Monday, October 29, 2012

Sailing Nautilus

It's Nautilus time. Woohooo. I walked down to the pier at Tradewinds, rezzed my brand new Nautilus mini sub. Then I jumped on board, started the engines and headed south. I'll show you why in a minute; Here's me taking off:
Heading south, course set for Eliades
It was a beautiful day to go sailing; I crossed the startline in Siracusa and for a minute there I really felt more like Fun Fizzin. Then I pressed the dive button. The alarm sounded, pictures from "Das Boot" flashed before my eyes, there was a bubbly sound and then silence...
I was undercover; Not very deep though. These waters are very shallow, so navigation is important. Regrettably the charts aren't very good. There's only rudimentary depth curves available, so navigation is about watching the seafloor and getting a visual on your waypoints.
Waypoint one
After a while I managed to find my first waypoint; The shot above is me parked at a buoy in Eliades. Next stop is waypoint two, - a small island due south, at the entrance of the Blake Sea. Then I'll set the course to a 125 degrees and speed up a bit to get to my third waypoint.
Surface at waypoint three
After a while the seafloor raised, and I must admit I was kinda excited to see if my navigation was good. I surfaced to take a peek, and yesss... there is was! I had arrived safely at Sharp Tooth Isle. I've been there before, but i never arrived submerged. Till now. 
Filling the tanks...
So far so good. Let's set the course to 150 and see what we find... I am sure the Nautilus will love a little snack this morning. We better sneak a bit... so water in, air out. More bubbly. After a couple of minutes of careful sailing navigation I got some bleebs on the radar, and it was time to take another peek at the world up there.
Nautilus looking for lunch
Yummy. Hello lunch! Did u ever hear the story about the tall ship that was transformed into a pile of chopsticks within seconds? No? Oh well, I'll be good and not tell it then, but I'll tell you this: It was pretty hard to hold the Nautilus back. 
Outside view
Anyway, here's me and my Nautilus looking at tallships in Blake Diego Harbour, and I decided to sail home via Nantucket Yacht Club. Beautiful place, but that's another story. You can't see it on the picture, but is it the lighthouse there - seen though the surface...
Passing NYC on a westerly course
Passing NYC while going west; Next stop Pslande, after which I turned 90 degrees to starboard going up the west coast looking for my good old first waypoint, and here it is...
Tradewinds due north
Tradewinds straight ahead on a northernly course, but let's go 15 degrees instead, and see what's there...  It's the little island east of Tradewinds - in Dizadare. The radar says that something's there; Since it is not on the surface, it might be on the seafloor?
Is there a treasure to be found here?
Ancient Greece? The lost city of Atlantis? Nah, it is hardly big enough for that, but it looks great, and there just might be a treasure to be found out there. Diamonds and pearls or rocks and clams? That remains to be seen; Can't seem to find my wetsuit, so let's save that for laterz...
Sun sets after a long day below surface
This is about the Nautilus anyway, and she is a fun toy. She sails, dives, cavitates, bubbles and whirls just like you'd expect from an electrical submarine. You can use it as a hideaway, - sit and talk with friends. Take a nap. Go diving. Go anywhere there's water and pop up and say booh! It is stable and low lag, and it is fast. I could probably outrun those overly fast sailboats, but since the charts are so bad, I expect I'd run aground before I could spell speeding is not allowed. So... This kinda concludes my Nautilus experiences. I hope you enjoyed the ride. I know I did.


  1. Noodle! Looks like you had big fun on the Nautilus. Did you change Nemo's organ music for something a little more upbeat? Maybe light piano jazz would be appropriate background music while dispatching empty slave ships to their deserved fates...

    Like most on the east coast of the US, after spending several days lashing stuff down, I'm riding out Hurricane Sandy. Raining and blowing strongly here in Maryland but for the moment we still have electricity. It's much much worse back on Brigantine (a barrier island near Atlantic City, New Jersey where our summer home is located). Tell me, do they have hurricanes in SL?

  2. Light piano jazz is always appropriate, no? What I'd play if I could change it? Peter Erskine "On the Lake" probably. Kinda fits sailing the Blake ;-) Funny you should mention Brigantine, cause that's the name of my second waypoint. Anyways, hope u all survive that hurricane; They are rare in SL.


Noodle says hi and behave :-)

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