Introducing Rugby to the Congers

Time to Become Kiwis
Uploaded by Toastfloats

Rugby is the national sport of New Zealand. Sure, they play many sports here. In fact, New Zealand as a country produces world class athletes in any number of sports, not to mention the fact that if a sport is bat shit crazy, it was probably invented here (e.g. bungee jumping, zorbing, jet boating, and jogging). But if you ask the average Kiwi, “What is the national sport?” I suspect most would say rugby.

Prior to coming here, my impression of rugby was a rough and tumble sport played by strapping young men in Ivy League prep schools on green fields in the Northeast. Like polo or lacrosse, it felt distant, not a sport for real people but rather something celebrated amongst old money families in tony locations not accessible to the rest of us. Of the rules or method of play, I knew next to nothing. If I thought about it, I might have speculated that the sport was something like a cross between soccer and smear the queer – a game whose offensively politically incorrect name provides the all the insight necessary into the basic rules. I liked the shirts, though. I remember my favourite purchase from the college clothing shop at Berkeley was a blue and gold rugby shirt emblazoned with a Cal Bear. That thing wore like iron and lasted forever.

Real rugby, the rugby played by everyone outside the United States, is nothing like what I thought. It’s something like proto-football crossed with soccer and spiced with a bit of WWF. The players are HUGE, incredibly fast, strong, and indestructible. The play is rapid and exciting. The rules are utterly baffling when they are not simply amusing: “Penalty: Not removing hand during maul.” Perhaps most importantly, many of the guys are drop-dead gorgeous and without all the padding of American football, you can actually see them.

Watching rugby requires first that you learn an entirely new vocabulary. Scrum, maul, lineout, knock on, ruck, sevens, try, set piece.,, There are so many terms that English as a Second Language sites often include a separate rugby word list. For Americans, it also requires a willing suspension of disbelief. In this case, you must accept that no lawyers are ever going to have an opportunity to bring a suit in any court regarding any aspect of the game. Ever.

Because if the lawyers got involved, the game would cease to exist. Basically, you take a lot of very large, very muscular, very fast men, hand them an oblong ball, and say, “Go. Just… GO.” You can throw the ball (which is done a lot in underhanded tosses which look very odd to devotees of basketball or American football), run with the ball, or kick the ball (a risky manoeuvre due to its peculiar shape). You can jump on an opposing team member trip him, slam into him, and even grab him by the balls and twist hard (as long as no one is looking). Basically, the only thing you can’t do to the other guy is throw him in the air. The rules book is long, complicated, and even the most experienced commentators and players frequently look at the referees in blank incomprehension when a call is made.

For those just getting started, the two basic plays are “lateral the ball until you can find a break in the opposing line” followed by “slam into the other guy and then all pile on top of one another.” There is something like a drop kick which is used frequently to move the ball down to the other end of the field and something like a punt which somehow sometimes inexplicably results in a score. They also have this bizarre bit where the “don’t throw the other guy in the air” rule is suspended while players throw their own team members into the air to catch the ball coming into the field in what looks like a variation on a basketball jump ball.

Kau Laka! [Let's Parade!]
Uploaded by tokisioamerica

Never mind the rules, rugby is seriously fun to watch. We are completely hooked. DrC and I watched a few games during our first year in New Zealand, but we became real fans during the 2011 Rugby World Cup. On our arrival to Tonga, we were greeted by a sea of red and white clad cheering Tongan fans. Tonga played New Zealand for the opening game… in Auckland. With New Zealand hosting the World Cup this year, we were torn: root for our future home or for our present anchorage. This decision was made quickly when we discovered that the entire country essentially shut down for the day to decorate the streets, parade around, and hold massive, noisy parties absolutely everywhere. Prudence dictated that we wear the red and white of Tonga for the night. We watched the game with a bursting crowd of screaming Tongas, ex-pat Kiwis, and bewildered American cruisers at a bar on the water front where we drank beer and took in the Opening Ceremony. Tongans were so proud of their team yet so gracious as the All Blacks inevitably beat the crap out of the Tongan team.

