Climate Change Significance 400ppm CO2

Image Courtesy: Juliet Solar

If you were talking levels of mercury contamination of water you drank daily then chances are you would be already be dead or at least you would probably be a vegetable. The FDA approved limit in drinking water is 1ppm. In fact, a level of 400ppm of mercury in your drinking water would cause panic in your neighborhood and a demand for immediate action to locate the source and put a stop to it. In air, if you were talking carbon dioxide, it would mean little to your daily lives in terms of direct affects on your health. The difference is that, unlike mercury, elevated levels of carbon dioxide do not affect us in a way that causes panic . . . unless you happen to be faced with: rising sea levels, warming oceans, melting artic ice, floods, landslides, crop failure, out-migration of traditional food sources, absence of fish due to acidifying of oceans, failed water sources or fewer ski slopes to ski ea

Stone Skimming Championship Winners 2012

Image Courtesy: David Kershaw

This year will mark the second running of the International Stone Skimming Championships in Romblon town, Romblon, Philippines. Scotland has long been the ancestral home of International Stone Skimming Championships but now it has a challenger that aims to offer competition at least as good and possibly surpassing the founders, by virtue of its more exotic location.

What is stone skimming (ducks and drakes or stone skipping)? If you hold a roundish, flattish stone in your hand, with your index finger curled around the circumference, and flick your wrist just the right amount then the stone will spin upon release. If you simultaneously catapult your arm in a horizontal arc at just the right height above the surface of calmish water, the spinning stone will bounce across the surface of the water. Too little spin, not horizontal enough or the wrong height, and water not calm enough, then the stone will simp

Red Sky At Night - Shepherd's Delight?

Image Courtesy: Martyn Willes

Getting wet seems to be the easiest thing to do in the World at the moment, with floods (or snow fall that will turn to flood) in: United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Mozambique, the United States et al

Why does there appear to be so much precipitation?

Is it, as a friend of mine said recently, "a factor of the ability to deliver immediate news and especially when there is no real news flooding is a good headline&

Hobie Sailing On Taal Lake

Image Courtesy: Taal Lake Yacht Club

Is sailing a Hobie 16 your thing? If you want to get into sailing Hobie 16s then February 2013 is the best time to do it in the Philippines. Starting with the Philippine Hobie National Championships at the beginning of the month in Iloilo (open to anyone on the planet who knows how to sail a Hobie 16) and ending with the Philippine Hobie Challenge along the Zambales coast, starting from Candelaria, Zambales.

In case you did not now . . . a Hobie 16 is a fast sailing catamaran just 16 feet long. It is designed to be sailed by two people at extreme speeds (assuming the wind is favorable), although it is possible to sail it slowly as well. The spiritual home of Hobie 16 sailing in the Philippines is the Taal Lake Yacht Club, an hour South of Metro Manila on the shores of Taal

Competitive Sailing In Puerto Galera

Image Courtesy: Girlie Cervantes

For the first time in the club's history, the Puerto Galera Yacht Club will host a Chinese New Year sailing regatta with courses set across the Verde Island Passage. This new sailing event is designed to provide an alternative for both local and international yachtswo/men who would like to enjoy their vacation while sailing in the warm spring breezes along the Verde Island Passage, instead of in February's frigid waters around Hong Kong.

One of the challenges with gaining support from yacht and crews from outside the Philippines is the three to four day sail required to get here from Borneo, Taiwan or Hong Kong (longer from Singapore and Malaysia). In order to allow more sailors to join in the fun, local yacht owners are being encouraged to offer their boats for use during the Chinese New Year Regatta. This will be a first in the Philippines and, if it proves successful, will be repeated for other events in Puerto

Competitive Rowing On The Pasig River

Image Courtesy: Martyn Willes

The Philippines is slowly becoming the recognized venue for international sporting events and in particular, water sports events. For example: in December 2012 the holiday resort paradise of Boracay Island hosted the windsurfing RS:One World Championship; in 2013 the waters off Boracay's famous white-sand beach will be the venue for the Asian Moth sailing championships.

A lesser known water sport in Asia (particularly in the Philippines) is the sport of rowing. For the first time in its 70+ year history, the Philippines has been chosen as the 2013 venue for the ARAE-FEARA Regatta ("Amateur Rowing Association of the East" - "Far East Amateur Rowing Association"), running from 13th to 20th of January 2013 at Paoay Lake, Laoag, Ilocos Norte. The host organization for the event is the Manila Bo

Super Typhoon Bopha (Pablo)

Image Courtesy: Kochi University, Japan

Super Typhoon Bopha (locally “Pablo”) made landfall around 6am (4th December, 2012) just South of Baganga town in the province of Davao Oriental. The expected track will take super typhoon Bopha across central and northern Mindanao to near Dipolog, Zamboanga del Norte, and then to Northern Palawan. What is unusual about super typhoon Bopha is that it has tracked so far South, for so long.

The weather system started as a tropical depression, some 1300 nautical miles East of Davao City, near 2.5N 159.0E, on the 25th November, as reported by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center and subsequently via the Puerto Galera Yacht Club email Typhoon Warning service. At that time, the storm system was expected to track west-northwest, with only a small chance of touching land in the Phili

Miss Scuba: Saving Oceans Through Beauty

Image Courtesy: Miss Scuba Philippines

Subic Bay 6th October - The Miss Scuba Philippines pageant aims to put everyone's focus back into the ocean. Miss Scuba Philippines is part of the Miss Scuba International series of pageants, which were first held in 2011. First event: scuba diving lessons at the Lighthouse Marina Resort, Subic Bay.

Unlike most beauty pageants that simply celebrate the inner beauty and courage of today's modern women, Miss Scuba Philippines will follow the Miss Scuba International philosophy of focusing the participants and the associated media coverage on local and global ocean conservation ca