Rowing The Atlantic

After just under 45 days at sea we finally passed 1/3 of the 2900 nm in the wee hours of the morning! The rest should be faster, a lot faster, I hope, but nothing here is for granted. With the same speed I will be in about October 1st. Horrors! But with a reasonable 40...
Dr. Stein Hoff began his row across the Atlantic on Sunday morning May 15th, 120 years after George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen.

June 29

1194 – Sverre is crowned King of Norway. 1534 – Jacques Cartier is the first European to reach Prince Edward Island. 1613 – The Globe Theatre in London burns to the ground. 1776 – First privateer battle of the American Revolutionary War fought at Turtle Gut Inlet near Cape May, New Jersey 1874 – Greek politician Charilaos Trikoupis publishes a manifesto in...
STS-71 Mission (Atlantis) docks with the Russian space station Mir for the first time.

Lower Manhattan Has a New High Line

Lower Manhattan’s inventory of uplifting public spaces will increase by one today at 11:45 am, when the new Liberty Park is dedicated and opened. The elevated, one-acre green space (bordered by Liberty, West, Cedar and Greenwich Streets) will connect Battery Park City with the World Trade Center site and the Financial District, spanning a 300-foot...
An aerial view of the elevated Liberty Park as it neared completion in recent weeks.

EYES TO THE SKY

On the summer solstice, June 20th, I was out in a canoe on a small pond shortly after sunset, botanizing and birding. The sun sets slowly during the weeks on either side of the solstice; daylight lingers in the sky. It was awhile before dusk, when I began to scan the sky for the brightest...
This illustration greatly exaggerates the eccentricity - or oblongness - of Earth's orbit, but you get the idea. Courtesy EarthSky.org

RiverWatch

Thursday, June 30 Anthem of the Seas Inbound  6:30 am (Bayonne); outbound 4:00 pm; Eastern Caribbean Carnival Sunshine Inbound 7:15 am; outbound 4:30 pm; St. John, N.B., Canada Friday, July 1 Norwegian Breakaway Outbound 4:30 pm; Eastern Caribbean Queen Mary 2 Inbound 5:30 am (Brooklyn); outbound 5:00 pm; Halifax, N.S./Boston, MA Saturday, July 2 Norwegian...

June 28

1098 – Fighters of the First Crusade defeat Kerbogha of Mosull. 1360 – Muhammed VI becomes the tenth Nasrid king of Granada after killing his brother-in-law Ismail II. 1519 – Charles V is elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. 1776 – Thomas Hickey, Continental Army private and bodyguard to General George Washington, is hanged...
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo