HURRICANE GRACE BRINGS SURF TO TEXAS GULF COAST

August 19, 2021, The Weather Channel states that Hurricane Grace made landfall before 5 am on Thursday along the eastern Yucatan Peninsula, near Tulum, Mexico. Grace is currently bringing max wind speeds of 75 mph. The latest track from the NHC has Grace moving west across the Yucatan Peninsula into the Bay of Campeche, making another landfall in eastern Mexico at the beginning of the weekend.

August 21, 2021, the word is out amongst Gulf Coast surfers that it's time to wax their surfboards and make their way to their favorite surf spot. For me, it's Surf Side, Texas, which is an hour's drive from my house. Now's the time to check out the Surfside webcam or the South Padre Islands surf webcam if I had instead wanted to head further down south for a few days.

The Surfside webcam showed that the waves were big, breaking far out from shore with no rideable form due to the high winds blowing onshore. I knew from the past that the next day being Saturday, the winds would have backed off, and the waves would be a lot cleaner, making them more rideable. I decided to wait until about 1 pm Saturday, and off I was to see if I could still paddle out and catch some waves. The last time I had surfed was in 2013 while I was Kiteboarding in South Padre Island. 

A couple of days later, Surfside was tame.

Not owning a surfboard any longer meant needing to rent a board for a few hours. Board rented; I was off to my favorite launch spot. I entered the water, hopped on the board, and to my amazement, I was paddling out thru the shore break and eventually making it to the outside where I could catch some waves. Somewhat out of breath, I spent the next twenty minutes or so straddling the board and wishing some of my old surf buddies were there to chat with while waiting for the right wave. Then my thoughts changed to remembering the many beautiful places I had surfed in my lifetime Mexico, California, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Tortola Island, Cape Town, and South Padre Island.

Riding a wave was the best part of surfing. The second-best part of being out there was soaking up the natural beauty of mother nature, which always put me in a state of mind of total peace. Surfing the Windsurfing or kiteboarding doesn't in any way compares to the stoke that I experience riding a wave. I had a great time the 90 minutes I was out, even though my balance wasn't that great, and my rides only lasted a short while. The saddest part of a surfing day is knowing that this will be the last ride of the day due to exhaustion or that it's getting too dark to be out.

Tommy Garner

Anticrepuscular rays: An Unusual Sky Phenomenon

While Colorado skies can be dramatic at times, the sky on December 20 during an evening walk in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, was extraordinary. Gazing west, I was awed by the cloud patterns and the sunlight's intensity at the clouds' inferior aspect.

As our path curved in an easterly direction …

... I gazed at the sky ahead of us. It was mind-bending. The Sun was setting behind me, yet, it also seemed to be setting in front of me!  I estimated the rays were coming from the northeast.

Puzzled, I checked my phone's compass. Sure enough, the beams were coming from the east-northeast. Impossible, but there they were.

I looked back to see if anything had changed in the western sky and saw the intense inferior brightening of the nearer clouds and darkening of the more distant ones as sunset progressed.

A look to the southwest revealed similar findings.

As we progressed on our walk, the rays darkened ...

... and soon faded.

Turning northwesterly on our return home, we were greeted by a delightfully dramatic sky.

Arriving home, I searched the net for "unusual sunset today." The answer popped up immediately - Anticrepuscular rays! What?! 

Wikipedia's entry came up first: 

Anticrepuscular rays, or antisolar rays, are meteorological optical phenomena similar to crepuscular rays, but appear opposite of the Sun in the sky. Anticrepuscular rays are essentially parallel, but appear to converge toward the antisolar point, the vanishing point, due to a visual illusion from linear perspective.

And from Atmospheric Optics:

Crepuscular rays appear to converge on the sun, anticrepuscular or antisolar rays converge in opposite direction and you must have your back to the Sun or sunset point to see them. They appear to converge towards the antisolar point, the point on the sky sphere directly opposite the Sun. Like crepuscular rays they are parallel shafts of sunlight from holes in the clouds and their apparently odd directions are a perspective effect. Think of a long straight road, it converges towards the horizon but turn around and it also converges to the opposite horizon. Crespuscular and anticrespuscular rays behave in the same way.

