Department Of Dubious Achievement–Free Jaws!: The Monterey Bay Aquarium is raking it in these days, with visitors up 50 percent. The reason: the aquarium has a Great White shark on display–a young female–despite the fact that Great Whites, which are engineered by tens of thousands of years of evolution to cruise the open ocean, inevitably die or freak out in captivity. In fact, the longest one has been lasted in a tank before this one had the misfortune to get caught in a fishing net and turned over to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, was 16 days. Yes, the shark is in a million gallon tank. Yes, she is just over 4 feet long at the moment. And yes, it’s going on three weeks now, and the Aquarium says that there have been no signs of stress. But a shark like this might normally grow to 21 feet, and the Aquarium swears it will eventually be released before any harm is done. Hmmm. Do they make that judgment before or after they count up the days ticket receipts? Just let it go. We can thrill over Great Whites all we want when they are sighted off beaches or scare the wetsuits off divers and surfers…
Great White Inmate: “Now, if they’d just toss a live baby seal in here, I’d really give them a good show…”
(Photo: AP)
Category: Uncategorized
Annals Of Adventure–Going For 2: SpaceShipOne is about to make its second attempt to reach suborbital space (any minute now). If the privately designed and built spacecraft is successful, aero-wiz Burt Rutan and Microsoft bazillionaire Paul Allen (who has funded the effort) will pocket the $10 million Ansari X prize. But it’s no slam dunk. SpaceShipOne started spinning wildly during the top of the climb last week. I thought we were about to see a test pilot die live on television. But pilot Mike Melvill just shrugged it all off, after bringing the space plane back under control, and doing a barrel (on purpose) just before landing safely. I guess that’s why he has the Right Stuff. Seems Rutan and Allen didn’t see it that way, though. Melvill has been benched in favor of another test pilot for today’s flight. Stay tuned. We’ll update after the attempt…
“Okay, Brian. No f*cking around. If we see so much as a showoffy wing-waggle, we’re going to dock your pay, umm, $10 million…”
Have A Wetass Weekend…
(Photo: From our friends at WaterWork Media)
Department Of Odd Occurences–Whale Of A Ride: Tired of stories about surfers and sharks? Probably not, you bloodthirsty scum. But today you’ll have to look elsewhere to slake your lust for guts and gore. Because this surfer story is about a guy at Laguna Beach who thought he was riding a wave, and looked down to find he was in fact riding a whale. Yup, a whale. “All of a sudden I just felt, wow, this huge noise and bump,” said [Spyros] Vamvas, “and it lifted my board up. I’m looking down, and there’s just swirling water and I see barnacles on the back of the whale. I’m used to dolphins. This was different. It was huge.” I’d be tempted to say that Vamvas was tripping his brains out, except that he’s 60 years old (and there were plenty of witnesses). More impressive, the whale–estimated at between 15 and 30 feet– gave him a pretty smooth ride, dropping him back into the water before heading back out to sea. What was the whale up to? I’m guessing it was a whale frat prank, or a version of Whale Fear Factor…
“Damn. I just gave that old surfer Dude a ride, and now this stupid scuba diver wants one too…?”
Annals Of Enormity–Maximum Maxi Yacht: These days, massive, shockingly fast monohull sailboats are all the rage. Mari Cha IV, at 145 feet, is the Gold Standard, but she is mainly built for breaking records. Drop down to around 100 feet and there is a growing group of vanity rockets that are built to win races, or, to be more accurate, just finish the races first. They usually lose out to smaller yachts once the handicaps are all tallied up. But, hey, the owner and crew get to sail really fast and be the first ones to tap the keg. That’s got to be worth something. Doesn’t it? Anyhow, the latest 100-footer to go into build is a little number called Team EBS, the brainchild of two New Zealand businessmen. The design brief was classic: “To design and build the world’s fastest monohull race yacht and to win line honors in all major Grand Prix Super Maxi events over three continents in 2005.” Oh, is that all? Anyhow, who knows whether they’ll scupper all the other rich guys with 100 footers out there (one innovation will be a rotating mast), but if you want to see what it takes to build a yacht like this from start to finish, spend a few minutes on their website. It’s got a very cool, 7-minute video that takes you through the whole concept and the incredible schedule of racing they plan. There are also lots of galleries. Best site I’ve seen. Sure hope the boat isn’t a dog…
“Uhh, Bill? Nice work on the hull, but I’m pretty sure we’re going to need a bigger shed…”
(Photo: Team EBS)
Going To Extremes–Vomitorium On Wheels: If you don’t want to fork out $200 K to ride with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic into suborbital space, the Six Flags Great Adventure Park in New Jersey is planning a more modest alternative, otherwise known as the world’s wildest roller coaster. To be called Kingda Ka (huh?), the thing will take thrill seekers from 0 to 128 mph in 3.5 seconds, and rocket them to a height of 456 feet off the ground.
