"We the people" tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. Our Constitution is a document in which "We the people" tell the government what it is allowed to do. "We the people" are free. Ronald Reagan Farewell Address 1989
Today, President Obama travelled to the Gulf Coast region for the fourth time since the BP oil spill began in April. The President began his trip in Gulfport, Mississippi, where he met with National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen and local officials to discuss efforts to fight the BP oil spill. Later, the President had lunch with business owners in Gulfport, Mississippi, to discuss the impact the oil spill is having on tourism, fishing and other industries in the region.
Later in the afternoon the President travelled to Theodore, Alabama where he met with state and local officials and toured one of the 16 staging locations throughout the region that provide support for the ongoing cleanup efforts. The President delivered remarks in Theodore before boarding a ferry to Ft. Morgan, Alabama. The President began his remarks by assuring residents of the Gulf Coast region that their way of live would be preserved for future generations:
Now, what I’ve heard from a number of local officials during my trip today is what I’ve heard from folks on each of the four visits that I’ve made to this region since the Deepwater Horizon explosion happened in April. There’s a sense that this disaster is not only threatening our fishermen and our shrimpers and our oystermen, not only affecting potentially precious marshes and wetlands and estuaries and waters that are part of what makes the Gulf Coast so special — there’s also a fear that it can have a long-term impact on a way of life that has been passed on for generations.
And I understand that fear. The leaders and the officials who are with me understand it. Governor Riley understands it. He has been a regular presence on our daily coordinating calls, and a relentless advocate for Alabama throughout this process. And we are absolutely committed to working with him and all the local officials who are behind us to do everything in our power to protect the Gulf way of life so that it’s there for our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren.
The President also addressed concerns about the safety of seafood from the Gulf of Mexico:
Dealing with the aftermath of this spill also means protecting the health and safety of the folks who live and work here in Theodore, here in Alabama, and here on the Gulf Coast. As part of this effort, I’m announcing a comprehensive, coordinated, and multi-agency initiative to ensure that seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is safe to eat. Now, I had some of that seafood for lunch and it was delicious. But we want to make sure that the food industry down here as much as possible is getting the protect — the protection and the certification that they need to continue their businesses. So this is important for consumers who need to know that their food is safe, but it’s also important for the fishermen and processors, who need to be able to sell their products with confidence.
So, let me be clear: Seafood from the Gulf today is safe to eat. But we need to make sure that it stays that way. And that’s why, beyond closing off waters that have been or are likely to be exposed to oil, the FDA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are increasing inspections of seafood processors, strengthening surveillance programs, and monitoring fish that are caught just outside of restricted areas. And we’re also coordinating our efforts with the states, which are implementing similar plans.
The President concluded his remarks by assuring the residents of the Gulf Coast region that the Administration would not rest until their lives and livelihoods had been returned to normal.
Now, I can’t promise folks here in Theodore or across the Gulf Coast that the oil will be cleaned up overnight. It will not be. It’s going to take time for things to return to normal. There’s going to be a harmful effect on many local businesses and it’s going to be painful for a lot of folks. Folks are going to be frustrated and some folks are going to be angry. But I promise you this: that things are going to return to normal. This region that’s known a lot of hardship will bounce back, just like it’s bounced back before. We are going to do everything we can, 24/7, to make sure that communities get back on their feet. And in the end, I am confident that we’re going to be able to leave the Gulf Coast in better shape than it was before.
Two men spotted what they think could be oil from the BP disaster off a Pinellas County beach while returning home from a fishing trip Sunday morning.
The men, Steve Weiss and David Mokotoff, said they were about four to five miles off Pass-a-Grille beach when they spotted what they believed was an oil sheen on the water.
“We saw this ribbon of orange brown material,” Mokotoff said. “Steve initially thought it might be discharge from somebody’s boat, but then when we got closer it was so long, even though it wasn’t wide we thought about the oil spill and decided to take a closer look at it.”
The men also said they smelled the substance.
“It smelled like oil, so we went back to investigate and, unfortunately, it felt like oil,” Weiss said. “We touched it; you couldn’t get it off your hands.”
The men filled a bottle with some of the water and brought it home. Representatives from the Coast Guard and Department of Environmental Protection pick up the sample.
The agencies said they do not believe it’s oil, but the sample will be taken to a lab and analyzed.
“It’s green in color and doesn’t appear to be oil,” said Kelly Smith, a marine science technician with the U.S. Coast Guard. “But we’ll be able to verify that 100 percent whenever we can get this back and have somebody actually look at it.”
The Coast Guard said they’ve been getting a lot of calls and reports from people with similar concerns, but so far they haven’t tested anything that’s actually been oil from the BP spill. They said most of the samples they’ve tested have turned out to be algae or other plant life.
SF GATE – Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
The big question for many Democrats tonight is how far President Obama will go in his first Oval Office address to turn the Gulf of Mexico disaster into an opportunity to end the nation’s dependence on petroleum.
“This is one of those 9/11 opportunities where you can rally the country to move in a different direction,” said Lisa Margonelli, energy director of the center-left New America Foundation in Oakland. “It’s not simply a case of political repositioning. Obama is going to have to go into the phone booth and become Superman.”