After that, it was all rugby all the time. We caught the USA vs. Russia game during which we handed the Ruski’s their heads. Oh, yes… we too were surprised that the U.S. even fields a rugby team, let alone one capable of qualifying for the World Cup. We watched Tonga beat Canada and then were absolutely delighted to watch Tonga go on to beat France. Everyone should have a chance to beat the French at something. It’s good for morale. Not so good for our spirits was the depressing Australia vs. USA game during which we were reminded that all the big guys in the States gravitate to football leaving the rugby team about half the size of their Oz opponents.

We arrived in Auckland the day before the final game: New Zealand vs France. You have no idea how horrible it would have been for New Zealand to lose that game. The entire country has been in a fever of All Blacks All the Time for over a year, the tension building to an intensity that bordered on a psychosis. The game was a nail-biter, and in all honesty; The French won. They played better. The score, however, was in the All Blacks favour so the entire country stopped biting our nails, sat back, drank another Tui, and started arguing over whether or not Richie McCaw deserves a knighthood.

Now we have to pick a home team. Like everything else with rugby, we’re completely bewildered. There are rugby teams and leagues all over everywhere. Hard to know where to start, but I suspect we’ll try to find the AA version of rugby where we can afford the tickets and don’t have to go to far to watch a game. My Kiwi friends tell me it’s a better game when you can see what’s going on away from the cameras. And you can smell the blood…

A Long Way Down the Road

Waiting It Out
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

"Are we there yet?"

This isn't the first time I've been asked this question during our long journey from La Paz to Auckland. The journey started at 08:30 Wednesday and concludes 17:00 Friday somewhere south of New Zealand's capital. Even though this family has been able to literally travel 1,000s of nautical miles without getting bored, you can't expect everyone to display the same creative thought processes while sitting on their ass in an airplane.

"No," I reply. "We are not there yet."

It feels like we are never going to arrive. We left Casa Buena in La Paz with Dario of Ballena early after a quick breakfast. It was almost heartbreaking listening to the morning net for the last time. It was more wrenching to chase kitty down and stuff her into her box. Box life, however, didn't last long. We climbed into the truck and headed off jammed cheek by jowl by whisker for a four hour drive to Cabo San Lucas Airport. It should have taken just under three, but we got lost. DrC detoured us briefly to Bahia de Los Muertos.

"I'm bored."

The plane left almost immediately from Cabo… since obviously we were late. We only paid an extra $USD300 for the bags and the cat. All in all, a bit less than I had anticipated. The first flight was a three hour American Airlines cattle call during which we were provided with absolutely no amenities. AA now charges $3 for a bag of airplane peanuts. While everyone was friendly at the airport, our stewardess was a first class snippy bitch, and it really sucks to not even get a pretzel for our troubles.

"Of course you are bored. Read a book."

"I read my book."

LAX would have been a five hour exercise in twiddling our thumbs except we had to take care of Dulci. We gave her a chance to do her kitty business first. Don't let anyone tell you LA doesn't have any grass. There is a lovely patch of fake Dog Park grass next to the terminal. Dulci didn't particularly like it, however, and chose to cross her legs until we walked her over to the scrabbly bushes away from the dog smell. I then hustled her off in a cab to Alaska Airlines cargo where I said a tearful goodbye. Then it was back to the terminal… two miles on foot. The walking actually felt good, but as I was a bit pressed for time and starving, it made me more than a little bit cranky.

"Read another one."

"I don't have another one."

We had a really nice but absurdly expensive dinner at the airport in Los Angeles. The food was expensive… the beers were $9.40 each. What the pho? Unbelievable. Fortunately, we were paying in miscellaneous US change that we'd somehow accumulated over the years. Nearly 20 pounds and $70 of it. I'm sure the waitstaff were cursing us as we left, but there you go. It was time to climb on to our VAustralia Airbus where we were finally treated like customers rather than cargo. We were fed and watered… the first alcoholic beverage is free… and made as comfortable as possible for the 13 hour flight.

