Watershed

Frankfurt bookselling

Strangely, the Frankfurt airport -- as little as I like hanging around there for so long -- had T-Mobile hotspot convenience, and the hole-in-the-wall book and magazine shops had a better selection of books in English than almost any equivalent in a US airport.  I could have bought 4 Bill Bryson books, and two books by Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winning economist.  And it wasn't like there was a lck of junk bestsellers, either.  Whereas, in FLL or MIA, I can barely find anything worth even reading the jacket copy on.

Ski Dubai

I know this was covered on NPR just yesterday, but (much covered in the news lately) Dubai is full of unexpected touriast attractions.

Such as:  Ski Dubai

Ski Dubai is the first indoor  ski resort in the Middle East and offers an amazing snow setting to enjoy skiing, snowboarding and tobogganing  or just playing in the snow. Young or old, there is something  for everyone, from the beginner to the snow sport enthusiast.  Ski Dubai is a unique mountain-themed attraction that  offers you the opportunity to enjoy real snow in Dubai all year round.

On the Road

Did you know Jack Kerouac spent his last years in Orlando?  And he wrote the final pulication draft of ON THE ROAD there?

In other news, I'm checking in from Rocky Mount, NC, where it is wet, wet, wet.  I'm going to try a different path to Brooklyn from here, not involving I-95 through DC.  If I'm lucky, I won't slide intyo the Atlantic off any of the  bridges I'll be crossing.

Deep Diving

One of the articles posted on the Dive South Africa blog (Frenchman stretches deep diving record yet further) ties in to the latest issue of Outside magazine, and a recent episode of Nightline.

The blog article (from DiverNet) talks about Pascal Bernabe, a Frenchman who just set a new depth record -- 330m -- on open circuit scuba.  The previous record by South African Nuno Gomes just three weeks before.  One notable thing about this article about achievement is how much death is also in it.  Before Gomes, the record was held by a guy named Mark Ellyat.   Before that, by John Bennett.  The late John Bennett.

Bernabe was part of a 2002 fatal attempt to set a freediving depth record by Audrey Mestre.  And one of the key pieces of info about Bernabe's record dive was that he "is said not to have suffered health complications from the dive".

The throughline seems to be:  if you dive deep, you have many opportunities to die.  Most deep dives take ten minutes or so, and then the divers have to take between 9 and 12 hours of decompression on the way back up.  Let me repeat:  10 minutes of record setting, then half a day of hanging out at shallower and shallower depths so that nitrogen bubbles don't expand inside your body and kill or cripple you. 

And I thought playing football was dangerous because of the likelihood of knee problems.

Which brings us to the the Outside/Nightline story.  One of the largest, deepest freewater caves in the world is Bushman's Hole, in South Africa.  In 2004, an Australia deep diver named Dave Shaw planned a dive which was supposed to recover the body of a South African diver who had vanished in Bushman's ten years before.  To cut a long story short (deep story shallow?), Shaw encountered problems at the bottom, was overcome by narcosis, and died.

The article is worth reading, but unlike many other Outside articles, it doesn't inspire any desire to start deep diving.   Bike across  Norway?  Sure.  Hike the Appalachian Trail?  Great!  Die from nitrogen poisoning 880 feet deep in a watery cave?  No thanks.

At one point in the article, the writer notes that (at that time) only 7 people had dived deeper than 820 feet.  Of that 7, at least 3 have died on subsequent dives.  Another deep diver, Don Shirley, points out that more people have walked on the moon than dived below 820 feet. But the astronauts had the support of a multi-billion dollar enterprise, with high-level engineers, years of testing, and the support of the entire United States.  And even then, many astronauts have died for what amounts to minor problems with major consequences. By contrast, deep divers have to build a lot of their own equipment, because there's a real small market for dive equipment designed to work at that depth.

Anyway, I think I'll stick to mostly snorkeling and keep the scuba dives at depths of 60-90 feet or so.

I just don't get this at all.

So that blue and white thing on the left is a "giant faucet" that the WWF in Brazil put up to celebrate World Environment Day.

They put it up near Big Ol' Jesus, I assume because it's a prominent locaiton in Rio.  But the way the faucet is placed, the way this photo is framed, it makes the Rio Jesus look like an American tourist trying to pee in a really narrow bidet without using his hands.  You'd think the photo could have been shot so that it looked like Big J was giving a blessing, not looking vaguely non-plussed about the king-of-the-hill competition.