"Holes in the clouds." Could that be the rays passing through the cloud's inferior surface as seen earlier in the walk? Some passing through "holes" in the clouds and converging in the opposite direction? When we sit in a movie theater, the projector behind us streams light beams over our heads. We look in the opposite direction, the screen in front of us, where the rays arrest and become visible. 

Hmmm?  An arc of rays over our head that become visible and deceivingly convergent: anticrespuscular rays. 

John Oró, MD, FAANS

Your thoughts, critiques, and insights are welcome.

Natural benefits

"Massachusetts General Hospital has just teamed up with the Appalachian Mountain Club in Boston to prescribe nature as a way to improve wellness. And in Washington D.C., the new Park Rx initiative is designed to help people access nature. "National parks have always been loved for their symbolism and scenery, but we want to increase the awareness of their role in preventative medicine and therapy," said National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis."

Learn more:  Nature - Just What the Doctor Ordered

Quote: Nurture the Wild Child

"A week in the countryside is worth three months in a classroom."

George Monbiot
Rewild the Child

Outdoors: Mt. Bierstadt, August 2012

Intermittent foot paths allow passage through the "dreaded willows." Bierstadt's peak, in the upper right, as seen in the morning light. 

On Saturday August 21, my wife and two of my sons and I hiked 14,060 ft. Mt. Bierstadt. For my wife and my youngest son, the goal was their first 14er. For my oldest son, his third ascent up Bierstadt, it was to support us while enjoying the outdoors and physical activity. My first climb of Bierstadt (also with my oldest son) was in August 2010, just one month before a cycling crash down Squaw Pass. Thus, my prime motivation was to see if I was back to baseline and could climb it again. 

Nearby lake on left side of trail. 

Hiking together at the higher altitudes. 

Taking a break before the final push. People on the summit are barely seen as faint linear images on crest in the right upper corner.

View from the other side of the mountain.

At the summit. 

The path down. The parking lot is beyond the lake seen in the left upper quadrant.

There may be another reason for the adults to climb, recently expressed nicely by Mark Sisson:

The comfortable plateau we’ve achieved – with all good intention – can seem less satisfying. Where did the peaks of life go? Do we make space for exuberance or adventure anymore? In seeking to live vitally, we inherently value more than the necessities of survival, more than the elements of comfort. It’s a mark of thriving, I think, to test the scale and dimension of existence – in whatever way fulfills us personally. We can choose to prioritize the role of awe, adventure, and uncertainty in our lives. The fact is, the power of intermittent euphoria (IE) can fill a deep – and deeply human – well.

Mark's Daily Apple

Contemplating a primal existence

Comuna Rhiannon, Ecuador. Image: John MIchael

I have always been a nature girl. I love to do anything outdoors. I climb, hike, sunbathe, I watch and listen to the animals, I smell flowers. I am not very attached to things like most are in our country. I own very little and live very simply. I like it that way. But I’m also cosmopolitan. I love the opera and stimulating conversation. I’m academic and highbrow. I love the pursuit of knowledge and the perfection of talents. I live for contemplating and creating.

How happy would I be without ...

Could You Really Live the Primal Life?

The Primal Parent

2012 Everest expedition cut short due to Warming

Everest Base Camp. Image: istockphotoA leading Everest outfitter, Himalayan Experience, is cutting short the 2012 season because of the increased risk due to the warming climate. Stephen Lacey writing for Climate Progressreports on the company’s decision:

Russell Brice, head of the leading Everest climbing operation Himalayan Experience, announced that he would pull his team off Everest, citing unprecedented temperatures that made climbing too dangerous. Heeding advice from experienced Sherpas worried about the warmth, Brice decided to cancel his 2012 expedition because of unstable ice.

