Historic Windjamming Opportunity

Victory Chimes, the only known surviving example of a Chesapeake Ram schooner, holds a USCG Certificate of Inspection for 50 passengers and has been sailing the Maine coast for charter since 1990. The 132-foot, three-master has 21 passenger cabins and is offered for sale at $650,000. Honored by the National Park Service as a “National Historic Landmark” and featured on the State of Maine quarter, she was once owned by Domino’s Pizza, whose owner completely restored her and is credited with saving the vessel in the late 1980s. The ship has a beautiful full galley, but surprisingly, no dedicated pizza oven. northropandjohnson.com

Soles with Holes

If you don’t enjoy sand and water loading up in your shoes or sandals, you might want to check out Ventolation’s footwear. According to the manufacturer, Ventolation’s shoe soles are perforated with holes so water and sand can escape, and air can circulate to cool your feet. The shoes come in various styles — all named after famous islands — and in multiple colors. ventolation.com

There’s More Life Down There?

Jacques Cousteau died in 1997, but The Silent World — as he called the watery world beneath the waves — continues to reveal more of its secrets.

Scientists recently discovered an entirely new ocean zone off Bermuda in relatively shallow depths — between 226 and 984 feet — where they’ve identified in excess of one hundred previously unknown species, including dozens of new algae, corals and crustaceans. They’ve dubbed the new ocean zone the Rariphotic Zone, or the rare light zone.

Just 15 miles off the coast of
Bermuda, the researchers from Nekton Oxford Deep Ocean Research Institute discovered an underwater mountain, or seamount, which had a subsea algal forest on its summit. It was teeming with marine life and that led them to look a little deeper.

The scientists believe that some of the species they discovered show a bio-geographical link between
Bermuda and the Indo-Pacific.

This is exciting news, although the director of the research mission believes the discovery of so much marine life at such shallow depths could challenge assumptions of biodiversity at greater depths. In other words, there could be a lot more deep-sea life down there than we imagined. Think Kraken, the Hydra or Leviathan. Or maybe better not …

A recent study revealed that a plastic bag, like the kind given away at grocery stores, is now the deepest known piece of plastic trash, found at a depth of 36,000 feet inside the Mariana Trench. — from a news article by Sarah Gibbens in nationalgeographic.com, citing the article “Human Footprint In The Abyss: 30 year records of deep-sea plastic debris,” published online in April 2018 in Marine Policy.

Tough to Top

The lighthouse, Þrídrangaviti, is located off the Westman Islands of Southern Iceland and sits approximately six miles from the shore. Precariously perched on top of a rock pillar surrounded by the raging North Atlantic Ocean, it may be the most isolated lighthouse in the world.

Þrídrangar (or Thridrangar) means “three rock pillars.” The lighthouse was built in 1939, but the footpath to the top of the pillar was built in 1938 by Westman Island mountain climbers. To get on top of the pillar, one climber had to stand on a second man’s shoulders while a third scaled the first two men. Until the advent of helicopters, after World War II, materials and supplies for the lighthouse were delivered by boat and brought up the footpath. Maintenance crews now travel to the lighthouse by air where they land on a tiny helipad in front of the lighthouse.

45

Number of
dollars,
in trillions, in economic activity that occur
annually on our nation’s waterways, according to a 2017
United States Coast Guard report.

This article originally appeared in the July 2018 issue.