“Mekong” Mick O’Shea’s Wildass Adventure–Chapter 9: Well, while I was sucking down the Guinness in Ireland and trying to convince my 2 and a half year old daughter that sailing in the rain is fun, Mekong Mick was continuing on down the Mekong River. When I got home, I found two dispatches in my e-mail box, courtesy of Mick’s excellent Mum, Lynley. So after Mick’s near-death experience in the Mekong Gorges the story continues into Northern Yunnan…

“A few days of R & R in Zongdjian done wonders for my aching body. It was there that I met up with our new director Brian Eustis. Brian and I had worked together on a tiger tracking survey on the remote Nam Pha River of northern Laos in 2003. On that trip Brian proved his abilities as a solid class 5 kayaker and a team player with a good eye for capturing the essence of an expedition on film. Like me he thrived on the challenges we encountered en route making him the right guy to capture the first ever expedition down the entire Mekong River.

In Zongdjian we located an enthusiastic local lad called “Young” to be our translator through Northern Yunnan and our driver who wore a pair of immaculate white gloves whenever he got into the support vehicle. He became known as “Mr. Hands”. Mr. hands was a cool character and possessed the amazing ability to turn any 3-point turn into a 33-point turn. He loved singing and crashed his car twice over the next 10 days while we were with him. Fortunately I was on the river most the time and I had best get back to that side of the story because this entire dispatch could easily end up being devoted to Mr. Hands.

The four of us, and the project coordinator Yutah (Also my beautiful fiancé) squeezed into the Toyota 4×4 and begun the drive back up towards the Tibetan Border. The drive from Zongdjian to the Mekong near Dechin is magnificent. After crossing the Yangtze valley we steadily gained altitude through thick stands of old growth pine in the 3 parallel rivers world heritage site before eventually passing above the tree line and over a 4200 meter pass into the Mekong valley. The snow capped Tibetan spiritual mountain of Melei Xeu Shan could be made out through the clouds on the opposite side of the immense valley and far below the Mekong raged through canyons as deep as 1500 meters.

We spent the evening in the town of Dechin perched on a steep sided valley carved out by a Mekong tributary. We headed off early the next day, our destination was the exact same place I had taken a life threatening swim only a week before. The first priority before challenging that rapid again was to pop in and give a special thanks to the lovely old couple who had taken me in during my hr of need.

“Amma” (Mother) as the granny preferred to be called was over the moon to see me safe and sound and I greeted her with a gift of chocolate bars, something she had never tried before. We had a chat over a pot of Yak butter tea via our translator Mr. Young and eventually I invited her and her husband to come and watch me re-run the rapid.

As we approached the drop I noticed that the river had risen several feet over the course of a week and the hole that had thrashed me almost into oblivion was now semi flushed out. It was transformed into a huge crashing wave. It could be run right down the middle.

We geared up, Brian in his new Bomber Gear radiator dry suit and me armed with an awesome new “AT IV” bent shaft paddle from AT paddles. In the Himalayas there is no room for equipment failure and we are fortunate enough to be sponsored by some of the best manufacturers in the adventure industry. Special thanks to Bomber Gear and AT paddles!

I had no idea that Amma would be so distraught when I tackled the rapid. She had obviously never seen a human being place himself in such obvious danger and was convinced I would die. Apparently when the crashing wave slammed down on me (flipping my kayak momentarily before I casually rolled up) Amma screamed loudly and started crying. I looked across and spotted her 72-year-old husband running along the bank in an attempt to rescue me. I eddied out and tried to explain that I was fine and there was nothing to worry about. He tried to get me to pull my kayak out and looked baffled when I explained that I wanted to continue down stream to take on the other rapids. They were such a sweet old couple. It is heart warming to experience the genuine kindness and concern displayed towards a stranger who simply turned up on their doorstep one day in need. I felt terrible for making them worry so much and look forward to sending them a copy of the documentary when its finished so that they can rest assured I made it.

Brian and I proceeded to paddle down stream through a succession of class III-IV rapids. We encountered one particularly chunky class V rapid that managed to flip both of us at exactly the same place. We called it “double take”. The days paddling was a great introduction to the Mekong for Brian with plenty of action yet nothing too gnarly.

We were now firmly in the 3 parallel rivers world heritage site. This incredible area where the Mekong, Salweeen and the Yangtze flow parallel with each other through some of the deepest gorges on earth is also one of the most diverse bio-regions on the planet. It is estimated that half of the world’s biodiversity can be accounted for in the reserve making it one of the worlds most important in terms of conservation.