Himalayan Experiences’ Billi Bierling, writing from Everest Base Camp notes:

While I am writing this basking in the unseasonably warm sunshine, the Himalayan Experience base camp is slowly being dismantled around me. “The last Sherpa loads were carried down from Camp I this morning and now all our equipment is off the mountain,” Russell said feeling relieved that all his Sherpas have been up and down the Khumbu Icefall safely. “It was hard for me to send the Sherpas through the icefall after I had made the decision to cancel the expedition due to the looming dangers there, however, we had no choice as we had to bring down around 250 loads,” he continued.

To Apa Sherpa, who has climed Everest a record 21 times, the warming trend over the past 20 or so years is readily apparent:

In 1989 when I first climbed Everest there was a lot of snow and ice but now most of it has just become bare rock. That, as a result, is causing more rockfalls which is a danger to the climbers.”

Also, climbing is becoming more difficult because when you are on a mountain you can wear crampons but it's very dangerous and very slippery to walk on bare rock with crampons."

Let it snow.

Related: Quote: Gluten "nearly derailed" David Hahn's 1999 Everest climb

Hiking in Torres del Paine National Park

Technically an offshoot of walking, this is my personal favorite way to Move Frequently at a Slow Pace. There’s nothing wrong with walking around the block with my wife at sunset (in fact, there’s everything right with it), but there’s just something about being out in nature, mostly alone and free to do as I please. And really, is there anything more Primal than messing around in the open wilderness? The terrain shifts, there are rocks to lift and toss, tree limbs to climb, and hills to scale. Because your foot lands differently on varied terrain, you train the small muscles in your feet more effectively. If walking around your placid suburban block gets old, strike out for the hills!  

Mark Sisson on hiking

Primal Blueprint Fitness 

Although we did not lift heavy rocks or climb trees, the hikes in Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia, Chile were beautiful and invigorating. Here are a few photos.

Rafa, one of our guides, and John Michael. 

John Michael and guide Nata. 

Previous trip entries in chronological order:

• Travel - Chile / Patagonia, November 2011
• November 10: Arrival in Santiago, Chile
• Book fair in converted rail station, Santiago
• Terminal del Sur, Santiago
• John Michael at Terminal del Sur, Santiago
• Churrasco al Plato con Huevos
• Internet caffe, bus terminal Puerto Montt
• Boarding a Navimag Ferry
• November 11: On Navimag
• View along the port
• View of Puerto Montt & 32 person lifeboat
• John Michael: Voyage by Sea
• November 12 - Channels, Fjords & the Pacific
• November 13: Puerto Eden and the Pio Once Glacier
• November 14 & 15: Puerto Natales
• November 15-20: EcoCamp
• November 15: Hiking the French Valley, Torres del Paine National Park

November 14 & 15: Puerto Natales

A quiet, catch-up morning on Navimag is filled with reading and writing. At 1:30 pm, the boat’s terminal port, Puerto Natales, comes into view. After a brief view of the sun, the weather has turned and through the intercom we are informed the wind is blowing at 40 knots and the authorities have denied permission to dock. We wait. Twenty minutes later it is sunny again and we disembark. 

A short cab ride takes us to the Alcazar Hostal. Simple, yet neat, the hostal has a small restaurant next door. The afternoon is spent sending e-mail, taking the laundry to the lavanderia, and refurbishing supplies. We purchase canned sardines and tuna, olives, cherries, and 70% chocolate at a local market.

The next morning we walk to the town center, shop for fruit, and hang out at the hostel until we are picked up by the EcoCamp shuttle at 2 pm. Lunch is provided at the Aldea Restaurant (my son and I have salad, hake with vegetables, and bowl of fruit) where we meet a couple from Holland, a couple from Switzerland, and a lady from Tasmania - her husband had arrived at EcoCamp several days previously, but, due to an airline strike in Argentina, she had been delayed in Buenos Aires. 

On the way to the Torres del Paine (Towers of Blue) National Park, we stop at Milodon cave (Cueva del Milodon), popularized by Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia. The large cave, named for the extinct giant sloth discovered there, was occupied by Paleo-Americans 12,000 years ago. From there we travel into the Park, and by late afternoon, reach EcoCamp. 

