playa la bonanza, isla espiritu santo, baja sur.
While Lowe napped this morning Ouest and I ran out for one last grocery grab. Not much, just some baby food, a huge pile of strawberries, and some cheese. We also topped up our wireless internet card, though I suspect we're going to find places to use it few and far between.

By the time we got home Lowe was up and it was time to go. Ali grabbed the kids and walked to the office while I motored out of the slip and over to the dinghy dock. Seems like kind of a silly way of doing things, but these days we find it easier for everyone involved.

Emirates Team New Zealand seems to have the trouble magnet on. Here they lose their observer overboard. He just manages to hang on, and scramble back aboard (heart racing, no doubt).

And here they plow into Oracle Racing, which failed to give them room as inside boat. Just another crazy day

The Coast Guard is out with its annual report (PDF) on death by boat. Last year, there were 758 fatalities, the most since 1998.

Here are the key stats, from the press release:

From 2010 to 2011, total reported accidents decreased less than one percent from 4,604 to 4,588, deaths increased 12.8 percent from 672 to 758 and injuries decreased 2.3 percent from 3,153 to 3,081. Property damage totaled approximately $52 million. The fatality rate measured 6.2 deaths per 100,000 registered recreational vessels, a 14.8 percent increase from last year’s rate of 5.4 deaths per 100,000 registered recreational vessels.

The ELCI (Equipment Leakage Circuit Interrupter) is a new-ish device in the US, which will be part of the ABYC (American Boat and Yacht Council) standards in a few weeks. They've been around in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand for 25 years or so, but I guess we yanks are slow to catch on.

We all know the little GFCI outlets, the ones we have in our bathrooms with the little test and reset buttons? The ELCI is like one of these, but it protects your whole boat. The ELCI would be the first thing in the AC wiring after the shore power cord plugs into your boat, and according to standard, should be within ten feet of where the cord plugs in.

If you send a Remotely Operated Vehicle to the seafloor of the Gulf, you will see all sorts of amazing things. This was shot in April by NOAA's "Little Hercules." We got some salt volcanoes, brine pools, and oil and gas seeps--along with some pretty cool fish (full dive report is here).

And, hey, we've also got a shipwreck!

Hans Klaar is an extraordinary sailor, a modern-day Moitessier, who has built and cruised a series of Polynesian-style catamarans over vast swathes of the world's oceans. Early last year his life took a dramatic and tragic turn when he was jailed in South Africa for rape, as my SAILFeed buddy Charlie Doane chronicled. After fighting the charge, Klaar was released in July and began the fight to rebuild his name and rebuild his life.

Naturally,one of the ways for him to do that was to go build a new boat, and set out for the distant horizons. So he went to Senegal first, and then moved to Gambia, to build his latest voyager from local materials.

He recently sent me these photos to update his progress, one month into the build. According to Hans, the main hulls are 72 feet long, 9 feet wide, and 6 feet deep.

Looks pretty cool, and classically Hans Klaar:

Cha Cha at anchor in Newport. She seems very secure (note deployment of twin chain anchor rodes) (Photo from Newport-Now.com)

THE UNFORTUNATE SAGA of CHA CHA, the 52-foot steel cutter I first encountered in Bermuda back in the fall of 2009, continues. According to an article published earlier this month, the city of Newport, Rhode Island, is now seeking to seize the boat, which reportedly has been lying at anchor in Newport untended since sometime last year. If the city succeeds in this and decides to sell Cha Cha at auction, it could be a good score for someone. The boat definitely needs a lot of work, but at the right price she should be well worth the trouble.