Cat Island
Hermitage
Yesterday we motor-sailed to Cat Island. We did far more motoring than sailing in very calm conditions, but because we are traveling southeast, and west wind is rare as we enter the trade wind latitudes, it’s not a bad option.
It took us about 10 hours to get to the southern end of Cat Island from Eleuthera. Approaching Old Bight, we traversed over amazingly clear water. In this video, the water is 50 feet deep. The dark spots are rocks in the white sand way down below us.
Today we hiked up to the top of the highest point in the Bahamas: Mount Alvernia. On top is the ruins of a Hermitage built by Father Jerome. The buildings are much smaller than they look in the pictures. There are two paths to the top, one follows a road and the other climbs steep steps and has the Stations of the Cross (a Catholic thing).
The “mountain” is only 206 feet high, but hey, we’ve now climbed to the high point of the Bahamas.
Stations of the Cross on the Steeper Trail
Posted in Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.
Back to the Sailing Stuff…
A Bahamian Manatee
Yesterday we sailed around to the southern shore of Eleuthera to stage for our next leg south. We pulled into Davis Harbour Marina for a couple of nights. I’ll call this the wildlife harbor, explained below:
This morning I went for a run for the first time in a couple of weeks and things went great, no dogs and very few cars on the sidewalk-free roads. On the road just outside of the marina I stopped to find the buzzing sound I was hearing and there were thousands of flies (I think) zooming around just above the ground. Not sure what they were doing or if they were biting flys or not. I made that video and kept on running, noticing that they were, in fact, biting flies! Got away before they swarmed me.
I ran to a beach access (above) and back. The structure in the picture is a fish cleaning bench used by the locals.
In the harbor we saw lots of marine life including a small jellyfish and normal fish swimming right below our boat. However, the coolest thing was the resident manatee. The marina people give him fresh water out of a hose and he loved it. He was sucking on the hose and wouldn’t let go. t’m sure this is why he sticks around. Manatees like water that is much less salty than the ocean.
Tomorrow we get up early and leave for Cat Island. On our way south again!
Posted in Sailing by Mark with 2 comments.
The Secret CIA Files, Part 2
I thought I was done writing about this incident, but in fact no. This morning I listened to the BBC Global News podcast, as I do most days, and heard a story about this breach. The story explored several angles of the Wikileaks CIA documents but one was of particular note: An interview with an ex-CIA agent and his analysis of the impact “if” these were authentic. It was completely off target. Here’s why:
First he essentially insults “engineers” as being “odd” and building cool products without regard to security. This is patently false. Engineers build to products to specifications decided on by executives and managers. This includes product features, what will and will not be fixed, and most decidedly, security. The overriding motivation behind each decision is to maximize profit (time to market, cost of development, what the competition is doing, you name it). Security invariably falls to the bottom of the list of where to put resources. Security problems are not due to engineering shortcomings.
I have to emphasize this, engineers are NOT to blame for the security holes in released products. Period.
I don’t expect a CIA agent to know this, of course. But then he went off track again and parroted what a lot of the media is thinking, which is incorrect. And to be honest, it makes me wonder if this guy WAS an ex-CIA agent.
This agent went on to describe the damage done by this release as enabling attackers around the world to “come after us” by using the CIA tools and techniques. This is patently false. Why?
The CIA does not have a monopoly on cyber spying tools, nor will they ever have one. All the vulnerabilities that the CIA documents describe could have been found by anyone, and indeed were. One of the leaked documents describes how the CIA acquired knowledge of vulnerabilities, and this included BUYING them from cyber security researchers who found them. Really? So Russia, North Korea and Iran couldn’t buy them as well?
Building cyber weapons is not in the same class as building a nuclear bomb, for instance. Unfortunately, cyber weapons could potentially be far more effective than nukes, especially against the internet-dependent United States. To build a nuclear weapon, you need refined plutonium or uranium. This is extremely difficult to do and the world is watching for it. Building a cyber weapon requires money. That’s all, money. A group of individuals could have the same “cyber-power” as any nation-state in the world if they simply had the money to invest.