Dr. John

November 13: Puerto Eden and the Pio Once Glacier

Breakfast is announced at 8 am over the intercom. This also serves as a wakeup call. This morning we sail through a narrow channel - navigation along this stretch is recommended only during daytime - and anchor at the only intermediate stop on the traverse: Puerto Eden.

An ancient village, populated around 6 thousand years ago, Puerto Eden provides a fascinating one-hour walk on planked pathways around the village periphery and through rolling hills and coastal environment. (Wear rain pants; the region is moist and rain frequent.)

In the late afternoon, Navimag, usually traveling at 13 knots, slows and gently turns. In light rain and a chilling wind blowing from straight ahead, a crowd gathers at the bow. In the first view, the glacier seems enormous. And yet, it is just a tip of a massive, packed snow lake on the move. Cameras click everywhere, some held high with outstretched arms. The glacier is blue, grey, jagged, and old. Nature shows its presence. "I move, cover, and clear away, even mountains." Beware.

The ship completes its slow turn and stops perpendicular to the Pope Pius XI Glacier wall. Three crewmembers, suited against the elements, are lowered into icy water in a motorized dinghy. My son asks a crew member, "Where are they going?" who responds, "To get the paper." On return from the glacier's edge, it becomes clear the goal was ice. Several chunks supplement the ship's supply.

John Oró

The Ice of Pio Once

“Where are they going,” I asked the bartender, a portly man with a round head and arms that, propped up by his belly, stuck out at his sides. When the glacier Pio Once had appeared on the horizon, he had put on his jacket, and then left his post. Now he stood on the second level of the ship, beside a lifeboat containing three men that was being lowered into the channel. He was going to ignore my comment, until he noticed me staring at him from where I stood at the third level’s railing. “To buy the newspaper,” he said, and we both laughed. Around us dark mountains rose into the clouds, while chunks of ice that had fallen from Pio Once speckled the channel’s frigid water. “Adíos,” one of the men solemnly called as the lifeboat disappeared from my sight.

I walked to the front of the ship, where the tourists were crowded, taking pictures of Pio Once, a looming wall of luminous blue ice, broken into jagged segments, like the crooked teeth of a frost giant. It was one of the few glaciers in the world that was still growing, adding about five hundred meters per year. Beginning at the base of a volcano, it was slowly making its way into the channel, which, if its growth continued, it would one day choke in its icy grip. A stern wind blew off the smooth slope of Pio Once, hurling the light rain that was falling against the passengers’ faces and cameras.

Once the cold in my hands and feet became greater than my desire to behold the glacier, I went inside and took a seat in the lounge. The bartender was back, serving beers and pisco sours to the passengers who had also had their fill of natural beauty. After half an hour, one of the men I had seen on the lifeboat appeared. I recognized him by the orange coverall he wore, and the hunk of ice he cradled in his arms. As I watched, he took it behind the bar, and then dropped it in the ice bin, where the bartender immediately set to work chopping it into manageable pieces.

I was amused. When I saw the lifeboat being lowered, I had no idea what the men aboard were doing, but I had assumed that it was important. Perhaps they were going to take measurements or collect samples. The captain had told us that when he was not sailing, he taught a class at Santiago University. I had even momentarily thought they were going to buy a newspaper, though my stark surroundings – the thick forests, broken only by white cascades – quickly persuaded me that the chances of a newsstand being out here were zero. Until I saw that man walk into the bar carrying a translucent piece of ice the size of a small child, it could never have occurred to me that three sailors would brave the freezing waters of this channel for nothing more than so that they could later make drinks with the ice of Pio Once.

John Michael Oró

For more on the Patagonia trip search "Patagonia" in the search box. 

November 12 - Channels, Fjords & the Pacific

By Dr. John

This is the 13th entry of our recent trip to Chile. A list of all the previous trip posts is below.

Breakfast the next day was a greater challenge: yogurt, porridge, and coffee or juice. I regret eating the porridge - the first time I have eaten rice in over a year - and sense some sluggishness minutes later. (Be prepared, you can't bring everything you eat, but it's good to have some back-up.) Fortunately, two pears finish the breakfast just fine.