OK, maybe I'm reading too much into it.

(From Planet Ark:  "World Wildlife Fund Erect a Giant Faucet in Rio de Janeiro")

Creatures from the Glowing Lagoons

Yeah, that's a bad cliche for a headline.  I know, I know.  This is just cool enough to make up for it, I think.

Puerto Rico: Glowing lagoon lures tourists

FAJARDO, Puerto Rico (AP) -- At night in a lagoon fringed with mangrove thickets, kayakers set their paddles down and look to the dark water for a secret of nature seen in few places.

You simply run a hand through the water, and a greenish glow whirls off your fingers like radiant stardust. Many who come here choose to jump out of their kayaks and watch the bioluminescence stream off their hands and forearms as they swim breast stroke.

...

Interest in the tours has grown in recent years, and on many nights dozens of kayakers squeeze through the canal leading to the lagoon, sometimes colliding with others coming the opposite direction.

Guides pause along the way, explaining the importance of mangroves as nurseries for reef fish and often pointing flashlights into the trees to expose huge iguanas perched on branches.

It is an environmentally sensitive spot, and for that reason nearly all guides choose to lead the trips by kayak rather than motorboat.

It sounds like a unique sight.  But I have to crack up at the combination of the careful, oh-so-environmentally-sensitive guides, chockablock with the description of all the kayakers jumping into the water and breast stroking through the plankton.  Good for the plankton?  Bad for 'em?  Who knows?

(Link cred:  Gadling)

Peddling High Concept Paddling

I ran across these two articles, linked from the Gadling site -- "a blog ... about “engaged” travel". 

The thrill of riding Reno’s rapids

Along the Missouri with Lewis and Clark

I have more important stories on my list, about drought and conservation and more, but these stories caught my attention.  I wondered why I was both attracted and repelled by them, in differing measures.  Let me take the Lewis and Clark story first.

Harland Ellison once wrote, "Americans only use history as sauce for our french fries."  (Though he may have been quoting someone else.)    Sauce or not, there are certinaly worse excuses for travel.  Hell, my folks toured Civil War battlefieds on their honeymoon (no money to do anything else besides drive around in my Dad's Mustang.)  But the tone of the LA Times article was so self-satisfied, it got to me.

Put it this way:  Civil War re-enactors are engaging with the defining American event.  Maybe they're doing it because they enjoy playing dress-up, but you can't dress up like a member of the Iron Brigade and not think about 1) why those men from Indiana and Wisconsin and Michigan were fighting; and 2) the high prioce they paid.

But floating down the Missouri in the "footsteps" of Lewis and Clark feels like escaping the reality of what the Corps of Discovery mission augured.  Around five years ago, I drove from Chicago to California.  For a lot of the way, my partner Max and I followed in the footsteps of the Corps. Mostly you're talking highways and backroads.  But the most resonant part of the drive is when we cut south from Missoula, MT, heading toward Idaho.  For the better part of a hundred miles, the two-lane road twists and loops through mountains dedicated to two things:  logging and fishing.  If all you noticed was the fishing, it would seem like one of the most beautiful places on earth.  But so many of the mountain sides were blasted earth, dotted with stumps and heavy machinery.

The arguments that fueled the Civil War are still in play today.  But the goals that drove Lewis and Clark resulted in the environmental probems that have to get fixed today.  (And yeah, I'm aware of the irony of yipping about attitudes toward the environment after describing driving a gas-guzzling car through that environment.)

My mixed reaction to the Reno story is a bit simpler.   Kayaking the Truckee River through Reno, especially at night with the neon flashing over you and the water, sounds like a cool experience.  I mean, what does Reno have to offer that Vegas doesn't do better?  For one thing, they have an actual, authentic river running through the town.  Why not take advantage?

But the story played up the idea that this kind of specially-created waterway in the middle of a town was unique to the Reno geniuses.  But South Bend has had the same thing since 1984, using the St. Joe River where it goes through downtown.  The 2004 Olympic Trials were held there.  Credit where credit is due, people!

Anyway, I've seen the Truckee through Reno, and I have trouble imagining that that whitewater track is significantly better than the East Race on the St. Joe.  On the other hand, you have to drive all the way over to Michigan City to play blackjack.