“An animated depiction of Kingda Ka shows the coaster creeping slowly, stopping and then launching forward horizontally at nearly 130 mph before climbing at a 90-degree angle more than 45 stories above the park.
The coaster then spirals 270 degrees as it plummets, flattens out and climbs again as it shoots over a 129-foot hill, which the company says will make riders feel weightless. It’s over in about 50 seconds.”
Whew, I’m almost about to hurl already. Let’s see. Here’s a question for management: how many heart attacks and exploding blood vessels are predicted in your computer models? Oh, and how many lawyers do you have on your payroll…?
Kingda Ka Coronary: “Wheeee….Ack! My heart!”
Wetass Lives–Maegan Carney: TWC featured this extreme skier earlier this year, when she was attempting to become the first woman (and only second person) to ski off the summit of Everest. She didn’t make it, but Skiing magazine has a great profile of Carney, who’s one of the world’s gutsiest. Let’s see. She’s afraid of heights. She got into extreme skiing (not out) after being rolled and almost killed by an avalanche (“It was a big turning point. It was like a big kick in the butt to do more, see more, and experience more before it was too late.”). She never made the U.S. National ski team in part because she was a punk who once told a coach to “blow it out your ass.” Oh yeah. And she plans to take another crack at Everest…
“Okay, enough of this easy sh*t. I’m going back to Chomolunga and the top of the world…”
Wetass Job #26–Bear Bouncing: So it’s come to this. There are so many humans tempting so many bears with junk food in our national parks that the National Park Service needs to employ some seriously crazy mofos to keep them all apart. Here’s what happens, according to a whimsical report in the LA Times, when a bear bouncer like Joe Yarkovich is called into action by a camper cowering over a nearby bear:
“It’s very technical,” he likes to explain when the whimpering campers approach. Then Yarkovich, 28 years old, head shaved, weighing in at 175 pounds, starts in with the tough love. He sprints full tilt at a black bear about his size, screaming, “Hey bear! Get going! Get outta here!” and maybe blasting the animal’s face with pepper spray. Hazing, they call it…
In the back of the truck lie the night-vision goggles, the shotgun and rubber bullets, telemetry instruments, slingshot and pepper balls. On his belt, Yarkovich wears a Mag-Lite and a canister of pepper spray.
This is Yogi and Boo Boo versus The Man, and it would make a great reality TV show (cue Cops music: “Bad bear, bad bear! Whatcha gonna do?”) because it turns out that the bears are pretty damn smart (learning how to use their tongues, for instance, as a third hand to open up supposedly bear-proof food storage boxes; and shedding their radio tracking collars) and campers are incredibly stupid (putting out food because they want to see bears up close, and then screaming for help once they discover that bears are, well, scary). I see Hulk Hogan in a starring role…
“Ummm. Great garbage tonight. But I’d better not eat too much in case that loud, wrinkly blonde guy in tights tries to piledrive me again…”
Wetass Video Of The Week…: Is this guy (his name is Ben Selznick; go here for an interview) mostly kayaking, or mostly drowning? Click here to watch and decide for yourself. Either way, it’s enough to make me want to go paddling…
“Hot coffee, whitewater, no showers. Life is good…”
(Photo Montage (and Video): via Teton Gravity Research)
For All You Hurricane Victims: Hint: Check out the headline…
The Earthist Chronicles 