"Watch a movie."

"I've already watched three movies. I don't want to watch a movie."

This is a plausible claim. The international Airbus trips offer modern interactive entertainment systems which are really quite amazing. There were literally 100s of movies, TV shows and documentaries to choose from. I started with intellectually stimulating bits about the oceans, New Zealand, and international relations then moved on to a nicely acted chick flick. Then, as my brains leaked out my ears and my soul trailed increasingly far behind the plane, I switched to Harry Potter. This proved too intellectually challenging so I switched to the hopelessly nonsensical and plotless Transformers 2.

I take a deep breath, "Play a game."

"Will you play chess with me?"

DrC and Friend
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

We transferred in Sydney from VAustralia to Emirates. Emirates perks are even more pleasant and thorough than VAustralia. I can recommend without any reservation Emirates and will actively try to get booked on Virgin, Virgin affiliates and Emirates flights in the future. If at all possible, I will never take another US carrier anywhere in the world again. On our giganormous Airbus 380 Emirates, the food was outstanding, the service friendly and helpful, and the liquor altogether free. I know you are not supposed to drink, but we had a nice red wine with our chicken korma anyway. Screw it.

"I can't play chess. My brain is numb. Challenge Jaime to game of Pong, why don't you?" Having absolutely had it, I turn to look my seatmate directly in the eye and say in my most matronly, unequivocal mommy voice, "Now shut up. I mean it, Dean. Just shut up. Your boredom is not my problem."

TechTip: Listen to a Book

Short Answer
Since good English language books are hard to find outside of English speaking countries, and you can’t read anyway when you are on watch, download and listen to an audio book from Audible.com.

Long Story
We on Don Quixote have heard too many horror stories of nit wits who set a course on the autopilot, walking away to read, watch a movie, have sex, or take a nap. So we are very careful. Someone is always sitting the helm watching the instruments and the horizon no matter how benign the conditions. If the seas are fairly large or it is the middle of the night, the primary helm is either DrC or myself. However, if the seas are relatively light, there is no significant traffic, or we’re doing rotating night watches, we’ll put one of the girls on the helm. All three can man the helm for at least a half an hour, and Jaime is capable of a full three hour watch. Even a half hour in the middle of the night can do wonders to rest your crew.

However, I have two problems as a sailor on the helm: I get bored easily, and I have a short attention span and get bored easily. No seriously. It’s horrible. I absolutely can not sit still on the helm, particularly on those fortunate days when Mr. Auto Pilot is ably running the show. My solution is podcasts and audio books.

Now if you listen to podcasts already, the rest of this blog is redundant. Audible.com is not only the leading provider of spoken word entertainment, but it is the single largest sponsor of podcasts on the Internet. Audible sponsors pretty much all my favorite podcasters including TWiT, Slate, and the Science Channel.

We download so many hours of free podcasts, it’s a wonder we have time to listen to yet more content. But if even the incredible wealth of free material is insufficient... for example if you are sailing to the South Pacific... then I recommend that you join Audible.com and start downloading books. They are not cheap. I don’t care how many times I hear about how you can get a free book or that it only costs $14.99 per month, that still seems expensive to me. A fifteen dollar book is expensive. On the other hand, an audio book can mean 15 to 30 hours of entertainment which when contrasted with a movie is not a bad price at all. This is also a great way to get best sellers which are otherwise completely inaccessible to a cruiser traveling in distant ports.

To sign up for an Audible account, browse to http://www.audible.com. You can get a code for a free month on sponsored podcasts such as the ones I mentioned above as well as many others. Just check their feeds.

