Congratulations to Skipper Wilson who, earlier today, became the ninth sailor to finish the 2008-2009 Vendée Globe race.

After starting out in a field of 30 competitors on November 9, Skipper Wilson battled through cracked ribs, a cut face, broken equipment, and unfriendly sailing conditions to complete his sail around the world in 121 days, 41 minutes, and 19 seconds. With today’s finish, he becomes only the second American ever to finish the Vendée Globe race and ties Bruce Schwab for best placement by an American. (Skipper Schwab finished ninth in four years ago.)

Although sailors could finish in as few as 24,840 miles, if they were able to take the shortest route around the globe, that’s not really a likely possibility in real life. So everyone adds extra miles to their trip because of having to sail around storms or to get through ice gates.

Skipper Wilson put in 28,590 hard-fought miles on the Great American III and had a particularly rough ride back through the Atlantic Ocean to port in Les Sables d’Olonne, France. When he finally reached land, though, he was greeted by his sisters and a crowd of well-wishers who were thrilled to see him after his four months at sea.

This video is from the organizers of the Vendée Globe. It’s in French, but the images are understandable in any language.

Two more sailors remain at sea. They are expected to complete their races in the next week or so.

Check back later in the week, when we hope to have more follow-up of Skipper Wilson’s impressive journey.

Congratulations, Skipper Wilson! You’re an inspiration to anyone who has a challenge before them. We’re so proud of you!

As Skipper Wilson charts his course for France, he is going to notice a change in the night sky. He’s already said farewell to the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere, and soon he’ll have to say goodbye to many of the stars he can see in the night sky in the Northern Hemisphere, as well.

That’s because light pollution, or excess light in the earth’s atmosphere, hides stars from our view. As Skipper Wilson gets closer to areas where lots of people live (such as the European coast), he will start to see fewer and fewer stars each night.

It’s not just at sea that light pollution becomes obvious. You might have noticed it yourself. Near a city at night, the whole horizon glows. It doesn’t really look all that dark, and, although you can see some stars, it’s not really that many. On the other hand, if you go to a spot way out in the country, you’ll be surprised at how dark it gets — and how many stars suddenly come out of hiding.

Roughly 6,000 stars are visible from around the world without the help of a telescope. In the darkest spot on the clearest, moonless night, you can see about half that number. We know there are lots more stars in the sky. Why can’t we see more? In part it’s because some are so far away that their light isn’t bright enough for us to see without some extra help. And in part it’s because to see the faint light that stars give off, you have to be in a place that is less bright than the light you’re trying to see. (That’s also why you can’t see stars during the day.)

Light pollution doesn’t just hide the stars. It also affects animals and ecosystems. Newly hatched sea turtles immediately leave the beaches where they are born and head to the sea. Scientists have found that too much light confuses them and makes it hard for them to reach the ocean safely. Other scientists, who study the tiny animals that live in lakes believe that these zooplankton are confused by a more light sky and don’t come up to feast on the algae growing on the surface of the water at night. Also, birds and moths and insects have trouble flying at night when there is too much light.

What causes all this light pollution? Too many lights that are set to give off too bright a light. Also, light that instead being aimed down at the ground, where we are using it to see, escapes into the night sky.

To fight the problem of light pollution, cities and counties and countries have started to put laws into place that limit the sorts of lights that can be used outside at night, where they can be placed, and how bright they can be. Scientists hope that more people will become interested in the dangers of light pollution and will talk to their local governments. This video is one way that people from around the world are starting conversations with each other about light pollution.

Don’t forget to read Skipper Wilson’s latest log and listen to his latest podcast. You also can send him well wishes as he heads east for what we hope will be a quick and easy trip back to France.

In the latest log, Skipper Wilson talked a bit about his mom, who turned 93 yesterday.

Back in 1938, when Mrs. Wilson was a young woman, she moved to what was then known as the Alaskan Territory. (It didn’t become a state until 1959.) She lived in Fairbanks, located in central Alaska, which is now the state’s second largest city with just under 35,000 residents. She moved there to take a job at a new radio station, KFAR, where she had a radio show called “Tundra Topics.”

Today, Alaska is the biggest state in the country — larger than Washington, D.C., and the 22 smallest states combined. Because of its large size and its northern location, it has a lot of interesting geography. Alaska is home to Mount McKinley (also called Denali), the tallest mountain in North American; the Bering Glacier, which is similar to the Antarctic glaciers we talked about in the last post and earlier this year; and the volcano Mount Shishaldin, which is noted for its shape — a nearly perfect cone.