Obama is in full crisis mode as he flies back to Washington for the 5 p.m. (PDT) televised address after his fourth visit to the gulf since the disaster began April 20.
Criticized in the initial weeks of the spill for seeming too detached and reliant on BP, Obama will tell the nation how much the federal government is doing to address the spill, taking responsibility for a disaster that has subsumed every other administration priority.
“All in all, we are confronting the largest environmental disaster in our history, with the largest environmental response and recovery effort in our history,” Obama said Monday in Alabama, one of the stops on his two-day trip, which also included Mississippi and Florida. “In the end, I am confident that we’re going to be able to leave the Gulf Coast in better shape than it was before.”
An opportunity
Democrats are eyeing polling that shows public ire focused on BP. They are pushing to expand the company’s liability and to use the disaster to reboot their push for alternative energy, climate-change legislation and perhaps some kind of tax on oil or carbon that would begin to reduce the nation’s reliance on oil.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, visited the gulf on a separate trip Monday and said she hopes to move legislation as early as next week that would lift a $75 million cap, established in 1990, on oil company liabilities for spills beyond direct clean-up costs.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, is calling in chief executives of the world’s five largest oil companies today for a hearing on “America’s energy future.” Waxman released documents Monday indicating BP had taken dangerous shortcuts to save money, including an e-mail from a BP engineer sent six days before the explosion calling the rig a “nightmare well.”
The House narrowly passed climate-change legislation a year ago that would cap carbon emissions, in effect setting a price on carbon. The bill was watered down by providing emissions allowances to affected businesses and requiring nothing of consumers. It has been stalled for a year in the Senate.
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration video, shot as officials coordinated response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, shows that federal officials almost immediately worried that the oil well could leak up to 110,000 barrels per day, or 4.6 million gallons.
It was filmed in Seattle, at NOAA’s Western Regional Center, as scientists and federal officials in Seattle, Houston and New Orleans engaged in telephone conferences, according to a companion document on the Web site.
The video appears to have been edited, and it was shot by a person carrying a camera from room to room.
In it, officials are discussing the search for survivors of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. There is a hand-drawn map of the spill dated April 22. At one point, the video freezes on a sign next to a door that reads, “War Room.”
In one scene, officials say that the estimate for the leak in a worst-case scenario is between 65,000 and 100,000 barrels per day. A dry erase board on the wall reads “Estim: 64,000 to 110,000 bbls/day. CNN reported 300,000 gal/day.”
The high end of the estimate, 110,000 barrels, is about 4.6 million gallons. At that spill rate, 32 million gallons of oil would enter the Gulf every week. By comparison, the entire Exxon Valdez spill was about 11 million gallons.
Officials estimate current flow from the damaged well at 210,000 gallons a day.
It is unclear from the video what events would have to transpire to raise the flow rate higher.
A confidential NOAA report, dated April 28 and circulated among federal agencies, makes similar projections regarding spill size in a worst-case situation.
It describes newly discovered leaks in the tangle of riser pipe, attributing them to ongoing erosion of the pipe. The riser pipe, in this case about 5,000 feet long, connects the wellhead on the sea floor to the drilling rig on the surface.
“If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked,” reads the report.
On Thursday, the day after the NOAA report was circulated, BP officials said they were worried about “erosion” of the piping.
Sand is an integral part of the formations that hold oil under the Gulf. The raw crude rising from the bottom of a well carries sand and other abrasive materials. In effect, the oil is sandblasting the piping as it rushes through with tremendous force, according to petroleum engineers.
“I think we need to be prepared for it to be the spill of the decade,” Debbie Payton of NOAA, the meeting’s coordinator, says during the NOAA video.
NOAA did not immediately respond to the Press-Register’s request for comment on the video.
When it comes to the Spanish national team, much of the world of international soccer has found it difficult over the past few years to avoid a constant state of awe.
With perhaps half a dozen of the world’s top 20 players among its ranks, Spain commands plenty of respect. It has earned it on the field as well, with a European championship in 2008 — part of a 35-game unbeaten run that ended last year at the Confederations Cup. La Roja haven’t lost — or even tied — since that defeat at the hands of the U.S., finishing their World Cup qualifying campaign with a perfect record in 10 games, and cementing their status as co-favorites to take the World Cup home this year.
So why is it so hard to get anyone at the Royal Football Federation to talk about the history of the Spanish national team? Calls to Madrid in search of some insight for this article went unanswered, and usually chatty contacts suddenly turned quiet. It seems most everyone in Spain would prefer to concentrate on the present, and forget the past.
In the context of Spain’s long and somewhat tortured soccer history, that wait-and-see approach makes plenty of sense. Though the current form of the national team, and the deference it commands, might suggest a proud history for Spanish soccer, the nation’s track record in international play is far less impressive than a casual fan might suspect.
Everyone knows Spain’s hard-luck story these days — the typical “always the runner-up, never the champion” tale. Much of the attention focused on the team in the run-up to the World Cup has been built around questioning if this is finally Spain’s year — with the subtle insinuation that the country has come close many times, without ever winning that world title.