As the sponsored ‘casters so often do when talking about Audible, I shall also include in my endorsement of Audible.com a recommendation of an Audible book. I am currently listening to David Sedaris read his own collection of essays Me Talk Pretty One Day. There is no question this book is better read by the author. Other books which sound better delivered by the author include Steve Martin’s autobiography Born Standing Up, Jon Stewart’s America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction, and John Hodgeman’s great sequel More Information Than You Require.

Chummy Today
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Audio books can make a long boring watch pass quickly. They enable a sailor to learn while contemplating the horizon and go a long ways towards easing the difficulty of staying awake through those graveyard shift anchor watches during a strong norther. Hitting a single freighter in the middle of the night would cost far more than a few years’ worth of Audible books. So arguably, it makes Audible a sound economic investment.

Attention Span of a Housefly

My Helm Toys
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

I suffer from attention deficit split disorder (ADSDO, pronounced “ads do”). This is not a real syndrome; it is not recognized by the medical establishment. In fact, the term was coined by Mera. It is a mental pathology that manifests itself in an inability to do only one thing at a time. When my girls are working on math while simultaneously listening to Weird Al, painting their toenails orange and blue, and finger knitting, they explain that ADSDO is an inherited disease -- they get it from their mother.

The parent in me wants to scream in frustration, “Get your schoolwork done. FOCUS!” However, the unschooler wannabe idealist angel sitting on my other shoulder is smug. The girls are apparently reasonably well versed in the concepts of genetics and inheritance as well as the role of genes in disease. After a brief familial tussle in which I insist all three prove they can spell ADSDO and use it correctly in a sentence, I give up the struggle with only a token intervention in the form of putting towels under the nails.

Actually, my ADSDO is probably an adaptation to a mild form of the real thing -- attention hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Back in the days before ritalin, bright kids with no ability to focus in class were tracked into either one of two programs: Semi-Permanent Detention or Mentally Gifted Minds. I found it peculiarly appropriate that at my elementary school, the detention hall shared the same room with the MGM program. From the distance of 30 years, I can see that the room should have had a sign warning teachers -- Abandon Patience All Ye Who Enter Here. It was the room for children who simply couldn’t be wrapped up, set in a row, and expected to sit still until recess.

Yet the traits that made me such a miserably poor excuse for an elementary student were also the very attributes of my personality which made me a highly successful manager: adaptive context switching, multi-threading, laser focus for brief periods of high intensity effort followed by intuitive decision making and moving on without regret or self-contemplation. In algebra, they accused me of cheating because I “skipped the steps” and simply wrote down the answer. In college, they took off points for “failure to show your work.” In business, they promoted me and gave me more people to manage... proving once again that academic success is a poor way to identify quality employees.

Problematically, the cruising life doesn’t offer enough things to do simultaneously to satisfy my housefly brain. In fact, traveling by sail for hundreds of miles is proving tantamount to locking me in a small white box, removing all the sharp objects, and playing an elevator version of Smells Like Teen Spirit. I can almost handle the monotony while motoring. I line my toys up on the helm: GPS, radar, chart plotter, cruising manual, anemometer, VHF radio, knot meter, and depth sounder. Then I pull out my iPod chock o'block full of podcasts and audio books as well as a pencil and book of sudoku. Between the steady stream of info bits, the logical complexity of the puzzle at the Avanzado and Experto levels, and a regular scan of instruments and horizon, my brain almost settles into a peaceful steady state.

However, the whole strategy falls apart when the seas are running high. First off, DrC likes to take the helm when we've got big wind and big wave in combination. He does this primarily because he likes to sail. He really enjoys it. He enjoys it more when everything is slightly edgy, big and heavy, weather helm and slop making the auto-pilot a dicey proposition and manually steering pretty much a necessity. So I get booted off the helm and into the salon.

