You Know You're Having A Bad Day When ...

... you are stuck by the port transom on a $1.5m yacht heading for a very expensive and unplanned encounter with the water.

I came across the photo shown above in a discussion around whether or not it had been Photoshoped (consensus: no) but in finding the site it was sourced from I found all these other great pictures of bad things happening to ships both big and small. Browse around and you'll find boats on fire (while carrying fireworks!), boats aground (for 2 months while they try and figure out how to unload the containers it was carrying and re-float it) and even boats being flattened by cranes that have fallen over.

Fascinating stuff, and a stark reminder of just why marine insurance is as expensive as it is.

However, another set of pictures showing what happened to a DHL Airbus 300 when hit by a ground-to-air missle in Iraq, are almost beyond belief. How on earth did they land that thing??

Day 5: Icy Straits & Elfin Cove

Nirvana: Elfin Cove, Alaska

The morning was spent at sea exploring around Inian Island and in Icy Straits. Saw sea otters, sea lions and some distant whales, plus various sea birds (kittiwakes mostly).

In the afternoon, we anchored off Elfin Cove, a small settlement numbering just 18 people in the winter and a couple of hundred in the summer when the fishing lodges open and tourists come to town. This last winter, they got 24 feet of snow and only just dug themselves out for the final time before spring brought the cruise ships. Seems like half the town likes to have the additional income visitors bring, the other half though values privacy above all else and would much rather we all went away and left them alone. The debate looks set to simmer indefinitely, especially as they have no formal ruling town council in place to bring things that arise to any sort of final conclusion.

The residents were just replacing their generator sets so there was a fair bit of activity going on. Someone talked to one shop-keeper who said it cost her $3,000 a month for electricity in the winter, which I sincerely hope was misheard for her sake! No wonder she was pleased to see us ...

Although isolated, they do get a mail plane coming in when weather permits and of course boats can come in and out more easily (fishing is the main source of year-round employment) but that’s about it. Funnily enough, though, this was one of the places I mentioned where I could get a cell phone signal and downloaded mail onto my PDA.