But the history books say differently. In reality Spain’s track record is not nearly so achievement-laden as one might think. In fact, in 13 World Cup appearances, Spain has never really come close to winning a world title. Its best finish? Fourth place, way back in 1950…
When it wasn’t sheer underperformance that impeded the Spaniards in recent decades, it was bad luck. The most infamous example came in their 2002 quarterfinal loss to South Korea, decided by shambolic refereeing. By the time a favored Spanish team at the top of its game met neighbor France in a round of 16 clash in 2006, losing early round knockout matches had become something of a Spanish tradition. The team didn’t disappoint those expectations, and La Roja had earned a firm reputation of a team that couldn’t handle the pressure.
The hope in Spain is now that the European title in 2008 — which included a bit of good luck along the way, when La Roja eliminated Italy on penalties — may have signaled a change of fortune, and instilled a championship mentality in a group that had always succumbed to doubt at critical moments.
But few are willing to stake too much to that hope, just yet. Whether the Spaniards can call on that newly found champion’s edge when they need it in South Africa is the largest question surrounding this talented team. There’s no doubt Spain has a roster full of game-changers, with the weapons and style to dismantle all comers, and make some new history to match its now fearsome reputation. So respect for Spain is due — but for its present, more than its past.
[Politics Daily] — Members of the U.S. World Cup soccer team recently paid a visit to the White House, where they were greeted by the impressive trio of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton. Goodwill was in the air — on Saturday, the U.S. team will face the English in a match that is expected to draw one of the largest audiences in the history of televised sports. The presidents, for their part, were especially enthusiastic about the team’s footwear…
Instead, Obama announced that Vice President Biden would be “live” on the scene for the opening ceremony. To which Biden cracked, “It was a painful assignment.”
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – An unabashed U.S. Vice President Joe BidentoldPresident Barack Obama on Friday he was sorry for leaving him behind to manage the oil spill but was thrilled to be watching the World Cup.
“I am honored to be (here) representing the United States. The president is angry,” Biden told a group of dignitaries at the U.S. consulate in Sandton, near Johannesburg.
Biden, who arrived in South Africa with several family members about a day ahead of the kick-off to the sports spectacle, told the group not to take the U.S. side lightly.
The United States play England in their opening Group C match on Saturday and the Irish-American Biden expects to be in attendance cheering on coach Bob Bradley‘s side.
“In the spirit of a genuine Irishman, we are going to beat England,” Biden said.
The British oil company BP’s Gulf of Mexico spill has given President Obama one of the biggest problems of his presidency.
The Vice President also offered his condolences to former South African President Nelson Mandela whose great granddaughter was killed in a car crash on the eve of the World Cup opening.
Fifa says it will take action if it finds grounds to do so
Guardian – Owen Gibson in Johannesburg
Their cacophonous din has so far been a soundtrack for the World Cup, to the delight of some and the profound annoyance of others. But organisers said that the vuvuzela, one of the most visible and certainly most audible motifs of the tournament’s opening weekend, could yet be banned from inside stadiums.
Organising committee chief executive Danny Jordaan said he would continue to monitor their use and that a ban could be enforced if there were “grounds to do so”.
Fifa and organisers have already said that they will ban the instrument if any are thrown onto the pitch or used as a weapon and urged fans not to blow them during national anthems.
“We did say that if any land on the pitch in anger we will take action. We’ve tried to get some order. We have asked for no vuvuzelas during national anthems or stadium announcements. It’s difficult but we’re trying to manage the best we can,” he told the BBC.
“We’ve had some broadcasters and individuals [complaining] and it’s something we are evaluating on an on-going basis.” The BBC and ITV have received complaints from viewers about the background noise and, while both have said they will monitor the situation, they have also made the point that it is important to reflect the atmosphere of the tournament.
Fifa has previously shrugged off complaints from broadcasters, players and coaches about the noise from the plastic horns that are being sold on every street corner in South African host cities.
Following last year’s Confederations Cup, there were complaints from coaches, players and broadcasters about the noise. But Fifa said that the horns formed part of the unique African atmosphere of the tournament and refused to ban them.
But Jordaan himself, who battled for 16 years to bring the World Cup to South Africa, said he would prefer the 10 stadiums hosting the World Cup to ring to the sound of singing and dancing than the drone of the vuvuzela.
“I would prefer singing. It’s always been a great generator of a wonderful atmosphere in stadiums and I would try to encourage them to sing,” he said.
“In the days of the struggle (against apartheid) we were singing, all through our history it’s our ability to sing that inspired and drove the emotions.”
This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Innocean Americas.
Iglesia Maradoniana (English: Maradonian Church) was created by fans of the retired Argentine football player Diego Maradona, who they believe to be the best player of all time.
It was founded on October 30, 1998 (Maradona’s 38th birthday) in the city of Rosario, but it wasn’t until 2001 that they had their first gathering. They now reportedly count over 100,000 members from more than 60 countries around the world.
It could be seen as a type of syncretism. It’s clear that the passion between the different members is what glues them together. As Alejandro Verón, one of the founders tells us “I have a rational religion and that’s the Roman-catholic church, and I have a religion passed on my heart, passion, and that’s Diego Maradona.”