Then we get to the second problem which is with the boat rolling around like a marble on a wooden maze game, my stomach and my head begin a futile tussle for dominance. The longer we're out, of course, the less this is a problem. However, after months in the dock, traveling on land, and in the Sea of Cortez where waves in the anchorages barely top the ankles, my stomach recently has been winning more frequently than not. Which means that the only safe activity I can engage in without the imminent threat of vomit is staring at the horizon contemplating the coming Zombie Apocalypse while slowly chain nibbling saltines.

Key Equipment
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

And here's the thing about zombies... they are actually quite challenging to kill. So while I sit there staring at the churning seas and listening to my husband delightedly humming along to Dazed and Confused, I attempt to make good use of my time identifying the many ways in which we can remove zombie heads and annihilate the remains in a blazing fire. Lest you think this would be quickly resolved, I challenge you to figure out how to do it north of La Paz where there appears to be not a single flammable plant. There's nothing but rocks and cactus. My daughters burned their school books the other night in order to roast marshmallows. Or how about on the high seas? If you were boarded by zombies, I think you could probably take the heads off with a well aimed fishing knife or a very firm swing of an oar, but what about burning the bodies? Where? How? With what? Note to non-nauticals: Diesel is not flammable.

This important contemplation of theoretical physics consumes my time for say... fifteen minutes... and then I face roughly six more hours till we pull into our anchorage. I swear to god I am going to go out of my fl*in mind.

Questions from the Class - Honored Guests

There's Always Room
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Keet asks, “If you're preparing a meal on the boat for honored guests, what do you make?”

If you cruise at all, you know that what you make when guests are aboard is whatever you currently have stored in lockers in sufficient quantity that you can serve that many people. Sometimes, you do something really nice for friendly fellow boaters. Sometimes, you’re lucky to find stale pretzels. It depends a great deal on how long it has been since the last provisioning stop.

The cruiser culture is amazingly generous and open. People share everything when necessity requires. Socializing is lubricated with shared food and beverages. The trick is not to have something really special -- the trick is just to have something to share. A bag of chips, a box of crackers, a hand made dip, a fresh baked loaf of bread with butter, or a cabbage slaw salad to add to the fish someone else supplies.

If you are just getting started in the cruising life, I encourage you to take these steps:

Guest Food -- Keep a box or locker of foods that you pull out only when you have a guest aboard. For example, I keep a spice cake mix and can of pumpkin at all times so I can throw together breakfast muffins. I always have a bag of chips and a jar of salsa that are off limits as well. Cream cheese keeps for weeks in the refrigerator, so I maintain a supply of dried herbs and a box of crackers which I can throw together when needed.

Signature Drink -- Do not underestimate the value of creating your own boat’s signature drink. Once you’ve selected the drink, always always ALWAYS have the ingredients in stock. For Don Quixote’s drink recipe, see Stormy Sunset.

Pot Dinner -- In contrast with pot luck, pot dinner is a recipe you can make in large quantity in your pressure cooker. Make sure you have at least one recipe for which the majority of ingredients are dried or cured. Like your guest food, you save these ingredients until either the last few days before you provision or for the night you come into an anchorage to see a boat you haven’t visited with in four weeks. The pot dinner recipe should be something you can throw into the pot and pressure cook for a half hour while the rest of the family is frantically scraping sand and hair out of the cockpit. Ours is a tomato basil soup which I’ll write up as my next cooking idea.

Note to cruiser dreamers: It takes about a half hour for any boat to roust out their own offering, wrestle it into the dingy and row over to your boat. Any cruiser who manages this maneuver more rapidly is not a good guest. We all need time to hide the dirty underwear.

Bottles of Wine -- The other side to this equation is what do you bring when invited. Of course Guest Food can travel either way; You serve it or you take it to another boat. You can’t nip to the nearest liquor store on your way to a fellow anchored vessel, however, so stock up. Cheap is fine, just make sure you have conveniently stashed away a good half dozen “guest bottles” you can grab when you go visiting.