The real problem with the CIA leak is not that the “enemies” have new cyber spy tools, but that the CIA now has to start from scratch and build new ones. That is the angle the media is missing. All the vulnerabilities described in the documents have apparently been fixed, possibly because the CIA knew about the breach months ago and warned the companies whose products were affected. If so, kudos for the CIA for, in the end, doing the right thing.
All nation-states are cyber-spying, as well as many other actors (corporations, criminals, hacking groups, and organizations that you never hear about). These documents do not reveal anything new to them. However, the CIA cannot now use all the tools they developed at great expense and they will have to write new ones.
I’m not worried that the CIA is spying on Americans, as many media outlets imply. It is illegal for them to do so, but if that doesn’t ameliorate your concern, they could have spied on you before the computer age too. No need to be more concerned now, in my opinion. They are spying, that is their job. I don’t see how the U.S. can survive without such agencies. But like the NSA, they ironically don’t seem to have much control of their own internal security.
Posted in Cyber Security, Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.
The Secret CIA Files
It’s been windy for several days now, too windy to sail anywhere and almost too windy to even get off the boat. Shelly has been taking advantage of this time to work on her new iPhone app. I had run out of projects to do and was getting fairly bored. Until today.
Why did I tag this under the “sailing” category? Because if we were sailing, I would not have investigated this to the degree that I did. Ignore the rest if you are not interested in cyber security.
Yesterday, Wikileaks published the first part of semi-raw data supposedly leaked or stolen from the Central Intelligence Agency. The documents supposedly cover the CIA’s cyber spying operation and Wikileaks claim it is “…the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.” Wikileaks claims that the CIA employs at least 5000 “hackers,” as Wikileaks characterizes them, and characterizes this as the CIA’s “own NSA.” This seems highly plausible as government agencies like to be completely independent of each other even though there is a lot of overlap. Overlap with the NSA in this case, or really any number of other three-letter agencies who employ “hackers” such as the FBI, DHS, etc.
Having somewhat of a professional interest in this area (and nothing better to do), I sampled some of what Wikileaks released. Specifically, I looked at a cryptographic requirements document and a “tradecraft” document.
The crypto requirements for their software spy tools is excellent and the tradecraft doc, which describes special practices necessary when writing spyware, enumerates robust techniques that a professional spyware creator would certainly use. Also, some of the trivial files, which appear to be from the personal directories of real people, look to me to be the kind of thing a professional “hacker” would have in their directory, whether in the CIA or not.
Many media outlets preface their stories about this with, “…if this is real.” In my opinion, based on a long career working with, and against, the type of people who would create such spyware, as well as my specific experience in the cyber security realm, this is either an extremely well done hoax or it is the real deal. If this were a hoax, I can’t imagine any one or group who were not highly experienced in computer science, engineering, cyber security AND spyware techniques could produce such an archive and what would be the point if they did?
Media: This leak is real.
So unfortunately, this is yet another highly damaging leak in the United States cyber intelligence machinery. It is more damaging than the recent NSA leaks because these documents describe tools and techniques up to 2016, whereas the NSA leaks were not newer than 2013, if I recall correctly.
This will force the cyber intelligence agencies to rewrite a significant number of their cyber spyware tools, a very expensive proposition, though quite do-able. The good that comes from this? Apple, Microsoft, Google and many other cyber manufacturers will fix gaping holes in their products. Too bad the U.S. Government doesn’t have such an enthusiastic division dedicated to finding and fixing these holes, instead of exploiting them.
Expect things to get worse before they get better in the Internet-of-Things world.
Posted in Cyber Security, Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.