Supporters of the Maradonian Church, supposedly from all parts of the world, count the years since Maradona’s birth in 1960. It is popular among the followers of this religion, and also among other football fans, to use the neo-Tetragrammaton “D10S” as one of the names of Maradona. D10S is a portmanteau word which fuses Maradona’s shirt number (10) and Dios, the Spanish word for God.
According to the church of Maradona it is the year 49 AB (After Birth).
Ten Commandments
The ball must not be stained, as D10S has proclaimed
Love football over all things
Declare your unconditional love of football
Defend the colours of Argentina
Preach the words of D10S all over the world
Pray in the temples where he preached and on his sacred mantles
Dont proclaim the name of Diego in name of an only club.
Follow the teachings of the Maradonian Church
Let Diego be thy name, and thy one of your children
“No ser cabeza de termo y que no se te escape la tortuga.” (Meaning “don’t be a hothead and don’t let the turtle escape you”)
Since the church was created many Argentinians have not responded kindly to the idea of Maradona as a God. Especially after Maradona’s drug problems most of the population feel insulted when the famous football player is seen as a national symbol, and the fact that he is also seen as a son of God makes things worse.
RUSTENBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — Since the World Cup draw was staged in December and the United States was placed alongside England, forging one of the tournament’s tastiest matchups, every story line has been exhausted.
It’s the inventors of modern soccer facing the historically backwater upstart. It’s the teams’ first World Cup meeting since the Americans shocked England 60 years ago in Brazil. It’s a collection of U.S. players facing the country that employs many of them in its celebrated professional league, which has a strong following in America.
Six months in the making, the U.S. national team has come to this remote outpost at the base of the Magaliesberg mountains in northern South Africa to play arguably the most anticipated match in its history.
“It’s an unprecedented moment,” U.S. Soccer Federation President Sunil Gulati said. “It’s one of those opportunities you don’t get very often. It’s a dream game.”
There have been more important U.S. games in recent years — against Brazil in the round of 16 in 1994 and Germany in the 2002 quarterfinal, and perhaps the Confederations Cup encounters with Spain and Brazil last year.
But the long wait between the draw in Cape Town and Saturday’s kickoff at Royal Bafokeng Stadium, combined with the deep cultural and political ties between the nations, has stoked the emotions and contributed to heightened awareness in the otherwise soccer-indifferent United States.
“For the last six months, all we have seen is U.S.-England,” midfielder Landon Donovan said. “So if you were a casual sports fan at home, you might think that this was the World Cup final: U.S. versus England.”
Far from it. But beating England would reverberate around the sporting world and help win over casual U.S. observers watching a rare network telecast of soccer.
U.S. players have proved their worth in the famed English Premier League for years, but “if we now can do it on the national team level against them on a big stage, it only takes the ball a little bit further,” Coach Bob Bradley said.
Added Donovan, the U.S. team’s career scoring leader: “Every time we have an opportunity to play, we have an opportunity to grow the sport, and we clearly understand that every four years, that is magnified and multiplied by a lot.”
Compared with past World Cup appearances, the United States does not face a particularly daunting schedule and is widely regarded as the second-best team in its group. It will play Slovenia on Friday and Algeria five days later.
Advancement would help purge memories of their winless performance at the 2006 tournament in Germany. “Everyone thinks we’re an underdog and England has all the pressure,” midfielder Clint Dempsey said. “We have pressure too. We’ve got to advance out of the group.”
The Americans enter the England match bursting with confidence but bracing for one of the world’s finest strikers, Wayne Rooney, and top-class midfielders Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard.
Bradley said his team’s “ability to keep track of [Rooney] and make it hard for him is a very, very important part of what we need to do in order to win.”
Uncertainty about the U.S. backline has added to the challenge. Will Oguchi Onyewu, the 6-foot-4 center back who started in the previous World Cup, receive the nod after not playing all 90 minutes in any of the three tuneups? If not, will Bradley shift assignments in order to fortify the middle?
Other mysteries linger. Will Maurice Edu or Ricardo Clark join Michael Bradley in central midfield, where the Americans will need to disrupt English possession?
Bradley did answer one big question: Forward Jozy Altidore, who suffered a mild ankle sprain last Wednesday, will start — a decision that seems likely to thrust speedster Robbie Findley alongside Altidore.
For the players, after a week of training camp at Princeton, two home friendlies and almost two weeks in South Africa, the England match couldn’t come quickly enough.
“We get tired of kicking each other, we get tired of training,” goalkeeper Tim Howard said. “We are together forever. We are just ready to get it on and see what we are made of. All the talk is over, or soon will be over. We are prepared. We know exactly what type of game we are going to be in — we are under no illusions. It couldn’t be a better challenge than to be the first game for us.”
U.S. note: Twice on Friday, the U.S. team bus had its trip interrupted because an elephant was in the road. For two days, the delegation has stayed at a lodge on the edge of Pilanesberg National Park, 23 miles from Rustenburg.
Soccer is running America into the ground, and there is very little anyone can do about it. Social critics have long observed that we live in a therapeutic society that treats young people as if they can do no wrong. Every kid is a winner, and nobody is ever left behind, no matter how many times they watch the ball going the other way.