We pulled up for the day in a small village above a gorge containing ferocious class V compression rapid. As we scouted the run from above the landslide to river right began periodically slipping into the violence. Although it looked a bit sketchy we decided that a tricky line that skirted below the avalanche would be runnable (As long as the avalanche did not slip as we passed underneath) but it would have to wait until after our detour to the glaciers of Melei Xue Shan.”

Tomorrow, Mick scares himself. Again…



Uhh, no. Mick didn’t run this baby…

(Photo: Courtesy Lynley O’Shea)

I’m Outa Here…: Off to Glandore, Ireland until August 20, so TWC is hereby on sabbatical. What’s in Glandore? A choice of Guinness or Murphy’s in every pub, sweet sailing, great paddling, hilly biking, the odd rain shower, and emerald fields that stretch to the horizon. My ass is sure to get wet…



Glandore Harbor



West Cork

SailDog–I Mean Rocket–Update: No one ever said building an otherworldy multihull to sail through the 50-knot barrier would be easy. And Paul Larson and his SailRocket team are finding that out. The thing just does not want to get up on a plane and sail fast, particularly after Larson modified the sail to make it flatter and less powerful. In the latest outing, the experimental TinkerToy was plowing a hole in the water, while windsurfers were ripping it up on a plane all around them:

“The rig was noticeably less powerful than the week before but then this is to be expected as we are targeting stronger conditions. We figured that the reason that we were performing beyond expectations last week was because the sail was so full and had little leech tension. Basically it was a good light wind setup. The new rig seemed to lose flow very quickly if you over sheeted. The boat is very strange to sail as it just has absolutely no heeling reaction to powering up which is unlike any boat I have ever sailed before. You just don’t feel anything load up. The only thing that happens is that the boat accelerates. All the sailboards were sailing around us with their big rigs all loose and twisted on their big wide boards. every time there was a little gust they would pump up onto the plane and go tearing off. A luxury we didn’t have but then that is not what we are here for,

A good friend had lent us a GPS to read speed off but today the figures were just nudging over ten knots at best. We decided to make the best of the day and do some other things… like giving Helena her first sail seeing as she is the backup driver. It is an imposing boat to sit in for the first time. I explained to her how you can sail the boat down the course just steering by the mainsheet alone. Sheet in and she bares away and sheet out to head up. Combine this with the rudder and she is pretty maneuverable. One thing we noticed as Helena headed down the outside course was that when she got a gust that the back lifted before the front once again. It shouldn’t still be doing this.

As we towed back up the course the wind increased with a large high-level cloud bank that was coming in. We got up to 15 knots of wind as we set up for the next run and thought that we might be in for some speed but alas the boat just didn’t lift out and we were left with only 15 knots as a top speed as I hunted around looking for a way to break free from the waters drag. A sailboard went tearing by whooping away… as I would if I was on the board. Something was not right. YELLOW PAGES ENDEAVOUR would have been doing 35 knots in these conditions and we were still mushing along. We headed for the shore.

Basically there is an equation that SAILROCKET needs to effectively hook into and it is this- by going fast we make wind, which makes power, which makes more wind which makes more power etc. The boat is designed to feed off this like no other boat but it seems that we can’t quite get the equation started. Of course a stronger wind would help and slightly depowering the rig wouldn’t help but it still felt lacking. We agreed that a much bigger forward planing surface was needed. Bigger shoes. This would help the nose of SAILROCKET lift out sooner which will greatly reduce the drag as well as serve to help the transom lift also.

We noticed how slowly water drained out of the centreboard cavity when we raised the boat out of the water. The venturi effect was supposed to suck this large area dry when SAILROCKET started moving but the seal seemed to be too effective which left us thinking that we may be carrying as much as twenty-five kilos of water around with us up front. When the new planing surface is built we will remedy this by making a complete watertight seal around the centre-board so it should be a double bonus.”

So, back to the drawing board, or the workshop, to build a new front end. Just to keep your hopes alive, here’s a video (from the Daily Sail–the best online sailing magazine in the game) of SailRocket’s first test sail, where she’s putting up a lot of spray but at least looks like she could eventually be fast…



Slow Boat: “Hmm, I wonder if this thing would make a good front yard planter…”

Shark Stories I–“I do…Glub-Glub”: There are lots of weird places to get married. But donning dive gear, and saying your vows in a tank with fourteen sharks has to be one of the more creative. So give credit to Daniela Consolaro, 31, and Maurizio Andreosi, 40, the Italian couple who did just that.

“Fourteen sharks swam around looking bored as the couple — his nickname is Bull Shark and hers is Nurse Shark — responded “I do” to Mayor Pietro Pazzaglini, communicating via a phone link.”