Portable Dishware -- Nobody ships out with enough glasses, plates, and utensils for guests. When you visit other boats, take your own dishware as well as your shared food. If you are new to the boat, you won’t be expected to help with clean up. Just take your dirties with you. I recommend a sturdy, plastic carrying bag for this purpose that you can sluice out after visits. We use a two dollar variety available from Ikea. If you are visiting a buddy boat -- and thus routinely meet up for breakfasts, hikes, dinners, and other adventures -- you should ease your way into helping with after meal clean up. Some galley chefs will fend you off, others welcome your assistance. Play it by ear.

Remember Your Ratio -- We have five mouths to feed. Most boats we visit have considerably fewer. As a result, we contribute proportionately to shared meals. Remember, most cruisers have a well thought out plan to provision the boat from Point A to Point B. Particularly if you are in a zone with “next services 2 weeks”, we all have enough food aboard to feed our family for the duration and not a great deal more. It is rude to eat two days of another boat’s rations.

* *

s/v Walking on Water
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

The solitude of cruising pristine waters and private coves is, in my opinion, a greatly overrated commodity. The most satisfying part of cruising for our crew is the experiences shared with fellow boaters of beach walks, muddy hikes, more or less successful fishing days, and wine soaked sunsets at anchor. A crew who provisions with an eye towards enticing the boat next door opens themselves to an infinite variety of enjoyable moments.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' (Electronic) Toys

Cross Between a Ouiji Board and Scrabble
Originally uploaded by sammy baby.

A few weeks ago, the owner of a beautiful Norhaven powerboat in our marina ordered a minion over to dump every personal good onto the dock in the name of a remodel. The worth of this nautical trash was roughly that of the annual GDP of a mid-sized Caribbean island. Fortunately, the minion could not bear to see this haul simply dumped into the garbage and hauled off to a land fill. He asked and received permission to leave the entire lot next to the dumpster for a day to let the seagulls and liveaboards scavenge.

We carted off at least a thousand dollars worth of additional stuff to sink our boat. Among the prizes were a dozen really nice plastic containers, four fishing rods complete with reels, and two Canon Powershot cameras including one underwater case. For the girls, the biggest prize was two Nintendo Gameboys.

To put this treasure in perspective, it is important to note that the girls do not have any game boxes, cubes, computers, or hand helds. Our only computer games are of the Jump Start/Chessmaster variety. It's not that Dr C and I are morally, ethically or religiously opposed to video games. In fact, the girls and I played World of Warcraft for a year with the consistency and dedication of novitiates in a nunnery. While Aeron only managed a level 14 priest, Jaime was up in the 40s hunter and I had a mid-60 shaman before boredom set in.*

We simply do not have the money. We do not have the space. And, it turns out, we do not have the inclination. For two days, the girls did nothing but play with those Gameboys. Actually, they did one other thing – they argued over whose turn it was to play with the Gameboy since we only found two and mathematically it just wasn't working out.

And then the arguing stopped. In fact, the Gameboys stopped. They didn't stop functioning... I actually tested one to make sure. No, they simply stopped using them. One got kicked under a seat, the other was lost in Jaime's capacious purse. No one cared. Now, I'll occasionally see one of them pull out a pair of headphones and start messing around with a controller, but for the most part, the Gameboy phase is officially over.

Which totally justifies my refusal to buy these things. The girls have never grown out of the mode wherein the packaging has more entertainment value than the present.

The behavioral arc with television is roughly the same. The day they show up at their grandparents, it is impossible to extricate them from the TV. They are stuck to it like starfish to a dock piling, all eight arms wrapped around the device with super glue strength. You can pry off one long arm with a wrench and a champagne cork pop only to find all previously detached limbs whipping around the base with renewed force.

So I don't even try. Because after about 48 hours of this, the girls get bored. They drift out of the TV room with glazed eyes and drool on their chins, grab a handful of Oreo cookies, and disappear outside. For the rest of the visit, they may be found watching a Disney channel movie or Nic @ Nite for a few hours before bedtime, but largely the cable industry has lost its hold on my children.