Whether the dumbing down of America or soccer came first is hard to say, but soccer is clearly an important means by which American energy, drive, and competitiveness is being undermined to the point of no return.
What other game, to put it bluntly, is so boring to watch? (Bowling and golf come to mind, but the sound of crashing pins and the sight of the well-attired strolling on perfectly kept greens are at least inherently pleasurable activities.)
The linear, two-dimensional action of soccer is like the rocking of a boat but without any storm and while the boat has not even left the dock. Think of two posses pursuing their prey in opposite directions without any bullets in their guns. Soccer is the fluoridation of the American sporting scene.
Let me conclude on a note of despair appropriate to my topic. There is no way to run away from soccer, if only because it is a sport all about running. It is as relentless as it is easy, and it is as tiring to play as it is tedious to watch. The real tragedy is that soccer is a foreign invasion, but it is not a plot to overthrow America.
For those inclined toward paranoia, it would be easy to blame soccer’s success on the political left, which, after all, worked for years to bring European decadence and despair to America. The left tried to make existentialism, Marxism, post-structuralism, and deconstructionism fashionable in order to weaken the clarity, pragmatism, and drive of American culture. What the left could not accomplish through these intellectual fads, one might suspect, they are trying to accomplish through sport.
Yet this suspicion would be mistaken. Soccer is of foreign origin, that is certainly true, but its promotion and implementation are thoroughly domestic. Soccer is a self-inflicted wound. Americans have nobody to blame but themselves. Conservative suburban families, the backbone of America, have turned to soccer in droves.
Baseball is too intimidating, football too brutal, and basketball takes too much time to develop the required skills. American parents in the past several decades are overworked and exhausted, but their children are overweight and neglected. Soccer is the perfect antidote to television and video games. It forces kids to run and run, and everyone can play their role, no matter how minor or irrelevant to the game. Soccer and relevision are the peanut butter and jelly of parenting.
I should know. I am an overworked teacher, with books to read and books to write, and before I put in a video for the kids to watch while I work in the evenings, they need to have spent some of their energy. Otherwise, they want to play with me! Last year all three of my kids were on three different soccer teams at the same time.
My daughter is on a traveling team, and she is quite good. I had to sign a form that said, among other things, I would not do anything embarrassing to her or the team during the game. I told the coach I could not sign it. She was perplexed and worried. “Why not,” she asked? “Are you one of those parents who yells at their kids? “Not at all,” I replied, “I read books on the sidelines during the game, and this embarrasses my daughter to no end.” That is my one way of protesting the rise of this pitiful sport. Nonetheless, I must say that my kids and I come home from a soccer game a very happy family.
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt “Citizenship in a Republic,” Speech – Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
Following the successful rescue of Abby Sunderland by the fishing vessel Ile De La Reunion earlier this evening, arrangements to land Ms Sunderland have been negotiated.
The Ile De La Reunion will proceed to the Kerguelen Islands (a journey of approximately two days), where Ms Sunderland will be transferred to the French Fisheries Patrol Vessel, Osiris.
It is anticipated the Osiris will return to its home port at La Reunion. The distance from Kerguelen Islands to La Reunion is approximately 1800 nautical miles.
12 June 2010 – 8:00pm MEDIA RELEASE
The rescue of 16 year old US solo sailor, Abby Sunderland, from the yacht Wild Eyes to the fishing vessel Ile De La Reunion was successfully conducted at 7:45pm AEST today – approximately 2000 nautical miles off the West Australian coast.
The rescue, coordinated by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s Rescue Coordination Centre – Australia (RCC Australia), was conducted with the support of a Global Express aircraft which provided top cover during the transfer and served as a communications relay between Wild Eyes and the Ile De La Reunion. The crew of the Ile De La Reunion conducted the rescue with a boat launched from the fishing vessel.
RCC Australia has notified Ms Sunderland’s family of the successful rescue. Arrangements to land Ms Sunderland will now be negotiated with the three ships that have responded to the distress situation.
International Maritime Organization guidelines indicate that such arrangements should avoid disruption to commercial shipping as far as possible. Since the fishing vessel would suffer a significant commercial penalty from leaving the fishing grounds, it is possible that Ms Sunderland will be transferred to one of the other two ships. One ship is bound for Australia and the other would likely return to its home port at La Reunion.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority wishes to acknowledge the cooperation of operators and authorities, both national and international, that have worked together to successfully conduct this rescue – these include Maritime RCC La Reunion, Qantas, WA Police, Fire and Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia, Defence and the three ships which are responding.
The Master of the Ile De La Reunion has reported Ms Sunderland is safe and in good health.
12 June 2010 – 10:30am Update
In preparation for the arrival on scene of the fishing vessel Ile De La Reunion anticipated for late this afternoon, RCC Australia has tasked a Global Express aircraft to the scene. This aircraft is planned to arrive at the known position of Wild Eyes at approximately 5.30pm AEST. The aircraft will attempt to regain radio contact with Wild Eyes ahead of the planned rescue.
The position of Wild Eyes continues to be monitored via distress beacon transmission.
Weather in the area has improved slightly with 30-35 knot winds and a 4-5 metre swell.
