Here is a small collection of photos from Saturday’s gale windstorm kayak paddle in the Western Gap of the Toronto Harbour.

It ended up being a great day to be on the water as the temperature was a balmy +2c (35f) and the SSW winds (which were blowing at 25 gusting to 45 knots) made for some really rough conditions.

The Western Gap is a favourite location for us when the wind is out of the West as wave energy gets trapped in there jacking them up considerably higher then the surrounding shoreline. It’s bad for sailors but great for us.

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In these photos the wave heights is average four feet with many of them at around six to eight feet. The real monster stuff which we steered clear of was in the 12-14 foot range.

This was a really nice change from the terrible paddling conditions this fall/winter so far. Except for a handful of days, we have had pretty much had no wind since October.

Sadly, no photos from in the mess of things as it was way too scary. I was forced to shoot only from a rickety dock that ended up being almost as scary just trying to stand up on...

Here is the slideshow:

A new study published in the Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology are recommending a new method of treating uncontrollable nosebleeds and it involves packing the nasal cavity with the yummy, cured salted pork.

Here is the description from the report:

"Cured salted pork crafted as a nasal tampon and packed within the nasal vaults successfully stopped nasal hemorrhage promptly, effectively, and without sequelae... To our knowledge, this represents the first description of nasal packing with strips of cured pork for treatment of life-threatening hemorrhage in a patient with Glanzmann thrombasthenia."

Apparently this pork packing technique isn’t new and has been around since before the 1940’s when Washington University School of Medicine, in St Louis regularly used it as described below:

“It has not been uncommon in the St Louis Children's Hospital service to have a child request that salt pork be inserted in his nose with the first sign of a nosebleed ... Wedges of salt pork have saved a great deal of time and energy when used in controlling nasal haemorrhage, as seen in cases of leukemia, haemophilia ... hypertension ... measles or typhoid fever and during the third stage of labour".

Via guardian.co.uk

Flickr Photo Credit: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by Daragh Ward

Here is a very interesting video demonstrating how massive ocean liners are pulled off the rocks when the flounder in a storm. This one is of the MT Phoenix when it was pulled from a South African beach back in July, 2011.

The success of getting it off the rocks was a combination of very good planning, extremely powerful tug boats and making sure you working with the tides and swells.

Flickr Photo Credit: Wreck at Heron Island / brittgow / CC BY 2.0

I just saw a really the trailer for the very interesting documentary, The City Dark produced by Ian Cheney (also produced King Corn). The City Dark asks the question, "What do we lose, when we lose the night?"

Living here in downtown Toronto we hardly ever see the stars. Of course we see a couple but it’s nothing quite like watching them while sitting on the edge of a lake during a camping trip in the middle of summer.

Watching the trailer, I was excited that Astrophysicist, Neil DeGrasse Tyson is in it. That guy is such an inspirational scientist and has amazing ability to take mind crippling topics like black holes and explain it so a 3 year-old can understand. If you watch The Colbert Report you have most likely seen him on the show as he has been a guest of Stephen Colbert eight times now.

Here is a funny clip of him explaining about the recent discovery of a new earth-like planet and the chances of bears living on it. (Sorry my Canadian friends, you probably can’t view this clip).

Flickr photo credit: Toronto Night Skyline Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The latest issue of Ocean Paddler magazine (#29) is on the stands now and it looks fantastic.

I love the cover photo which was shot by photographer, Geir Haukursson fromDenmark. I might be wrong but it looks like it was processed using high dynamic range (HDR) which really makes the dark and light areas of the photo stand-out.

I also love the fact that the paddler is ripping it up in the surf wearing a Tulik and using a Greenland paddle. So much for only being able to use them for rolling around on flatwater would you agree?

This issue of Ocean Paddler has several great articles to read including Jeff Allen’s very informative piece about sea survival while Duncan Smith writes about what to expect when you go for your BCU 4* assessment.

Of course the magazine highlights another amazing place to paddle in their travel section. This time they write about how awesome it is to kayak around St Kilda off the west coast of Scotland.

You can pick up a six issue paper subscription for £30 (£15 digital) or get just this issue digitally for £3.

Cover photo posted with permission from Paddle Press Media.