Worth noting

By now, swimsuit and glamor model Kate Upton is pretty well-known.  And as would be expected, she looked great in the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue (despite getting knocked off a coastal rock by a big wave).

However, she models for other brands as well, and she looked pretty darned fantastic modeling for Yamamay swimwear.

Kate Upton looks sensational in new bikini photoshoot for Yamamay swimwear campaign

A small example of sensational:

That's Gunilda, not Gundila

The Daily Mail had a really interesting article about a really interesting shipwreck dive, undertaken in Lake Superior.  It was risky because of the depth of the wreck (270 feet) -- even with advanced diving technology, the expedition only had 25 minutes to photograph it.

The expedition was led by intrepid (I don't get very many chances to use that word) underwater photographer Becky Kagan Schott of Liquid Productions (good Web site to visit).

The reason for the title of this post is that the Daily Mail, as it does sometimes, gets the spelling wrong in the secondary headline.  I wasn't sure;  they also spell it wrong one time in the article.  But it is the 'Gunilda', as is clear in this article with a lot of history about the ship and also deep-diving.


Here's the Daily Mail article:

The mini-Titanic: A ship's bell, table, chairs and even a piano revealed inside the incredible wreckage of a British ship preserved for 107 years hundreds of feet under Lake Superior


And here's a picture of the ship's bell, confirming that it's the Gunilda. Either spelling sounds Scottish, where the ship was built.

Heard about the "Haywired"?

The "Haywired" is a described scenario of a Richter scale 7 earthquake on the Hayward Fault, which runs under Oakland, California.

It would cause some problems.

Study: East Bay fault is 'tectonic time bomb,' more dangerous than San Andreas

"The Hayward fault is so dangerous because it runs through some of the most heavily populated areas in the San Francisco Bay Area, spanning the length of the East Bay from the San Pablo Bay, through Berkeley, Oakland, Hayward, Fremont and into Milpitas. It is one of the most dangerous faults in the nation "because of the density of the population directly on or astride it, which would include San Francisco, and the amount of infrastructure that crosses it," [USGS earthquake geologist emeritus David] Schwartz said."

I wonder if this will have any effect on real estate prices.

This Bureau's building is unique

I don't think that the building in Washington D.C. that is the HQ of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives is on most Top 10 lists of things tourists should see on a visit, but it is kind of interesting to look at.

No, it's not the Wendy's, that's on the other side of the street.  But I expect more than a few ATF (also known as BATFE) staffers do eat there for lunch.


If by chance you're visiting downtown DC and decide you also want to see Baltimore via the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, you'll drive by this building on your way out.

Chronicling the close calls

They're out there -- and it only takes one to ruin a planet's day.

'Tunguska'-Size Asteroid Makes Surprise Flyby of Earth

"The asteroid, designated 2018 GE3, made its closest approach to Earth at around 2:41 a.m. EDT (0641 GMT), whizzing by at a distance of 119,400 miles (192,000 kilometers), or about half the average distance between Earth and the moon, according to NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS)."

According to the article, the estimated size means that if it encountered Earth, it would cause regional, but not global, damage.  Which is fine unless your region is Ground Zero for the space rock.

Lighthouse of the Week, April 15-21, 2018: Tubbataha Reefs, Phillippines

Can you find this place?

If you can, it's purported to be a prime scuba diving site in the Sulu Sea.  If you have to reacquaint yourself with that location (I did), the Sulu Sea is the body of water located to the west of the southern Phillippines, east of Palawan, and northeast of Borneo.  (To make it easier to visualize, click here. The red pin is where the reefs are, and they are in the middle of a lot of water.)

So, though quite small, the Tubbataha Reefs have a distinctive lighthouse, probably a good idea because boats woudn't want to run aground on these isolated reefs, and the lighthouse is a decent landmark making them easier to find.

And here's what the Lighthouse Directory has to say about this light:

"1980 (station established 1915). Active; two white flashes every 10 s. Approx. 15 m (50 ft) octagonal concrete tower with gallery rising from the center of an octagonal concrete keeper's house. It appears that the lantern has been removed and replaced by a light on a short mast. ... The lighthouse is on South Tubbataha."

This lighthouse does have a keeper's house, as it says, but living here would be right out of "what would you bring to do if you were going to live on a desert island"?  Lots of time for introspection, and waiting for the next supply boat.

Pictures:

This one is better bigger - click it

Best I could find of a close-up, though small

Famous enough to be on a stamp

Highway 41 Streetview trek - the Tampa Bay turn

So where we are now on the Highway 41 trek is north of Bradenton.  Highway 41 does not cross Tampa Bay -- Interstate 275 does that, over the Sunshine Skyway II bridge -- while Interstate 75 parallels what Highway 41 is about to do.  The highway is going to go to the east of Tampa Bay, and is much closer to the water than the interstate.

First thing to do north of Bradenton is to cross the Manatee River into Palmetto.


There are a lot of side trips that would be possible, more interesting Floridian sights, but it's time to get moving north.  So we're skipping the DeSoto Memorial, Anna Maria Island, an Terra Ceia Bay, Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve and Terra Ceia Preserve State Park, those last being some nice natural areas contrasted with the cities of St. Petersburg and Tampa.  We're zipping through the little locale of Rubonia (but you can visit that link if you want).    We'll also go by the Tampa Bay Ecosystem Rock Ponds and retirement haven Sun City.   And we go by the unfortunately named Cockroach Bay, and important baylet for larval fish and a remarkably wild mangrove "forest" in this region. Cockroach Bay is also an Outstanding Florida Water and Aquatic Preserve.

Our next point-of-interest is the crossing of the Little Manatee River, not to be confused with the crossing of the Manatee River, which we did earlier.   The Little Manatee is also an Outstanding Florida Water.



But for the end of this leg, I will take a very short side trip to E.G. Simmons Region Park, which is on the shores of Tampa Bay too.  The thing about this park is that it's one of the few places you can drive to the Tampa Bay coastline.


Next -- up to Tampa.