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For us, one of the keys to living comfortably in the small space of a boat is to reduce
clutter and keep our frequently-used items easily accessible. Reducing clutter …

We purchased our first digital camera, a Canon
PowerShot Pro90 IS, in 2002. Many of our pictures are taken from a boat, with
the subject often at a distance. So we wanted a long lens to suc…

I maintain a work-related blog mostly focused
high-scale services, data center design and operations, server hardware design and
optimization, high-scale storage software and hardware systems, flash memory, service
design principles, power efficiency …

Sunday's snow mostly was
gone by Monday, but we got another load later in the week. The weather system was difficult
to forecast. Although the snowfall was less than the re…

Snow is fairly rare in the Puget Sound, so a layer of the white stuff always is a
treat. We'd spent the weekend in LaConner, where 2-3 inches of snow had fallen overnight,
and left aro…

One upside to winter's shorter days is the nighttime lights. Whether from a passing
ship, a moored boat, or a nearby house, we enjoy being snug inside with a view to
lights twinkling i…

A storm warning was in effect, with
winds expected to reach 40-50 knots in the afternoon. More systems were on the way.
The only obvious weather break coming up in the next few …

A southwesterly gale was well underway as
we approached Ucluelet. 6-8′ waves were rolling through and crashing into the shore
on either side of us. The buoy in Carolina Channel, to our west, was disappearing
completely behind the waves. The calm…

On Christmas Day, the barometer fell nearly 20mb in 24 hours and Environment Canada
was predicting big weather: Storm warning in effect for West Coast Vancouver
Island South. Wind west 25 t…

The first time we encountered surface ice on saltwater was back in 2002, on a winter
trip to Desolation
Sound and Princess
Louisa Inlet. We had to break
ice to reach Chatterbox Falls. We&#0…