A further update will be provided this evening.
11 June 2010 – 5:30pm Update
At 12.30pm overall coordination of the search and rescue was transferred to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s Rescue Coordination Centre (known as “RCC Australia”), as the yacht Wild Eyes had drifted into the Australian search and rescue region.
The vessel was located by the QANTAS Airbus just after at 4.00pm (AEST) and radio contact made with Ms Sunderland. She is in reported to be in good spirits. The vessel’s mast has been broken off. Ms Sunderland reports the vessel is not taking any water and will remain safe until a rescue can be completed.
It is planned that the rescue will be conducted by a fishing vessel Ile De La Reunion tomorrow with assistance from other long range aircraft. Another two ships are also proceeding to the scene to arrive on Sunday.
It is possible that Ms Sunderland will be taken to La Reunion, but the precise details will depend on the circumstances facing the rescue vessels later in the weekend.
11 June 2010 – 11:30am Update
Australia is providing air support assistance to a French (La Reunion) coordinated search and rescue in the Indian Ocean for the US yacht Wild Eyes.
US citizen Abby Sunderland (16) sailed from California on 23 January 2010 to circumnavigate the globe in the yacht Wild Eyes. At approximately 1.00 a.m. (Australian Eastern Standard Time) Friday 11 June the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) detected transmissions from two distress beacons registered to Wild Eyes. The detections are currently in position 40 48 South 74 58 East, approximately 2033 nautical miles west south west from Perth in the central southern Indian Ocean. There are currently no communications with Wild Eyes.
The Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre at La Reunion, operated by France, is coordinating the search & rescue response overall as Wild Eyes is in La Reunion’s search and rescue region. Australia offered to assist if required.
La Reunion has requested air search assistance to establish the situation on scene, recognising that the remoteness of the location would delay any ship response. The most rapid means to get an aircraft on scene is to send a QANTAS A-330 Airbus passenger aircraft from Perth. The aircraft should be on scene mid-afternoon Friday 11 June. The aircraft mission will be to attempt to communicate with Ms Sunderland from high level and, if necessary, to descend and make visual contact to assess the circumstances.
La Reunion is coordinating three seaborne responses. A fishing vessel can be on scene on Saturday afternoon, a French Fisheries Patrol vessel can be on scene on Sunday morning, and an offshore support vessel can be there on Sunday evening. Each of the three vessels should be capable of conducting a rescue, subject to prevailing weather conditions.
Sorry I haven’t written in so long as you probably already know I had a pretty rough couple of days. I can’t write much now as I am typing on a french key pad as well as trying to stay seated in a bouncy fishing boat.
The long and the short of it is, well, one long wave, and one short mast (short meaning two inch stub.) I’ll write a more detailed blog later, just wanted to let every one know I am safe and sound on a great big fishing boat headed I am not exactly sure where.
Crazy is the word that really describes everything that has happened best.
Within a few minutes of being on board the fishing boat, I was already getting calls from the press. I don’t know how they got the number but it seems everybody is eager to pounce on my story now that something bad has happened.
There are plenty of things people can think of to blame for my situation; my age, the time of year and many more. The truth is, I was in a storm and you don’t sail through the Indian Ocean without getting in at least one storm. It wasn’t the time of year it was just a Southern Ocean storm. Storms are part of the deal when you set out to sail around the world.
As for age, since when does age create gigantic waves and storms?
I keep hitting the wrong keys and am still trying to get over the fact that I will never see my Wild Eyes again. So Ill write more later.
Abby
VESSEL PARTICULARS:
Name: WILD EYES
Designer: Jutson Yacht design, Australia
Builder: A.S.A. Yachts PTY, Australia
Model: Open 40, solo
Built: 2001
LOA: 40′ / 12.19m
Beam: 11.21′ / 3.41m
Displacement: 7407 lbs. / 3360 Kg.
Ballast: 2094 lbs / 950 Kg.
