There is a confluence within 49 miles (79 km) of you if you're on the surface of Earth...

...and potential for adventure at every point in between. The Degree Confluence Project is amazing: The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. The pictures, and stories about the visits, will then be posted here.

Secret Chinatown Tunnels

A formal search (ground-penetrating radar) is underway in Fresno CA. There is endless (often rambling, but engaging) discussion regarding their possible existence in Victoria BC with occasional glimpses provided by the urban exploration cognoscenti. The rumors and hearsay surrounding the tunnels in both towns are essentially identical. Must be true.

The South Atlantic & Subantarctic Islands

The voyage of the JB Charcot has piqued my interest in this region. Paul Carroll has a great website on the subject.

Fifteen Thousand Miles in a Ketch

I've been reading obscure adventures from another era: In 1907-1909 RAYMOND RALLIER DU BATY, author of Fifteen Thousand Miles in a Ketch, with a crew of four, sailed their ketch the J.B. Charcot on an adventure from France to Australia. But how to finance this little trip? Why, Hunt sea elephants for their oil on Kerguelen island in the subantartic of course!

The oil was sold at Melbourne to pay the crew and the ship was sold to cover other expenses of what was essentially a private voyage of exploration and discovery. Calls were also made at Rio & Tristan da Cunha. The author had been the Charcot's first officer on the Pourquoi Pas? expedition in 1903-5. Good reading!

What's interesting about the adventure is that even 100 years later, the perspectives of the author strike me as very similar to those of present-day adventurers--apart from the we'll-finance-this-with-seal-oil part.

The author also mentions the discovery of a cave that appeared to have been inhabited by ship-wrecked sailors at one point, with many interesting abandoned artifacts including a sea-elephant skull soup pot which the adventures wanted but were unwilling to be burdened with on the long hike back to the ship. I wonder if it's still there...