A Walk on Eleuthera
Shelly in Tie-Dye at Ocean Hole
Yesterday morning we took Namaste over to shore where I was intending to go for a run and Shelly to walk over to the beach on the far side. On the way we stopped at Ocean Hole, a geologic feature that has been turned into a tourist park. It’s a round “bottomless” hole that is filled with tropical fish and turtles (though we didn’t see any). No one knows how deep it is, the story is that Jaques Cousteau dove it down to 600 feet and was still not at the bottom.
I tried to go running just after that but there was a pack of aggressive dogs on the main road barking and growling at Shelly. I ran back and had to face off a couple of them. Nice. These were domestic dogs running loose. So now we won’t walk around on this island without a big stick.
Which is what we did today. It was much warmer with little breeze and soon we got caught in a respectable rainstorm. We scrambled underneath a big tree in someone’s front yard. As soon as it let up a bit we walked back toward the dock, soaked but at least not burning up in the sun.
This evening we went to the local Happy Hour and talked with many other yachters. More than twenty boats arrived here over the last day or two to wait out the upcoming windstorm that promises to last for the entire weekend. Seems to be a weekly occurrence here this time of year.
The great news for me is that I got our shortwave radio tested and it’s working great. Made contact with a station in California yesterday. Seems to be working great!
For the next two days we are boat-bound, waiting out the windstorm at anchor.
Shelly Showing Off Her New Styling
Posted in Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.
Shortwave Radio Antennas
Ok, this is a long post about diagnosing and fixing a shortwave radio antenna on our sailboat Good Karma. Not interesting for those who are not into technical detail.
On most bluewater sailing vessels there is a shortwave radio for communication, usually called an “SSB radio.” One thing every radio needs is a good antenna. On most sailboats, the antenna is the backstay of the mast, the cable that holds the main mast to the back of the boat. It’s a good choice because it’s basically a long wire that can be insulated easily (necessary for an antenna).
My radio could transmit and receive email and I was happy with it until I notice that the connection from the radio to the backstay was getting frayed (below). I was also having great difficulty with voice transmission to stations that should have been receiving me with no problem.
The antenna feed (white wire on left) was connected via an unprotected hose clamp to the backstay. The problem was this is exposed to the elements (water and salt air), not to mention the not-so-great mechanical connector that doesn’t protect against breakage of wire. At Spanish Wells I bought some new hardware (below):
Left to right: A cable clamp, a nut and a ring connector. The clamp would give me a solid connection to the backstay and the nut and ring connectors would grant a smooth mechanical connection between the antenna feed and backstay. The connection point needed to be about 8 feet off the deck and so I needed a ladder. I borrowed one from the marina but because of the tight space on the deck I could not deploy it completely, so I had to set it up with straps on each side to stabilize it, below:
I assembled a great backstay connection and insulated the connector from the elements with electrical tape, shown below:
Everything looked great but the radio happened to work worse than before! I didn’t get it and puzzled over this problem for days. I finally decided I needed to look at the other end of the antenna feed cable, which I had to move to get the backstay connection finished. That was it! Below is what the connector to the radio looked like, corroded and almost broken:
I replaced this connector as shown below:
The result was, so far, fantastic. I’m able to contact much more distant stations. The testing isn’t complete without a voice test but I’m optimistic.
Posted in Electronics and Radios, Hacking!, Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.
Rock Sound, Eleuthera
End of a Good Sail
Yesterday we were frustrated with the wind at our point of sail. We got going a bit later than usual due to Shelly having a business call, but the problem was that the wind was blowing directly from the direction we needed to sail. We did one two-hour long tack into the waves and wind, only hitting 4 knots at best, rocking and rolling significantly. It was getting late and we needed to get to an anchorage so we selected a closer spot than we were shooting for and started motoring. Aimed directly into 20 knot wind and waves, we moved at walking speed for a couple of difficult hours. We had a respite when visited by a large group of dolphins! They were colored a differently, I thought a bit greener than the Atlantic dolphins. Arrived at a somewhat protected anchorage and dropped the hook.
