.

I saw various rays, turtles and even a shoal of tuna that passed less than a meter from my face.

At night we were surrounded by fishing trawlers fishing for squid - or lula as they're called in Portuguese.

Tips:

If you sail out to the island, make sure you turn on your GPS's anchor alarm at night because it can get a little surgy and it's smaller than you think. Also consider turning on a perimiter alarm if you have one on radar because the fishing trawlers crowd into the little North Western bay.

The best latte on earth

mark — 2006-11-15T06:28:50-08:00

I didn't know that I didn't know what a real latte tastes like until I went for coffee with a friend at this basement coffee shop.

This is also the first place I saw someone pour a fern leaf on top of a latte.

The atmosphere is awesome - very friendly people and the walls are lined with used books that you're free to grab and drink with your coffee.

Victoria Falls

mark — 2006-11-12T06:25:03-08:00

The Vic falls are quite spectacular and worth visiting. The falls are called Mosi-oa-Tunya by the locals which means "The smoke that thunders". The Vic falls forms the largest curtain of falling water in the world.

I was here when it was low water and I hiked out to the edge of the falls with some friends I met. We waded into the river and ended up about 300 ft out surrounded by water and on the edge of the falls.

We went swimming right on the edge of the falls with a thin rock wall separating us from a VERY large drop. It was kind of like a spa but with an abyss on the outside. I'm not sure exactly where it was because we had a guide with us and I was just following along, but this was an awesome experience, so ask around and I'm sure someone will know the way.

There are a ton of outdoor things to do around here. You can do a cross-canyon bridge swing or a bungee over a river from a bridge. When I drove through here in 2003 I did a day long whitewater rafting trip which was awesome.

An extract from AfriZim.com at:

http://www.afrizim.com/Places/Victoria_Falls/default.asp

Different times of the year will provide different experiences

High Water

-Feb to April. In full flood years the falls cannot be seen on foot on the Zimbabwe side with clouds of spray rising high into the sky and drenching all tourists. The aerial view at this time however is spectacular.

* The Zambian side of the falls with less water is better at this stage and there are walkways to look out points and across the swaying Knife Edge bridge.

* The intense spray provides welcome relief from the heat, but don’t carry anything you don’t want to get wet!

-April and May. The falls are at their most spectacular on foot but often the spray is so thick it is difficult to see the full width of the falls, but the weather is magic.

-From May onwards as the annual flood abates, the view of Victoria falls gets better and better and photographic opportunities from the Rain Forest path in Zimbabwe improve and most of the falls can be seen from this side. The weather is still fantastic.

Low Water

-Around November and December . It is just as interesting to come when the water is low. This is the time when there is very little spray and visitors are able to fully appreciate the geological formation of the falls and the full length and breadth of them.

Giant Tortoises at Chumbe Island

mark — 2006-11-10T23:03:15-08:00

If you're in Zanzibar and love tortoises, check out Chumbe Island where they have several giant Changuu Tortoises. Some are estimated to be 120 years old.

Getting hooked in Pemba Island

mark — 2006-11-10T22:49:16-08:00

I was sailing around Pemba a few years ago with mom and dad. My mom is a genius fisherperson and we had just finished fishing. I handed her the rod and a lure on the line hooked my index finger.

The guys from the boat next door came over - a bunch of Aussies who knew everything about everything. They suggested I do the "old trick" of tying a piece of fishing line to the hook and just yanking it out. The barb was about the size of my fingernail so I told them what they could do with their idea.

It was about 5pm and we were a few miles from the nearest town with a surgery, so we did some of the most interesting navigation we've ever done. Sailing over bommies (coral heads) less than 3 feet deep during twilight and eventually darkness into a port we'd never been to.

Anyway, eventually we made it and arrived at the surgery. There was a guy sitting in white robes outside (large muslim community in this area) and sand on the floor of the surgery.

Eventually I realised the guy sitting on the sidewalk was the doctor. His name was Ali Habibu. I was nervous as hell because he was going to slice open my finger and yank out a large piece of steel. But as I was lying on the table all numbed up, he looked me straight in the eye and said "Mark, everything is going to be OK."

Sure it wasn't such a bad injury and I'm really making a mountain out of a mole hill here. But I guess that will stay with me. After having a hook stuck in my fingers for hours, putting my mom and dad through some of the hairiest sailing they've done and arriving in a very third world town to a surgery with a sandy floor, this guy looks me in the eye and tells me with such conviction that everything is going to be fine - and it instantly was.

Tips:

Fish with barbless hooks. You can yank them out, no surgery required.

Chinook fishing at the mouth of Issaquah Creek

mark — 2006-11-10T22:24:13-08:00

On lake Sammamish, the best fishing is at the mouth of Issaquah Creek. From August to the end of October you can fish for Chinook (King) Salmon here.

