Dolphin Address 19
July 08th 2006
At last I thought to be able to Do things again instead of ceaselessly seeking out computerisms and forgetting what exactly I tried before I just did not came through. And here I am again, downloading Quick Time, N.B., for what finally took an entire night.
It's not easy organising the very best images. I bought an Everio camcorder for the three sensors and because the screen is on the back and it is tiny and fits into a minimal water resistance housing, that, mounted on the waterwing, works with near tripod stability, has excellent manoeuvrability and enables unique gliding capture.
But the footage comes in MOD files and they get nowhere but for drag and rename ruts. Editing, burning on a CD and then by snail mail to Carola in Holland. It drove me buzzing nutsİ.
So I gratefully switched to the boat. The good things about it I rebuilt, stronger and more solid. The new, third, tub got a refined fit. As a drive-leg I have a slightly waisted fork handle, rounded, so within a heaving frame I can swivel the mono, giving me steerage with a nicely sculptured, slow grown, string straight grained metre long axe handle lever with a wedge cleavage in the head for cooling, haha.
Aqua-reka! I have found it, that is to say, what is wrong with my boat and what I can do about it. To refresh you: I push the monofin with the drive leg, flat and at the feet end downwards. It then bends upwards and turns downwards at the heaving. Thus water is pushed down or up and backwards and you move forward.
Photo: Willem Verhulst
The heave- and push point from where I exert power on the monofin, from the boat, is centered in the hinge of the lever. So that is on the front of the barrel. Now I am by far the largest weight in the boat. So it does not take that much force to lift the boat at that point. And that is mainly what I do. Because the water resistance is more than the weight of the boat the monofin rather pushes the front of the boat up out of the water or heaves it down, then it pushes water backwards.
Therefore I am going to mount a WaterWing under the point to not only counter weigh the down and up movement, but it will also maintain tracking. If I allow the wing a limited hinge, what would happen? When I swim I simultaneously push or heave water up or down with mono and wing. There you can find balance to. To push up with the mono and at the same time push down with the WaterWing, or the other way around, is mutually annihilating. Under the boat the mono on his way down pushes the point up, so the flaps bulge downwards. That would be like the opposite of swimming.
I got to see that!
I bought a book about caves around here with detailed maps. There are some that can only be accessed from the water. Some run in land for a few k's, or rather out of it, as they drain, or, ideally, used to, the Burren limestone. So I am looking for one that will partially remain dry, both at high tide and during heavy rainfall. There I will bring some car charged deep cycle batteries, hook up some halogen light, boost the voltage to 220 by an inverter and connect to Radiowave so I can computer. If I can live in this shed I can live anywhere as long as I'm sheltered from wind and rain.
Just imagine an ocean as a front door. I have already been certified nuts way down under from Australia, but just fancy spreading a net at the entrance at high tide and simply picking up fish when the tide is out! Once a week a tourist and gaining electricity from the tide.
I'll be living by the tide, slowing down my aging by 50 minutes a day, 304 hours a year, which makes an annual gain of 12,5 days, rivalling my grandfather, who lived to be 96, accumulating a head start of one year and four months. I'd be the very first cave man who'd beat a century.
Mark my words, this is gonna be the coolest craze: 'Go savage, young man!'
Jan Ploeg, Meadow Fanore, July 8th, 2006
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