Boating in Biscay & Finland Fun

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Tampere Finland street art
Rudolph on the menu – supposedly cooked by putting reindeer meat in sauna for 2 days.
Sharp edge of blade easily removed glass top of sparkling wine below. Smoothly done by the sommelier who says it was a Cossack trick for horse riders in too  much of a hurry to work the cork out of the bottle. It must put a dent in the blade’s edge? Next table then wanted one opened the same way but their top shattered a wine glass on another occupied table!
Friday 17th June  My phone does not speak Finnish but it did do this Greek Orthodox church foto below,  taken close after midnight in Tampere.  It shows how you never see summer stars here.

End of the Biscay trip:

My phone is in a state of chaos after WIFI connecting in France. It thinks its Jan 1st, 2008. Thanks Keith for patching my posts. I’ll try some more now on this strange Finnish keyboard where I’m back at conference work.  No luck – my lack of Finnish prevents me finding the pictures despite a good USB connection.

Searching in vain for cross country ski supplies. The midnight sun here (Tampere) makes people think it’s summer so they are glad to forget about their snow.


Next day we stopped for a swim off the boat and then went on up the muddy Charente river, past a transporter bridge to Rochefort where Rebound now awaits its next party of pirates.

Wed. SW wind & 2 meter swells beat use back from La Corunna, Spain so we turned SE and sailed easily through the night (watches were 2 hours on and 4 off duty) and next day. Happily relaxing at Saint Denis d’Olerans just near Bordeaux. Wine should be better here. The bar at the harbour entrance (note the deep grooves in the bottom made by keels of others trying to beat the unbeatable King Neptune) keeps us afloat at low tide but also traps us inside.


Sunday, Belle Isle, Quiberon Bay. Wind and rain forces us to eat at the crèperie and other great places – fair weather sailors!

An Oban star-shaped citadel fort (17th century) overlooks this great harbor, though we doubt the authenticity of this great look out, complete with cross on top:

It does not feel comfortable to stand inside and look down on the inner harbour where Rebound is now moored.

Photos to follow when I can find a WIFI.

Saturday: At the entrance of Creusty harbor we passed the tiny church of missionary St:? who died in 600 ce. On his wishes his body was put to sea in a little boat about 2 miles north of Cruesty. 3 months later the boat plus body washed in so the faithful built a church on the spot.

Thursday June 8. Vannes, N Biscay, France
Waking Rebound (48 ft ketch from Galway) from hibernation.

Sat, June 10: Hauled Rebound out at Crustey for a prop change; which did not fit! But did clean off many barnacles.

Now on a mooring outside Belle Isle; Quiberon Bay; wining and dining while awaiting  suitable weather to head across Biscay for La Corunna; Spain.

Summer Time Bees

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The cool weather is past so I took off their small winter storm door – just in time as it was getting very crowded (I think the 25 day hatching period is now bearing fruit)

They like to hang out at their new wide door.

This is the early morning scene with the full width door, and they slowly start to stir when the temperature gets above 50 F.

Fritz from Ohio Dept of Agriculture came to inspect:

Note the bare hands. Fritz says “here, hold this” and I do.

He scrapes off some larger drone cells with their white pupae and dumps them.  We only want female worker bees and not lazy drones who only wait around to impregnate stray queens and do no other work.

We passed the inspection: no sign of disease – that’s good because Fritz has the power to burn the hive if needed!

As the weather gets warmer there are usually 2 or 3 fanning bees standng at the entrance with wings at full speed putting fresh air into the hive.

Having been run over so many times by incoming workers loaded with pollen (visible on hind legs) and nectar inside them, the fanning bees have at last learnt to safelyhang out over the door way while the workers return under them:

I offered them my 2 exotic orchids which are blossoming again after a long quiet winter, but the bees just flew past and didn’t even sniff them. Perhaps the flower does look a little menacing.On Fritz’s advice we bought lots of flowering annuals, including Impatiens, and perennials like Anis Hyssop and Cone Flower, but the bees seem to prefer to fly high when they leave for work.  (Locust, Pear and Walnut are in blossom but I don’t see bees on them) . The book says they like Dandelion. Somewhere they are getting pollen but I know not where. I should not have spent the last 8 years pulling those Dents de Lion.

Hannibal, MO

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Huck Finn’s caves, beside the Mississippi, run for a few miles from a single well hidden entrance. The rock is limestone, layered horizontally when MO was under water.  When the seas retreated the rock broke a little, in a very linear grid pattern of vertical cracks. We’re told that water and CO2 in the air make a weak Carbonic Acid solution that dissolves limestone and so opened up the cracks over time, creating what we now see as caves.

I never found that CO2 and water story very convincing until the excellent park guide shone her flashlight up on the ceiling where we could see the oily marks from the swarms of bats that gathered there in 2 particular spots.  The photo below (looking straight up) shows the nearer of the 2 spots with a crack which lets in some rain water from above.  The CO2 in the bat breath has created enough Carbonic Acid to disolve the rock at the crack and start to visibly open it up. (no bats today – they don’t like the light)

A large amount of corrosion, long ago, has made a “Boot” of stone which precariously hangs overhead and we all walk under holding our breath.

Cave “Parlor” where the rock is smooth and mahogony colored from contact.

Outside where storms blow we saw:This repair sign was one of at least 4 in the tiny town of Hannibal. I guess it says something about the weather. We left just ahead of huge storms (no tornadoes thank goodness) and drove for 10 hours back to 341 happy to be far from Joplin, MO where the search goes on through the wreckage of last weekends disasterous tornado that hit the small city full on.  Once, when stopped at a toll booth, we were caught by the edge of a storm with 1/2 inch size hail stones. They sound horrible bouncing off the car roof.  It felt that if you were driving into them they could easily crack windshields.