You can't get any closer than 100 yards, but you're allowed to use bait, barbed hooks and can keep any Chinook over 12 inches - although I do mostly catch and release with barbless hooks.

Please note, the only type of Salmon you can keep in this area is Chinook.

I've had good luck here with a pink buzz-bomb. I didn't get any Chinook, but picked up a 20 inch Steelhead.

The fish stack up here on their way into Issaquah Hatchery. The hatchery release Steelhead and Chinook and the population of both are healthy in the Lake.

I've also caught several Steelhead from my dock on the east side of the lake using the smallest buzzbomb you can buy, casting it as far as possible into the lake and jigging it on the bottom back to the shore.

Tips:

Get a license at GI Joe's on Gilman Blvd a few miles from here. You can also stock up on gear there.

If you're using a downrigger, please be considerate of others who may be casting - don't snag their lines as you scrape the bottom.

Seven Glaciers Restaurant at Alyeska

mark — 2006-11-09T18:49:41-08:00

Alyeska is some of the finest skiing on Earth, but few people know about a hidden gem at Alyeska Ski Resort.

The Seven Glaciers Restaurant has some of the best seafood I've tasted, a well stocked bar, friendly and professional staff and an awesome view.

Tips:

I've been there twice now, both in the off season and it wasn't overly busy. I'd guess it's crazy during season, so book well in advance.

The historical town of Parati, Brazil

mark — 2006-11-08T00:19:22-08:00

I spent several months sailing along the Brazilian coast line in the nineties with my parents. One of the towns we visited was Parati where we spent about a week. It's a beautiful quiet town with cobblestone roads and small markets. Legend has it that the Portuguese conquistadors came to Parati with stones in the holds of their ships as balast and replaced them with with Brazilian gold and returned to Portugal. The stones they left behind were used to pave the streets.

Just South of Parati is a wonderful little lodge called (if I recall correctly) Refugio Dos Caravellas which is run by a couple, Aldo and Greta. Stay there if you can - it's a lovely little place.

Tips:

Be careful of the no-see-ums. Little insects you cant see that bite and leave a single red spot. If you scratch it it can turn very nasty. Use insect repellent and if you do get bitten, don't scratch.

Venice Beach, California

mark — 2006-11-07T13:03:18-08:00

Venice Beach is definitely on of my favorite experiences in California. When I was working for eToys.com in Santa Monica I lived just down the road from here in Marina Del Rey and used to rollerblade along the beach every day.

There are some very colorful characters including this guy dressed in an arabic outfit on rollerskates playing an electric guitar. He's been in a bunch of different movies including the 80's skateboard flick, Thrashin. I asked him if he knows any Hendrix and he said he doesn't do covers.

Muscle Beach, another movie favorite is the dark grey rectangle just southeast of where I put the marker.

The markets along here are really cool and there are some cute restaurants and bars.

Tips:

If you're a movie stalker, go rollerblading along the beach at around 7 or 8am - that's usually when they film.

Best tequila bar in London

mark — 2006-11-02T19:54:01-08:00

Kerry and I spent far too much time getting free drinks out of Pablo the Columbian barman at Cafe Pacifico. I'm a bit of a tequila fan and Cafe Pacifico has the best range of premium tequila I've seen in London. Everything's 100% Agave.

Unfortunately Pablo doesn't work here anymore, but the staff are still super friendly and extremely knowledgeable about one of the best drinks on earth.

Tips:

Don't get suckered into drinking the $100 per shot Cuervo. If you order it you get your name on a fancy board - it's the list of silly people who think $100 tequila tastes different ;) Pablo gave us a free taste one night after our, ummm, was it 12th shot? - and it doesn't taste any different to other very good tequilas.

Also, if Cafe Pacifico is too crowded, try La Perla a few blocks away - it's the sister restaurant - slightly smaller and cosier and also has a great range.

Neno reef

mark — 2006-11-02T19:38:48-08:00

There's a rock underwater here where my two best childhood friends and I grew up bodyboarding. It gets really shallow - sometimes just a few inches deep, but it's awesome for bodyboarders because it's too steep for surfers to take off and they'd rip their skegs off on the reef if they tried.

On some days when it gets big there's an outside reef that breaks and it looks a little like a mini shark island. A fat lip, shallow reef and unbelievable drop on the takeoff.

The beach break (300 ft north-east on the map) gets interesting in the winter. One winter the banks went into this weird shallow configuration after a really bad winter storm and we had this unbelievable shorebreak all spring. My friend Marco proved to us that spring that he was completely insane by doing rolls in the pit of these massive bone crunching shorebreaks by just flipping his board on the spot. He didn't even need a lip - just flipped it right there in the trough.

The most epic beach break on earth

mark — 2006-11-02T09:48:34-08:00

Schaap Eiland is a little known surf spot on the west coast of South Africa. It's not that well known because most of the time it's big and blown out. But when it gets good it's probably the best wave in the country.