All night long it we bobbed up and down from the swells bending around the slightly protective point. It’s something you live with in a sailing life. Got up early today and started moving by 8 a.m., with winds directly out of the east at 15-25 knots. The direction we had today was much different, however. We were still reaching (into the wind) but not near as much as yesterday, and the waves had calmed a bit. We were flying on our route at 6 to 7 knots. We were rocking a bit it was very exhilarating, with reasonable rocking. We held this tack, with the high wind and fast speed, for 4 hours. Shelly finally got her perfect sailing fix!
Arrived at our anchorage and settled in for probably a couple of days. Tonight’s dinner is pictured below:
Sailing Food
Posted in Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.
East Side of Meeks Patch
Yet Another Tropical Sunset!
We left the marina at Spanish Wells yesterday and are spending two nights anchored here at an Meeks Patch, an island just outside of the town and also where we spent the night before going into the marina, except on the east side rather than the west.
Did quite a bit of swimming here. The snorkeling wasn’t fantastic but there were some coral, fish, and starfish to see. Swimming is good for me as it isn’t as hard on my knees as running and can give me some aerobic exercise. It’s also a great way of cooling off during the hot part of the day.
Tomorrow we move again through Current Cut, where there is a lot of current if you go at the wrong time. We plan on going at the right time…
Posted in Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.
Arrival at Spanish Wells
The “Liberty Clipper” Anchored Next to Us
This morning dawned gray and windy, but quite warm. I cooked us up bacon, eggs and coffee for breakfast and we ate outside in the cockpit. Last night we watched the Liberty Clipper anchor near us after dark. It’s apparently a charter ship out of the U.S. and this morning it looked like the gang over there were having a blast. A couple of them climbed the forward mast to put a flag at the top.
After breakfastwWe noticed the wind picking up a bit and saw some squalls to the west and so decided to high tail it to the marina. Shelly brought us into the slip in a 15 knot wind and did extremely well, we’re getting pretty good at this. The marina is pretty nice and even has a working wifi system.
This afternoon I walked through town to get some parts for the shortwave radio. This tiny town is an eclectic mix of residential and rentals, and industrial. Boatyards and shipping are intermixed almost next door to houses, shops and rental cottages. The hardware stores here were almost as good as Marsh Harbor and yet this is somewhat more remote and much smaller.
Tonight the promised storm is materializing with high wind and more rain than we’ve seen in the Bahamas so far. It’s supposed to pass rather quickly overnight, which means I can get to work fixing the radio and Shelly can get some of her consulting work done.
End of Day!
Passage to Eleuthera
Sunset From Good Karma Near Egg Island
Up at 5 a.m.! Predawn departure in a stiff 20 knot wind to begin our passage to Eleuthera. To get here we have to cross the New Providence channel which is basically the open Atlantic. We had a pretty good North wind to begin with that kind of faded over the day. It was almost directly behind us and that made it a bit difficult to keep from jibing (pronounced “jy-bing”), which is when the wind rapidly pushes your mainsail from one side to the other, slamming the boom and potentially damaging the mast/boom. Not something you want to have happen.
We were getting up to what I estimate were 6-foot rolling swells that changed the boat orientation to the wind as it rode up and down the wave. That change in orientation kind of dictates how far off the wind you can sail (or, how far behind you the wind direction can blow and not get to a jibe angle). The waves were not quite behind us, angling in a bit, so we had a lateral roll all the way here. Not as bad as would have been if they were coming at our beam (broadside), but still it was tiresome after many hours.
We arrived at our anchorage in falling daylight about 12 hours after we left. Unfortunately we had to motor-sail the entire route to get the speed we needed to arrive in daylight. It’s not that bad really but the engine droning gets annoying after a while. Shelly would rather have pure sailing but I say whatever works to get us there.
Had a bit of wind last night and tomorrow is supposed to bring high winds for a day or so, our plan is to go hang out in a marina in nearby Spanish Wells. We will top off our fuel and refill our water before heading south again.
Posted in Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.