For a while ago a volcanologiest from Dunedin in New zealand contact me after seen my blog about the ”Tonga to New zealand crossing”. He was very curious about the pumice rocks we picked up and got washed up on Misty during the sailing. Big fields of pumice rocks was floating around us during most of the crossing. All sizes from very small, up to the size of a coconut. I sent a bunch of samples to the volcanologiest and he later replied:

”The rafts you saw were products of a large under water eruption, at Le Havre seamount, in July 2012. I am tracking the still-floating rafts with satellite images; it works pretty well, but only for large rafts, so it is important to know when the first pumice arrived at Tonga, or whether any pumices arrived to NZ coasts, for example. You can get information about the eruption at:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/source-of-kermadec-island-pumice-raft-eruption-identified/_id=1&objectid=10843153

If I have had known that these pumice rocks were so important for some scientists, I had collect buckets of them!

This is a summary of the boatwork Misty undergone during the first part of 2010. Also some pix from the sailing in Sea of Cortez.

The division of the year was not fair, five parts boatwork and one part sailing. Hope it will be opposite next year 2011. Misty are in good shape now.

First of all the old bowsprit and bomkin (aftplatform) made of stainless was chopped off. To old and fragile. New bowsprit, aftplatform and railing was built bigger and made of galvanized steelpipes. Stronger and cheaper than stainless, also easier to find in Mexico. Above the aftdeck i built a rack for the solarpanels, radar and windgenerator. A hatch was made in the cockpit to be able to reach the space beneath the aftdeck. Before, that space was empty.

New winchmount and cleat was made for the genoasheet. In the bilge steelplates was welded in on the top of the concrete ballast, that to avoid saltwater from getting down inside of the keel. In addition to this, many hours was spent chipping, grinding and repairing steel from rust, and not to forget painting. Rust never sleeps…

When finally Misty touched the water again, most of it seemed to work great. During a month in Sea of Cortez i got time to try everything out.

This is about travel and alternative living.

Particularly about the voyage with my boat Misty but also to depict people all around who are living their dream of freedom.

Thanks to Christoffer Mathiasson (Närke kulturbryggeri) who helped me with the layout of this blog.