A knowledgeable commenter on my blogspot blog (Frogma, trying a link here...) left the following interesting comment:
Nice pics in the Virgin Islands Gallery.
That 3rd pic has a beautiful shot of "virga" coming off a cumulus cloud.
A lot of private pilots are fooled by that phenomenon into thinking they can get a free airplane wash by flying through the virga, only to find out that they are accompanied by a big down draft.
Pandabonium is the name of his blog, which I've really been enjoying. Virga, according to American Heritage Dictionary via Bartleby.com (I love Bartleby!): Wisps of precipitation streaming from a cloud but evaporating before reaching the ground.
This was VERY cool to learn as I took this picture because I loved the look of this cloud with the rain underneath it.
Oh yeah. I couldn't think of anything better to have had to do the next day than help get the schooner to Albany. Aside from being with some good friends, it gave me something useful to do - and dang, we had some good sailing that day too.
Everytime I ever went sailing I would always put everything vital in a ziplock bag, blow some air into it and then seal it. My friends would always make fun of me and nicknamed me Zipper. Which does sound odd for a girl. One day we were out and almost everything went overboard due to us having to avoid a power boat that failed to give us the right of way, sure enough there was my stuff bobbing in the water..cell phone, credit card, cash, keys, We came back to the Marina and they bought me dinner saying Zipper had saved the day.
I prefer the "w" myself... it is usually more appropriate, and since I never play Scrabble I just assume artistic/poetic license. I do have some horror stories about being out at sea with crazy people who are more akin to Gilligan than the Skipper. You feel just like a cork out there.
Sometimes being even right by land is worse, one "sailor" Captain and I do use the term loosely..took us out on a very windy day and we had to go under a drawbridge to get back in, the guy (I am not a professional sailor as you can tell) that lifts the bridge up and down, wouldn't raise it until we dropped the sails, well Captain "killus" panicked and didn't want to and a lot of yelling went back and forth until Captain "killus" finally started to lower the sails so that we could motor on, well as the sails started to go down, the wind caught us and spun us in circles...it was like clash of the titans..it was a miracle that we didn't crash on the rocks, or the bridge. We finally got back under control and made it through. He sold the boat the next week.
Frogma...
if not & you're curious it's www.frogma.blogspot.com
Nice pics in the Virgin Islands Gallery.
That 3rd pic has a beautiful shot of "virga" coming off a cumulus cloud.
A lot of private pilots are fooled by that phenomenon into thinking they can get a free airplane wash by flying through the virga, only to find out that they are accompanied by a big down draft.
Pandabonium is the name of his blog, which I've really been enjoying. Virga, according to American Heritage Dictionary via Bartleby.com (I love Bartleby!): Wisps of precipitation streaming from a cloud but evaporating before reaching the ground.
This was VERY cool to learn as I took this picture because I loved the look of this cloud with the rain underneath it.
Sometimes being even right by land is worse, one "sailor" Captain and I do use the term loosely..took us out on a very windy day and we had to go under a drawbridge to get back in, the guy (I am not a professional sailor as you can tell) that lifts the bridge up and down, wouldn't raise it until we dropped the sails, well Captain "killus" panicked and didn't want to and a lot of yelling went back and forth until Captain "killus" finally started to lower the sails so that we could motor on, well as the sails started to go down, the wind caught us and spun us in circles...it was like clash of the titans..it was a miracle that we didn't crash on the rocks, or the bridge. We finally got back under control and made it through. He sold the boat the next week.