It doesn't get good often because it needs a North East wind or Berg wind which blows only a few days each year. But when a Berg wind does blow on the west coast you'll know because it's a warm dry wind from the inland and it usually blows consistently for a whole day, sometimes several, so you have a good shot at catching a wave here.

You can also try this spot when the wind is light and variable or light Northwest which is onshore for most of this coastline, but the peaks don't form on the same spot as consistently as when you have a northeaster.

The sand banks are shallow on the outside and because of the direction the beach faces and the position of the beach it gets some very strong ocean swell. So you get solid 6 to 8 foot waves hitting these shallow banks and pitching forward in 3 to 4ft deep water for the most un-f'ing-believable tubes.

There was this one EPIC day when I was in my late teens at this spot where myself and two friends came down to the beach and it was perfectly glassy with a northeaster blowing. The only other guys out were 3 guys from a local surf team and two photographers taking shots.

I have this clear memory of catching a perfect left on my bodyboard, pulling into a perfectly glassy tube with this thundering lip crashing down next to my right side, and having the sense that if I don't keep my rail on a perfect line I'm going get eaten alive. And right then a photographer popped up in front of me and snapped a shot.

To this day I don't know who he was or if he actually got a good shot - what I'd give to get that photo.

That was the most epic surfing day in the history of my life. :)

Tips:

I haven't surfed here for years because I've been out of the country, but here's how it works. In spring or autumn if it's blowing South Easter and a cold front comes through, the wind will shift to East, NortheEast and then Northwest. You want to watch for fronts and time it so that you're at Schaap Eiland when it hits Northeast. Sometimes it's only in the early morning and for about 3 or 4 hours, but other times the front won't hit and it'll sit at NorthEast for a few days. Those are the times you want to take your mates and a few beers and go and experience one of the best beach breaks on the planet.

Table Mountain Downhill Mountain Bike trail

mark — 2006-10-31T18:13:28-08:00

The red trail is a service road that is very torn up. If you're tired at the end of the red trail, take the green trail to the road. The purple trail is singletrack with an awesome downhill at the end - don't touch the brakes!! The Yellow trail from the lower parking lot is insane - especially after winter erosion.

Tips:

If you're crazy, cycle up to the start on the Table Mountain Cable way road. Otherwise, take your car, park and enjoy an awesome downhill. Take plenty of water - the mountain bakes in summer.

Disneyland for dogs

mark — 2006-10-31T16:11:06-08:00

My 1.5 year old Aussie Cattle dog, Joey, visits this park almost daily. The red trail on the map is a GPS track that I automatically imported using Geojoey's GPS import feature. A few days ago I strapped a GPS to him and we went for a walk around the perimeter of the park. If you zoom in on the map you can even see where he ran off the trail to go play in the bushes.

This park is awesome. When I imported the GPS track Geojoey told me it's a total of 1.55 miles around the park - so it's pretty good exercise for both of us.

Tips:

Saturdays are awesome because the park is so busy - lots of other dogs for your pet to socialize with.

Don't let your dog drink from puddles or from the river during summer because the water level gets low and a local vet tells me they deal with sick dogs often in summer who do this.

If you love Marymoor, join S.O.D.A and donate money to support our off-leash dog parks. Their website is:
http://www.soda.org/

Fishing for steelhead on the Quinault River

mark — 2006-10-01T18:42:31-08:00

A friend had an open spot on a guided fishing trip on the Quinault Indian reservation this weekend, so tagged along. One of the guys who came with was a fishing guide himself - going on a guided trip, so that gives you an idea of the quality of fishing in this area.

The Quinault and Queets rivers run through the Quinault Indian Reservation so all fishing is subject to the tribe's regulations and not state regs. You have to have a tribe member with you if you're fishing and there are only a handful of guides, so the river is relatively unfished.

Ruben was our guide and you couldn't asked for a more laid back nicer guy. His website is:

http://www.quinaultfishingguide.com/

We fished the Queets river in the morning and didn't catch anything, but did hook a ten pound Silver (Coho) which got away.

The Quinault river was spectacular. It was very low and we had to push our jet boat over some rocky areas although on the way back Ruben gunned it up a section of 3 inch deep water after we cleared away a few of the shallower rocks. It's pretty spectacular watching a 20 ft aluminum bloat blast up a section of water 5 feet wide and 3 inches deep. He had to pull a few stones out of the engines grid when we got back though and I suspect his impeller would have seen better days after that one.

We caught a bunch of Jacks (young Coho Salmon silly enough to follow the adults in when they head up to spawn) and two nice steelhead one of which was mine and was 7.5 pounds. I brought him in on a light 7 foot rod and it was loads of fun. Mine was a Hachery fish and my friends was wild.

