Saturday, June 30, 2012

Das Boot

We own a boat!  (Boot is the word for boat in German, hence the blog title).  Well, maybe a tandem sea kayak is not exactly a boat, but it is an ocean-going craft.  We are excited about this.  We borrowed a kayak from our neighbor just to try it out, and we got hooked.  Sea kayaks can be quite pricey though, so we waited and kept looking for used ones at yard sales aand such.  We finally found this one.  It came with back rests and two really nice paddles.   
It is an older model, but it does stay afloat - at least so far. It has several dings and scrapes, but that is ok because our little stretch of ocean is shallow, has a big reef, and lots of concrete pyramid-shaped pylons.  You can see some of them here, sticking up out of the water.  The pyramids were placed all along the shoreline during WWII as a defense against submarines.  Afterwards, a number of them were gathered up and sort of dumped in our area.  At high tide all of them are under water and they are hard to see, but we mostly have managed to avoid them. 
Even though the pyramids make kayaking a little tricky, we don't mind having them here because they provide a wonderful habitiat for spectacular fish like these, and lots of other sea creatures.


ALOHA

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2 comments:

  1. Heather C.July 30, 2012 at 12:47 AM

    Very cool! Can't wait for you to show us around in it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Heather C.August 19, 2012 at 12:49 AM

    I know a certain Brüder who is going to want to play around in that Boot!

    ReplyDelete

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Sunday, July 26 2009

Sunday, July 26 2009
Remember this sign?
We have learned something really interesting about this "welcome sign" which we thought was a big billboard that was pasted onto an old overpass. It turns out that this is a defensive emplacement known as a rock drop. It is a big concrete box full of rubble and rocks. In the event of an invasion by North Korea the panels underneath the drop will be opened and release the rubble across the roadway, hampering movement into South Korea.

SOLAR ECLIPSE!

SOLAR ECLIPSE!
Might look like the moon - but it's the sun!
On Wednesday July 22 Asia experienced a solar eclipse and we got to see it! Miraculously the expected day of monsoon rain did not materialize and the sky was mostly clear for the duration. During the eclipse, which occured around 11:00 a.m., the sun was much too bright to view directly - we had to be satisfied with reflected images. But, as the sun began to re-appear, just enough clouds came in to allow us to look - and take a picture. It was quite something to behold and we feel lucky for the opportunity.

On A Clear Day...

On A Clear Day...
We had 2 days of church meetings in the Seoul area. Today the weather was remarkably clear and I was able to get a great view of the city skyline and the radio tower. Usually the sky is too hazy for a view like this. Pollution, rain, high humidity or dust storms are contributing factors.