They don’t get a perfect Wetass score, however. The two newlyweds–who said they were trying to draw attention to the destructive practice of shark finning (where fisherman catch sharks and cut their fins off to make soup and other pharmaceuticals for markets across Aisa)–were in a cage, protected from the toothy audience, who had obviously already gorged on the reception canapes and weren’t hungry in any case…



Shark Tank Nuptials: “Hey, guys. Are you going to comsummate this thing underwater, too? Because if so, I gotta ask to get moved to another tank…”

(Photo: Stefano Rellandini/Reuters)

Shark Stories II–“Open Water”: This movie is setting up to be the Blair Witch Project of the aquatic world. It’s about a scuba-diving couple who were left behind by their dive boat, and it was made on a shoestring budget by a semi-amateur couple who love to dive. The New York Times has two great stories about this movie. The first recounts the six years it took Chris Kentis and Laura Lau to make the movie (which cost $130,000 and got picked up at Sundance for $2.5 million). From the beginning it wasn’t a normal project:

“Mr. Kentis and Ms. Lau cautioned casting agents that some nudity would be required for the pre-dive scenes and that, once in the water, actors would have to get super-close to some very big sharks — no mechanical or computer-generated jaws in this movie.”

And they ended up with a lead actress who was scared to death of sharks (but didn’t tell anyone until it was mostly over), and a lead actor who blew out his knee halfway through the project.

The second NYT piece probes the mystery of the real-life story which Open Water is based on:

“The real-life couple, Thomas and Eileen Lonergan, traveled to Australia after three years as Peace Corps teachers on the islands of Fiji and Tuvalu. Thomas was 33, Eileen 28; both were experienced divers. Australia was the first stop of a planned round-the-world trip before returning home to Louisiana.

Early on Jan. 25, 1998, the Lonergans rode a shuttle bus to a marina in Port Douglas, Queensland, where a company called Outer Edge Dive carried them and 24 others to the rim of the Great Barrier Reef, 40 miles offshore. The day’s last dive was at a coral formation called “Fish City” because of its abundant marine life. While others followed a dive master, the Lonergans toured the site on their own.

At the end of the 40-minute dive, the crew was supposed to log each person’s dive and count heads before the boat left. But several crew members were inexperienced and uncertain of their responsibilities. Amid this confusion, the Lonergans’ dives weren’t recorded and the head count was botched. The captain, believing he had all passengers aboard, motored back to Port Douglas.”

Oops. The Lonergans were never seen again, and assumed to be victims of shark attack. But questions quickly arose as to whether they had truly been the victims of an accident, or whether they had perpetrated a bizarre suicide pact. None of their equipment, which washed up in various places, showed any sign of shark bite. Thomas Lonergan’s diary, left in his hotel room, contained references to being ready to die. And they had deliberately separated from their dive group and stayed down beyond the agreed dive time. In the end, authorities concluded that it was not a suicide pact, or an attempt to disappear together. But the tale is so bizarre that Kentis and Lau had to tone it down for fear that no one in a theater would believe the true story. The last trace of the Lonergan’s turned up six months after their disappearance:

“In a coastal mangrove swamp, fishermen found a dive slate, designed for underwater writing. On it was a message from the Lonergans saying they’d been abandoned on the reef by Outer Edge. “Please help us,” it said. “Find us soon before we die.” They also scribbled the time and date: 8 a.m., Jan. 26, the morning after they had been left behind.”

The movie opens Friday. Wonder whether the scuba dive industry is worried whether it will have a Jaws-like impact on dive tours…



Filming “Open Water”: “Well, I’m having no trouble acting scared…”

(Photo: Lions Gate Films)

Have A Wetass Weekend (And Stay Away From Grates)…

The Mountain Of Mountains: Explorer’s Web has been running a fascinating series on K2, and how it is slowly changing. It is far more remote than Everest, and more difficult to climb (just over 200 summits, as opposed to more than 2000 on Everest), so it has long been the preserve of serious–and high level–climbers, as opposed to the tour groups who trek up Everest. The latest installment looks at the astonishing fact that on K2 about 65 percent of the summits are achieved without supplemental oxygen (only 7 percent of Everest summits are au naturel). This is one indication of the fact that K2 is a climbing purist’s climb. But there is a massive price. Of the 52 deaths on K2, 22 have occured on the way down. And every single one the 22 descenders who died was climbing without oxygen:

“K2’s summit day is very long. Yesterday’s summits came late in the afternoon after a 14 hr push. By the time climbers are headed down, they are exhausted. Add in descending in the dark and a possible turn of weather to the worse, you have a recipe for disaster – no wonder nearly half the death on K2 are during descent.”