According to Ruben they Hachery and fish stocks in the river are very well managed with the guides and sporties working closely with the hachery to gather fish data so the tribe can decided on an acurate fish quota.

On the way back we fished the Cowzitz river at the wier for Chinook and I watched a 10 year old kid fight a 40 pound chinook for 20 minutes until he landed it.

Tips:

Book early. There are a handful of guides and Ruben is booked several months out. The big steelhead come through in March and at the time of this writing he still has open spots.

Iguacu Falls

mark — 2006-09-12T19:30:11-08:00

I was at iguacu a long time ago but this is definitelly one of my favorite experiences on the planet. The satellite photo gives you an idea of how much water is squeezing through a very small gap. There's a place which translated means the devil's jaws or the devils throat and you can walk out on a steel walkway and look right into the frothy abyss. This is a must do before you die.

PS: if anyone has photos, please add them - I've lost mine.

Tips:

If I recall correctly the Argentina side is the most spectacular so leave plenty of time for that.

Hiking up Mount Kilimanjaro

mark — 2006-09-12T16:33:50-08:00

If you're into hiking, this is as good as it gets. Kilimanjaro is the highest peak in Africa. While Kili does have some technical climbing available, to get to the summit is just a very very hard hike.

The peaks altitude is 19,500 ft and because of the rapid gain in altitude you will experience some altitude sickness symptoms. We were in a party of 30 people and only two got it so bad they had to use oxygen. Mostly it's just a nasty headache.

It's a 5 day hike and most of the time is spent hiking in a spiral or zigzag pattern up the mountain to aclimatize to the altitude. The terrain is incredibly varied. The base is rain forest which transitions into trees and grass as you ascent. That then changes into low grass and eventually alpine desert.

The summit is snow and ice, although this sattelite photo of the summit is quite scary because it seems the ice has receded quite a lot since I hiked up in 1999. Greenhouse effect?

Coming back down is a blast because you're on an oxygen high. It takes about 24 hours and my friend Bruno and I did most of it running.

I put the marker on the rim of the crater because that's where the summit is. I'm not sure on which side though. Also, I believe you can camp in the floor of the crater.

Tips:

Carry plenty of water on you while you're hiking. Don't put it in a bottle and stick it in your backpack. Stopping walking, removing the bottle, drinking and returning it to your backpack is a LOT of work at 15,000 ft. Use a camelpack or something where you can constantly sip the water. Also, chugging large amounts of water at altitude is not a good idea - it can lead to nausea.

Some people take medication in anticipation of altitude sickness. I did this and I recommend against it. I think I was taking acetazolamide. I felt very bad for much of the way up and as soon as I stopped taking it I felt like a million bucks.

Most of your hiking is going to be done in running shoes - only the first and the last bit require sturdy waterproof hiking boots.

Take a very good headlamp - the newer LED lamps have awesome battery life and are very bright. The summit hike from 15,000ft to 19,500ft starts at 11pm and you hike through the night on nasty gravelly terrain. Oh, and enjoy the halicinations! I kept thinking someone was hiding behind every rock.

Don't stay on the summit too long - a few of us got the first symptoms of severe altitude sickness.

Hike up Lions Head

mark — 2006-09-12T15:49:55-08:00

This is an awesome hike. It takes up to 2 hours although a friend and I once ran it in 45 minutes. It take about 10 minutes to the starting point from Cape Town center, but once you're hiking it feels like you're away from it all. Awesome views once you're at the top.

People visiting Cape Town often neglect this because Table Mountain gets all the focus.

Tips:

Drive up as if you're going toward the Table Mountain Cable Car. Then where you would take a left to go up the winding road that takes you to the cable station, take a right instead - not the right sloping down but the sharp right heading up toward Lions head.

Parking can be crazy, so if you don't find parking at the base of the trail, drive a little further and you'll find other places alongside the road you can park. I think they just repaved the parking lot, but I'm not sure.

Take PLENTY of water - even though it's a short hike it can be strenuous. The hike itself has some very steep areas with chains and footholds you need to climb. I'm _think_ you can walk around the chains, but not 100% sure. Even if you don't climb up the chains to get to the top, it's worth doing.

Stone Town Market

mark — 2006-09-12T15:40:36-08:00

Stone town is the capital of Zanzibar and the largest town. The market there is something to see. The arts and crafts aren't the usual tourist fare - there are plenty of true collectibles to be found.

The seafood market next to the harbor sells fresh seafood most evenings. Everything from crab to whole cooked octopus. My personal favorite is the freshly squeezed sugar cane juice - they squeeze it from a whole cane plant right in front of you.

Tips:

Make sure your hotel or youth hostel has a mosquito net because the mozzies can be quite rabid. Also when you're shopping, negotiate with the seller - always! It's expected. If you don't you'll be paying a price that is inflated because you were expected to negotiate it down. :)