Tonnage: 16 Gross, 15 Net
Engines: Yanmar – 18hp
HULL, DECK and CABIN
E Glass with Kevlar reinforcement built to IMOCA standards
5 Watertight Compartments with Stern Escape Hatch and Crash Bulkead
Port and Starboard 750 liter Water Ballast Tanks
Keel Trim Tab for Upwind Optimization
Fixed Keel Strut with T Bulb
Galley to Starboard with Propane Stove with Burner, Stainless Steel Sink, Ice Box
MAST and RIGGING
Carbon Spar, Triple Spreader, Stainless Rod Rigging, Jack Mast Stepping System
Anderson Winches
Fredericksen Turning and Fairlead Blocks
Spinlock Clutchs
ProFurl Roller Furling System for Genoas and Staysails
Lazy Jacks
ELECTRONICS
Full Centerline Amidship Navigation Suites with Full Compliment of Electronics for Trans Oceanic Sailing
12 Volt DC and 110 Volt AC Electrical Systems
Battery Parallel Switch
3 Batteries
Inverter
Solar Panels
Two Wind Generators
Two Coursemaster CM850i Hydraulic Autopilots with remote
Deck Mounted and Below Deck Repeaters and Control Heads (includes remote)
Built in Computer Monitor and CPU in Navigation Suite
Raytheon Radar and Chart Plotter
Thrane & Thrane Sailor 250
Permanent SAT Phone Antenna
2 Below Deck Rudder Mounted Hydraulic Auto Pilots (CourseMaster)
Control Heads (with windvane mode)
Fully Integrated with GPS
ICOM M710 SSB Radion and Antenna
Horizon Intrepid VHF and Handheld VHF
Energy Monitor and Controller
BilgAlarm, BA4R-4W, Four Sensor Bilge Alarm System
SAILS
2010 UK Halsey Spectra/Carbon Tape Drive with double-sided taffeta Main
2010 UK Halsey Spectra/Carbon Tape Drive with double-sided taffeta Genoa
Code 0
Storm Jib
2010 UK Halsey Spectra/Carbon Tape Drive with double-sided taffeta Stay Sail
All with Individual Custom Socks
MISCELLANEOUS
Custom Carbon Emergency Rudder and Tiller Cassette
Custom Cradle
Pressure Fresh Water
Hand Held Shower
Diesel Heater
Two Anchors and rode / chain
2 Fresh Water Tanks
COMMENTS
As ” BTC Velocity ” she sailed in and completed the Around Alone 2002 finishing 2nd
2005 and 2007 Bermuda 1-2 (2007 Finished 2nd)
LB Comment: I’m not sure what to make of the above updated links and Mr Martin‘s commentary. Even if “factually correct”, marketing a reality based TV show and writing a book does not take away Abby’s courage and adventurous spirit. For reasons I don’t understand, several media outlets have been attacking this family since day one.
The Ocmulgee River (ok-MUHL-gee) is a tributary of the Altamaha River, approximately 255 mi (410 km) long, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Noted for its relatively unspoiled and gentle current, it provides the principal drainage for a large section of the Piedmont and coastal plain of central Georgia.
It is formed in north central Georgia southeast of Atlanta by the confluence of the Yellow, South, and Alcovy rivers, which join as arms of the Lake Jackson reservoir. It flows southeast past Macon which is its fall line and joins the Oconee from the northwest to a form the Altamaha near Lumber City.
Downstream from Lake Jackson the river flows freely and is considered relatively unspoiled among the rivers of the region. Its low gradient of approximately 1 ft/mile (24 cm/km) give it wide and peaceful current along most of its course and make it popular destination for canoeing. It receives treated wastewater from 13 facilities along its course. The river is a popular destination for catfishing and bass fishing.
The banks of the river were inhabited by the Mississippian culture between the 10th and 12th centuries. The river passes the remnants of several prehistoric Native American villages at Ocmulgee National Monument in Macon. In 1540 Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto traversed the region and baptized Native American converts in the river. In the 18th century, the Hitchiti, later part of the Creek Indian confederation, lived near present-day Macon in Ocmulgee Fields. The name of the river probably comes from a Hitchiti phrase oki mulgis meaning “bubbling water”.
In 1806, the U.S. acquired the area between the Oconee and Ocmulgee from the Creek Indians by the First Treaty of Washington. That same year United States Army established Fort Benjamin Hawkins overlooking the Ocmulgee Fields. In 1819 the Creek Indians held their last meeting at Ocmulgee Fields. In the same year, the McCall brother established a barge-building operation at Macon. The first steamboat arrived on the river in 1829.
During the 19th century, the river provided the principal water navigation route for Macon, allowing the development of the cotton industry in the surrounding region. In 1842 the river was connected by railroad to Savannah. The river froze from bank to bank in 1886. In 1994 devastating floods on the river after heavy rains caused widespread damage around Macon.
Archaeologists have collected evidence of an unbroken chain of civilization in the Ocmulgee River basin dating from the Ice Age migration of humans across North America. Between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, nomadic Paleoindian hunters moved southeastward across the continent into Georgia, leaving behind scraping tools and flint spearpoints in the Ocmulgee floodplain.
Archaic hunter-gatherers in the river basin (ca. 8000-1000 B.C.) used a distinctive fiber-tempered pottery and different types of stone tools, where later earthen mounds and sherds of elaborately marked pottery mark the locations of Woodland Period villages (ca. 1000 B.C.-A.D. 900). Mississippian culture appears to have arrived at the Ocmulgee River basin around A.D. 900. On the Macon plateau and in the nearby Ocmulgee bottomlands, stretches of farmsteads and gardens constructed around elaborate ceremonial mounds are the most prominent evidence of this early Mississippian influence. The Ocmulgee National Monument, founded in 1936 and operated by the National Park Service, preserves these mounds.
European Exploration
Europeans first reached the Ocmulgee River in 1540, when Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto’s expedition came to Ichisi, a late Mississippian chiefdom that archaeologists now locate on the floodplain south of Macon. By the mid-seventeenth century, however, the Indians who had fed de Soto’s party on corncakes, wild onions, and roasted venison had been devastated by disease and social disruption and had disappeared from the region.