The Navimag boat takes us along a channel heading south from Puerto Montt as it makes its way to Puerto Natales. After traveling along multiple islands and fjords, at 4 pm we enter Bahia Anna Pink, a bay opening into the Pacific, and sail a 12-hour segment along the Pacific coast and through the Golfo de Penas (Gulf of Punishment).

During one of his charlas (briefings) the ship's guide shares his thoughts about the ocean pass: "If the weather is good, the boat will move. If the weather is bad, the boat will move." The implication is clear. We enter the Pacific in mild to moderate weather: overcast misty sky and a grey rolling swells covered with wind blown chop. There are fewer people in the dinning room that evening.

Previous trip entries in chronological order:

• Travel - Chile / Patagonia, November 2011
• November 10: Arrival in Santiago, Chile
• Book fair in converted rail station, Santiago
• Terminal del Sur, Santiago
• John Michael at Terminal del Sur, Santiago
• Churrasco al Plato con Huevos
• Internet caffe, bus terminal Puerto Montt
• Boarding a Navimag Ferry
• November 11: On Navimag
• View along the port
• View of Puerto Montt & 32 person lifeboat
• John Michael: Voyage by Sea

SUNDAY PALEO / November 27, 2011

Torres del Paine, Patagonia, Chile. More on the trip this week. ANTHROPOLOGY

Study: Humans were catching tuna 42K years ago

“The latest evidence comes from an excavation on the southeast Asian island of East Timor where remains of tuna and other deep-water fish were uncovered inside a cave. Using dating techniques, a team led by archaeologist Sue O'Connor of Australian National University determined the age to be 42,000 years old — making it the earliest evidence for ocean fishing.” – CBS News

From the Cave to the Kennel

“This account is now falling apart in the face of new genetic analyses and recently discovered fossils. The emerging story sees humans and proto-dogs evolving together: We chose them, to be sure, but they chose us too.” – The Wall Street Journal

MODERN DISEASES

Chocolate May Cut Women's Stroke Risk

“The new research is yet another study that shows the health benefits of chocolate, says Suzanne Steinbaum, DO, a cardiologist and director of Women and Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. She agrees that picking chocolate wisely is important. "What we have been recommending is at least 70% cocoa," she says.” – MedicineNet

The Hidden Toll of Traffic Jams

“As roadways choke on traffic, researchers suspect that the tailpipe exhaust from cars and trucks—especially tiny carbon particles already implicated in heart disease, cancer and respiratory ailments—may also injure brain cells and synapses key to learning and memory.” – The Wall Street Journal

NUTRITION

Adherents to Paleo diet find weight loss success by eating like our ancestors

"‘The evidence to support eating grains is underwhelming,’ says Michael Roussell PhD, a Livestrong.com adviser, citing a recent Harvard study that found that, contrary to what we've been trained to believe, simple sugars and refined grains are more detrimental to our health than animal fats.” – austin360.com

How to Eat More Vegetables

“It’s been my experience that people rarely have trouble eating more meat when going Primal. Sure, former vegetarians may struggle with the transition, but the average omnivore usually welcomes the opportunity to indulge more often. Vegetables, on the other hand, seem to present more of an issue.” – Mark’s Daily Apple

RECIPES

Herbed Halved Chicken

“We served the chicken with roasted winter squash and I made a quick coleslaw with shredded green cabbage, diced apples, sliced almonds, with olive oil and a touch of balsamic vinegar for the dressing.” – Everyday Paleo

PALEO DIET RECIPES IPAD APP – A COOKBOOK FOR A MODERN PALEOLITHIC DIET

“Recipes from the app are heavy on lean meats like fish and poultry, fruit, vegetables, seeds, nuts and natural herbs and spices.” - Pursuitist

URBAN FARMING

URBAN FARMS, SUPERSIZED. LARGEST EVER ROOFTOP GARDEN TO BE BIG AS FOOTBALL FIELD

"A trio of German entrepreneurs is hoping to convert an old industrial building in Berlin into the world's largest rooftop farm. Plans for the self-sustaining organic spread, which should be up and running by 2013, include a fertilizing fish farm on the building's top floor." – Worldcrunch