Alaska is also the only area of Arctic tundra in the United States. Tundra describes a region that has few trees, permafrost (perpetually frozen soil), and dry, windy weather. But just like in Antarctica, the tundra is threatened by global warming as higher temperatures melt the permafrost. Unfortunately, as the tundra’s permafrost warms, it releases carbon into the atmosphere, which makes the air even warmer. This cycle makes this an area of concern for scientists worried about global warming and climate change.

Don’t forget to tune into Skipper Wilson’s latest podcast. Oh, and Happy Birthday, Mrs. Wilson.

Late last month, Skipper Wilson had a conversation on the satellite phone with a teacher studying Adélie penguins in Cape Royds, Antarctica. Ms. Jean Pennycook is a high school teacher from Fresno, California, and every year for the last three years she has been spending time with researcher Dr. David Ainley studying and documenting the Adélie penguins and the way their habitat is changing due to global warming.

Adélie penguins are a smaller breed of penguins. They grow to be 1.5-2.5 feet tall and weigh about 10 pounds. During the colder months in the Southern Hemisphere, the Adélies, who cannot fly, live on ice floating in the sea and fish in the ocean. But each December, when the weather warms, they return to the coast of Antarctica and its surrounding islands. They flock to the areas where the beaches slope gently up from the sea and where they can build nests out of rocks and lay their eggs. (In case you’re wondering about some of the cartoon penguins you’ve seen in movies, Adélie penguins are more like the ones in Madagascar than the main characters in Happy Feet.)

Unfortunately, scientists have found that the world is warming. It’s not something that most people notice on a day-to-day basis, but by measuring and comparing data over time, researchers have found that the slight increase in temperature is causing the ice in Antarctica to melt. This means that the places where the Adélies live is disappearing. As there are fewer places to live and hunt for food and as ice floes where the birds summer drift too far from where they can breed, the penguins begin to die off. Today only 5 million Adélie penguins still live in the Antarctic region, but their colonies have shifted from the northern areas of the continent, which have grown too warm, to the cooler southern areas.

SitesALIVE! has put together a great video to go with the phone conversation between Skipper Wilson and Ms. Pennycook. Check it out! And while you’re there, take a look at some of the resources Ms. Pennycook thinks you’d find helpful in learning more about Adélie penguins. As always, make sure you stop by to read Skipper Wilson’s latest log to see how his trip north is going.

It has been 100 days since Skipper Wilson left Les Sables d’Olonne, France, to sail around the world in the Vendée Globe. Yesterday, right around noon, he crossed the Equator to return to the Northern Hemisphere. He’s now working his way back through the Doldrums.

Since November 9, Skipper Wilson has sailed approximately 21,000 nautical miles. He has a little less than 3,000 more to go. You can read his latest log here or listen to his most recent podcast here.

Thirty sailors set sail from France 100 days ago. As of today, six have completed the race and five more are headed north hoping to finish in the next few weeks.

Good luck, Skipper Wilson! We know you can do it!

Skipper Wilson is sailing past Brazil this week. In addition to being the largest country in South America, Brazil also is the fifth largest in the world — and home to the majority of the Amazon Rainforest.

The Amazon Rainforest is a tropical rainforest, meaning that it’s located near the equator (so it’s warm), it gets a lot of rain, and many different types of trees grow there — both deciduous (trees that lose their leaves every year) and non-deciduous (trees that hold onto their leaves year round). Their branches grow so close together that they create a canopy (or overhang) that protects everything else growing below.

The Amazon Rainforest gets 69-79 inches of rain a year, making it a fertile place for plants to grow. And where plants grow, usually you find animals that eat them (and other animals that eat the plant-eaters). So it’s not really surprising that the rainforest is home to lots of living things. Scientists aren’t sure exactly how many, because they find new plants and animals there regularly. So far, though, they’ve found tens of thousands of plants, 2.5 million types of insects, and several thousand mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians.

That’s a lot of interesting plants and animals. Scientists have found plants there that they think may help to fight cancer and some they already know help against malaria, which is a deadly disease spread by mosquito bites in many humid areas of the world. They also have found unique animals, like blue poison dart frogs (seen in the photo above), electric eels, and vampire bats.