By 1690 English traders from the Carolinas had established a post adjoining the “Okmulgee town” on the river’s east bank, near present-day Macon. Spreading inland from Charles Town (later, Charleston), South Carolina, to the Ocmulgee region, the English found various settlements of loosely affiliated tribes. One group, the Hitchiti-speaking Okmulgees, lived in towns scattered between the Towaliga River and Walnut Creek. In the Hitchiti language Okmulgee means “where water boils up,” and it was generally thought to have referred to the big springs at Indian Springs.
The word first appears in Spanish accounts of an Apalachicola town on the Chattahoochee River, however, and some historians argue that it referred not to the river in central Georgia but to the waters of the Chattahoochee, from whose banks the Okmulgee Indians had migrated northeastward earlier in the seventeenth century. To the Okmulgees the river was known as Ochese-hatchee, or Ochese Creek, which in turn spawned the name that the English traders gave the confederation of tribes—the “Creek people” or Creeks.
Eighteenth-Century Settlers
On the eighteenth-century frontier, trade drew the Creeks and whites closer together and land claims ripped them apart. In the Yamasee War of 1715, Carolinian soldiers destroyed Okmulgee Town and drove out its inhabitants. When General James E. Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia in 1733, he managed, through negotiations with the Creek chiefs, to settle the immediate Georgia coast in relative peace. Yet Oglethorpe’s Royal grant had proposed that colonial expansion could proceed inland as far as the Ocmulgee River, regardless of the Creeks’ claims to the land, and although the whites’ pressures to settle Georgia’s interior abated somewhat, they never disappeared.
As the end of the Revolutionary War (1775-83) brought new overland migrations from Virginia and the Carolinas, the new state of Georgia obtained concessions to Creek tribal lands up to the Oconee River, and the U.S. government continued placing forts and trading houses in Creek territory bordering the Ocmulgee. With the 1805 Treaty of Washington, the Ocmulgee River became the southwestern boundary of the United States. Finally, in successive treaties signed at Indian Springs, the Creeks first ceded lands west of the Ocmulgee to the Flint River (1821), and then were forced to give up the rest of their lands in Georgia (1825).
Nineteenth-Century River Traffic and Trade
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, wagon and stagecoach trails followed the old Indian trails along the Ocmulgee, linking settlements and frontier forts like Fort Hawkins along the east bank. By the 1820s numerous ferry landings linked settlements in the newly opened western territories with principal roads from Monticello, Clinton, and Milledgeville (the new state capital) on the Upper Ocmulgee, and from Marion, Hartford, and Jacksonville on the lower leg.
Commercial river navigation of this era depended upon log rafts loaded down with field and farm produce and guided by pole-handling crews who rode their lumber “down to Darien,” where it could be sold to sawmills. These raftsmen played a major role in Georgia’s economy, yet their story survives primarily through rafting folklore. As cotton production expanded into the rich Lower Ocmulgee bottomlands, steamboat navigation offered the fastest route to coastal markets.
Because the river was frequently narrow and winding, and unnavigably shallow in the dry months, however, it had never been particularly well suited to commercial boat traffic. The best that steamboats could do in the 1820s was to make the trip partway from the coast and transfer their goods to poleboats, which could be pushed the rest of the way to Macon by slaves.
The first steamboat reached Macon in 1829, and the first commercial steamboat to make the full Darien-to-Macon run arrived in 1833. In late 1835 three steamboat companies operated on the river, and by the end of the decade there was a steady flow of traffic transporting cotton and lumber to the markets of Savannah and Darien from the wharves of Macon, Hawkinsville, Abbeville, Jacksonville, and Lumber City, and from the river landings of prosperous Ocmulgee River plantations.
With the building of the railroads in the late 1830s and early 1840s, the Ocmulgee’s importance for shipping cotton traffic from its rich bottomlands to the coast dwindled. The lobby for channel improvements and proposed canals was diverted to the raising of capital for the railways, and the first great era of Ocmulgee River traffic was all but over by 1847-48, when barely 1 percent of Macon’s cotton shipments to Savannah were by boat.
What the rails took away from the river in cotton, they would return in part in pine trees. In the Ocmulgee region below the Hawkinsville-Dublin road, longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forests thrived in the wiregrass belt, and in the mid-eighteenth century the lumber industry found that these “yellow” or “Georgia” pines provided the perfect substitute for the now-depleted northern white pine. In the immediate post–Civil War (1861-65) period, the destruction of the central Georgia railroads by Union general William T. Sherman’s army meant that the river again became an important means of commercial transportation, particularly for the independent lumber manufacturers, who did not have a great deal of capital.
The rebuilding of the railways fed the timber and naval stores industries in the Oconee basin by bringing in equipment for cutting, milling, and turpentine distillation. River traffic remained the cheaper, more available means of transportation for many sawmillers and turpentine men. Each year between 1870 and 1900, steamboats again regularly traveled the Ocmulgee laden with cotton bales, although their major cargo by now was barrels of rosins and gum spirits.
In 1889 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported nine steamboats running regularly on routes originating at Hawkinsville, Abbeville, and Lumber City. Meanwhile, thousands of raft runners from the Ocmulgee-Oconee region made the downriver journey in ways not too different from their pioneer predecessors, “drifting” bunches of hewn timbers out of the river-basin swamps and creeks and then tying them together to make the 175-foot-long rafts they guided downriver.
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