So if you want risk, and you want displays of courage, look not to the world’s tallest mountain, look to K2. The rest of the ExWeb series looks at the debates over fixed ropes on K2, the appearance of guided expeditions on a mountain that has long been the preserve of professionals because it is so dangerous, the problems of weather forecasting, the growing crowds, and the lack of good climbing sherpas in the K2 region. If I was ever to get off my ass to try and climb a big mountain, K2 would be the one. No question…



K2 Tent City: More like a tent village, for now…

(Photo: Explorer’s Web)

Mallory And Irvine Expedition Summary: Everest News, the group behind this year’s expedition on Everest to find the body of Sandy Irvine (George Mallory’s climbing partner on the day they died trying to summit), has posted a description of how they decided to try and locate Irvine’s body and the competition with the BBC that resulted. Here’s why they went:

“Back in 2002 and 2003 climbers kept talking to us about bodies they had seen over the years on Everest. After compiling these locations, we came down to three locations that seemed very interesting, two at which climbers have claimed to seen old dead bodies on Everest and the third location was interesting because of other clues. In the first case, it was hard not to conclude that one of our sources saw Sandy Irvine. In the other case a climber saw “something.” Therefore, in Spring of 2003, we asked some expeditions/climbers if they would be interested in having a “look” at these locations. Surprisingly, there was little real interest. We noticed that some people just did not wish to get involved in this controversial undertaking…During 2003, we finally decided that having the other expeditions do the job wasn’t going to work; we decided to do the job ourselves.”

It’s a fascinating historical project, and hopefully efforts will continue next year. This is still the greatest unresolved mountain climbing mystery…



Where’s Irvine?: Somewhere on this cold, lonely mountain…

(Photo: Everest News)

Annals of Adventure–The Atlantic 1000: “Iron Men In Plastic Boats.” That was the motto of the Worrell 1000, a 1000 mile pain-fest that had catamaran sailors in 20-foot boats racing from Florida to Virginia. They did it in stages, every day launching and then eventually sailing back through some big surf. Sunburn. Seasickness. Blisters. Peeing in wetsuits. Broken boats. The Worrell had it all. But the Worrell is no more, and this summer it was replaced by the Atlantic 1000. What’s it like? Well, two of the sailors, Duncan Ross (RSA) and Roberto Pandiani (BRA)–TWC featured them last year when they sailed a Hobie Cat to Antarctica–have posted an inside account at Sailing Anarchy. Ross and Pandiani finished second, but it wasn’t easy:

“The breeze goes from 10 knots to 25 knot in a few minutes. The sea is still flat and we take off on a huge double trapeze reach – probably the fastest I have ever been on a small catamaran. Roberto and I are both on trapeze and the boat is just flying. We start to drive in underneath Team Oz. I am nervous as there are shallows closer to the coast. I shudder to think what would happen to us (and the boat) if we were to hit a sand bank at 25 knots. The first few miles are adrenalin pumped – after that – all we want to do is finish. My hands are killing me. Sometimes the waves wash my feet off the boat and I am upside down with my head dragging in the water. We are on the absolute limit – it’s all or nothing. Any mistake and we would be upside down and the race would be over for us.”

Harken, one of the race sponsors, also has some good coverage and pictures. And a video, which is cool despite the repetetive porno music soundtrack. Whatever the name, Worrell 1000 or Atlantic 1000, this is one of the great Wetass races…



“Hey man, you’re not puking already, are you…?”

(Photo: Edge Ventures)

Feeding Time!: Last May, authorities on Oahu towed a dead sperm whale carcass 35 miles out to sea. Professional photographer Ken Howard went in search of the rotting corpse:

“We go out and Jimmy finds it immediately, with a bunch of tiger sharks feeding on it. Naturally, after a few surface shots we go in and snorkel with them.

Jimmy tied the boat up on one of the exposed ribs of the sperm whale carcass. The tiger sharks did not seem to pose a threat, as they had been gorging on the carcass for some time.”

I can just imagine Howard in the water, telling himself, “They’re not hungry anymore…They’re not hungry anymore.” Well, apparently he was right, because he lived to tell the tale and got some great shots. Underwater Times has the full story, as well as a great gallery. Here are just a few of the resulting pictures:



“Ummm, rotting whale meat…”



“Hey Barbara. There’s a guy with a snorkel over here. Would he be good to eat…?



“So what if he looks scrawny. I’m going to check him out. Maybe he’ll make a good toothpick…”