Attack of the Thing
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

The power of electronic toys to take over the intellectual lives of our selves and our children can be broken – and broken permanently. Remove them from your life but do not make them forbidden. Simply don't buy them. Don't bring them into the house. When the kids get access, they will play for awhile with this otherwise inaccessible distraction. But video games, Disney reruns, and the Wii are simply not as fun as play. Nothing, in fact, is as fun as play.

And you can't really play with something that doesn't play back. We don' need no stinkin' electronic toys. Just give us the real thing, two hours of parental neglect, and a handful of like-minded kids. Welcome to the next level.

* Of course, all Horde. I'm surprised you'd have to ask.

TechTip: Entertainment Outside the Box

Short Story
With our long passages and passionate desire to avoid spending money, free mind candy is a necessity. Podcasting offers a way to get your content when you want it, how you want it. Use iTunes to manage your podcast subscriptions and download all that stuff with a single click.

Long Version
I can think of probably five dozen reasons why you don't want to buy music and videos. Let's just do a top five:

1. It costs money
2. It takes up valuable stowage space
3. It has to be shipped from a home port
4. You might not like it once it arrives
5. Did I mention that it costs money?

I hate paying for anything I can get for free. And with the Internet the way it is today, you can get more free content, LEGALLY, today than you could two decades ago commercially. I repeat legally, because while I can tell you all sorts of things about how to get illegal content like the latest movie release or Cold Play album, I don't do it. Seriously. I make a living distributing Creative Commons licensed content on the Internet and I don't steal.

But mostly, I don't steal because I don't need to. People all over the world are putting together great shows – audio and video – that you can download to your laptop computer for free. These distributions go by a variety of names: podcasting, netcasting, RSS feeds. All you really need to know at this point is iTunes.

iTunes is an application distributed by Apple, Inc. to support its infamously prolific iPods. You can download iTunes for free from Apple. It doesn't require the purchase of an Apple product, and it is available for both Windows and Mac devices. The instructions to install this software are straightforward. If you want to purchase any content from Apple, make sure that you set yourself up with an Apple account during the installation process.

A Peek at iTunes
Uploaded by toastfloats

This article really isn't about iTunes, however. iTunes is just the first – and probably the easiest – of applications that let you gather your podcast subscriptions in one place and download them automagically. This article is about the podcasts themselves.

Now let me repeat this important bit of information: just because we call them podcasts does NOT mean you need an iPod. Podcasts are music or video files regularly distributed by some artist or news organization. In fact, podcasts are free music or video files regularly distributed by nobodies like you and me as well as luminaries like National Public Radio. A quick peek at my own iTunes podcast subscription list shows some of the variety of content available. You can subscribe to music channels, news, humor, even books on tape.

To get you sailors out there started, I recommend the following sailing-related podcasts as a place to start your free media consumption: PodcastAway, from the catamaran Dos Gatos currently sailing in the Pacific, and Distant Shores hosted by sailing authors Paul and Sheryl Shard. If you are a news junky and miss your daily fix, cruise the NPR feeds. They break them down by topic: business, technology, environment. I enjoy getting the weekend shows such as the Lake Woebegone stories of Prairie Home Companion and This American Life. Those traveling with children MUST subscribe to WNYC's Radio Lab and the Best of YouTube.

A Closer Look
Uploaded by toastfloats

iTunes tracks which podcasts have been downloaded and which have been read. When you shlep your laptop to an Internet cafe or locate the nearest WiFi hotspot, fire up iTunes. It will check the podcast providers, download all the new episodes, and delete all the ones you have listened to. This may take some time, but it can run while you are busy with other Internet chores such as posting your photos or sending email to your family back home.

After you disconnect, you will motor back to your sailing home, your laptop full of entertaining goodness for the next long spell in the middle of beautiful nowhere.