This weeks news from around the world and its wide web.

Hengam Island is a tropical isle off the coast of Iran, at the southern end of the Persian Gulf. Just fourteen square miles, it has three villages with only a few hundred families. The island has long been recognized for its geostrategic importance. Nearchus, the Greek explorer and admiral of Alexander the Great’s naval fleet, referenced it when he navigated the Gulf in the fourth century B.C. Hengam was occupied by the Portuguese military in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1913, Britain established a naval base there. Since the late nineteen-forties, tanker ships have skirted Hengam en route to the Strait of Hormuz, a global choke point about thirty-seven miles away. A fifth of the world’s supply of oil and natural gas passes through it each day.

But some things are just wrong, however many jobs they provide and however much money they make for their stakeholders. There’s a reason the whaling industry was shut down in Australia in the 1970’s. The same applies to the tobacco industry in the 2000’s (which at its height employed about the same amount of people as the Salmon industry does today.) Values change with time.

In the 1960's PA25 came to grief when David and a friend were out fishing one night. A passing Scallop boat hooked their anchor, dragging the boat underwater, and tipping the occupants into the water. They were extremely lucky that their screams were heard by the Scallop boat crew who came to their aid. The boat was in the water for some days, before being salvaged by a Mr Ireland (of the Florist family), who placed tractor tyre tubes under the boat. He inflated them which brought the boat to the surface.

Why should anyone care about the disappearance of sharks in the Saya de Malha Bank?  Ernest Hemingway once described going bankrupt as something that happens gradually… and then suddenly. The extinction of species is like bankruptcy, and when it finally occurs, there’s no going back. If we keep draining the Bank of one of its most previous riches, a “sudden” reckoning may be soon.

The story of mosquito nets in Lake Mai Ndombe shows how solutions created thousands of miles away can have unexpected consequences, and why local communities must lead conservation efforts. 

The paddler, a small young man, with well-defined muscles, nimbly guides the fragile little craft back from the mother boat, having loaded up with ice, fuel, and charcoal, the necessities for a successful outing. His “oneness” with the boat hints at generations of seafaring ancestors.

Bassett was a forceful and decisive character who found it hard to tolerate foolishness, but was forgiving of ignorance. The uninformed he set out to educate, lucidly and patiently. He had an uncanny knack of grasping the salient problems and of solving them at the outset.

The small boats take five people about a month to construct. The planks are made from a timber from the Congo. It appears that the supply of this timber has dried up and many boats were on shore half finished with no work going on. A small fishing boat hull costs about 3 million Ugandan Shillings

Chris Crerar was a great supported of SWS. He wrote some heartfelt articles that told of the highs and lows of owning wooden boats. Many of our readers were absorbed by a deep seated honesty in his writing style

The South and West coasts of Tasmania are places that demand respect. The isolation, the exposure to the southern ocean, the lack of communication, all conspire to make the coast daunting. But all coins have an obverse side.

Jack Bellamy and his twin brother, Keith, who were both on the 1952 voyage, had watched from the kitchen window as the boat was built.
"You'd see the boat growing and all the framework going up, all the ribs and everything, and it was an amazing job to think what they did, the three brothers," Jack said.

This short documentary features more wooden boats than you would see in a year, here in Australia, but that’s not what its about.

For its characteristics of toughness and strength, the traditional gajeta falkuša was made only with cypress wood from the volcanic island of Svetac. The keel was made of oak and the shell of larch.

The oceans are typically and correctly viewed as a marine habitat. But they are much more than that. They are a workplace, a metaphor, an escape, a prison, a grocery store, a trash can, a cemetery, a bonanza, a tinderbox, an organ, a highway, a depot, a window, an emergency, and, above all, an opportunity

The ALMONTA remains on the seabed, its crow's nest and railings breaking the surface of the calm waters of Porter Bay and lilting precariously to one side.

But the takeaway for me as one of the current custodians, is that I didn't realise how much these old wooden boats still meant to the people who had been involved with them.

A recently discovered 1990’s documentary on the Couta Boats has been re-edited into 8 minutes of rich and fascinating history.

Zane Grey caught some big fish, but, much to his chagrin, every time pictures of his catches were published, some local identity went out in a grubby boat and, with home-made tackle, caught still bigger fish.

In many ways ocean racing has become a monoculture. To succeed you must be skilled and tough and rich, but for most owners with a realistic chance of victory, the broader values, ambitions and motivations of the founders of the event have disappeared amid the ruthless need for a trophy.