The Amazon region is a huge area that covers 1.4 billion acres of land. That’s double the amount of land in Alaska, Texas, and California combined. But every year there is less and less of it because people are cutting down the trees for a variety of reasons, including highway building and farming. If people keep cutting down the trees, scientists estimate that within twenty years nearly half the Amazon Rainforest will be gone. In addition to the trees that would be lost, animals and other plants would die off and native tribes would have to leave their homelands. All of this would cause huge climate change problems. Scientists are hard at work preventing the loss of the forests in this area, but it’s hard to protect an area that is governed by nine different countries. At the very least, it seems like everyone might have to do with a little less in order to keep such an important resource intact.

Read Skipper Wilson’s thoughts on preserving our natural resources here, and keep up to date with his journey in his most recent log and podcast.

On Sunday afternoon, French Skipper Michel Desjoyeaux, sailing the Foncia completed the 2008–2009 Vendée Globe Race in the impressive time of 84 days, 3 hours, and 9 minutes (beating the previous record by more than three days).

Skipper Desjoyeaux, who also won the race eight years ago, had this to say about his historic finish:

I won this Vendée Globe before the start with the choices I made, with the team and the experience I have built up. Eighty percent of the end result is before the start of the race. But it is a whole lot of things, and the other twenty percent are during the race itself, in believing, having faith, in doing it, maneuvering…

Skipper Wilson, who currently is off the coast of Uruguay, also has been thinking about decisions. In his essay last week, he wrote about how he, too, made many choices about the race long before the starting pistol fired. But these days it’s the decisions at sea, when Skipper Wilson is weary, that are the tough ones.

Skipper Wilson’s friend and fellow sailor, Rich du Moulin, had this to say about making those choices:

Decision-making at sea is very hard because you are tired, alone, and sometimes scared. Very often you do not have much time to act. Making a good decision relies on experience and judgment for sure, but planning and preparation are also very important. If you can anticipate a problem, then you can plan ahead and not have to make a last-second decision which might be too late.

So Skipper Wilson relies on his years of experience sailing and depends on his team back on land to help him make the decisions that his experiences don’t help him with.

That’s not so different from the rest of us. We all have previous experiences that help us make smart choices and people around us to ask for advice when we aren’t sure what to do. We make choices every day: what to wear, whom to sit with on the bus, whether to look before crossing the street, how to study for a test. Each decision has tradeoffs and can have a long-lasting impact on our lives or people around us.

Have you ever had to make a hard choice? What did you do? Now that you’ve seen how things turned out, would you make the same decision? What do you think would have happened if you’d made a different choice? And do you think you could have guessed about what might happen before you made your choice?

Skipper Wilson and his competitors have to make lots of choices, too: when to eat, whether to come to the rescue of another sailor, what route to take, when to switch sails, whether to fix equipment that isn’t working. Each of these small decisions can keep them in the race or cause them to drop out. Thirty racers started the race and only eleven remain in it today. Skipper Desjoyeaux decided to return to port shortly after the race start to make repairs before setting out again — and his decision paid off. Skipper Wilson made the decision to make the voyage in an older, but sturdy, boat that had already sailed around the world successfully. The Great American III is slower because of its age, but so far is steady under Skipper Wilson’s hand.

So far his decision seems to have been a good one.

Yesterday Skipper Wilson rounded Cape Horn, one of the trickiest areas of the ocean to navigate. Share his excitement at rounding The Horn, as sailors call it, by reading his log here.

Cape Horn is at the very southern tip of South America. It’s part of Chile, located in the region called Tierra del Fuego. That’s Spanish for “Land of Fire.” Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago, which is a chain of islands, often created by volcanoes. (Hawaii is another example of an archipelago.)

Cape Horn itself is rather bare and can only be reached by helicopter. It has no trees, but does have an unmanned light tower to mark its existence. On a nearby island, the Chilean Navy has a lighthouse, a station, and a memorial to honor sailors who died in the waters nearby.

Share the excitement with Skipper Wilson in the video he shot to record the event:

The people Skipper Wilson talks about are famous explorers who also sailed around Cape Horn. These adventurers went on to find important water routes and to explore areas that weren’t known in the countries they came from. But they didn’t start out by finding something big. They started out small, right in their own backyards and then kept moving outward — right across the sea.

Explorers are always on the lookout for what’s around them. They ask lots of questions. “Why?” and “How?” are two of their favorite questions. They want to understand how things work and figure out how things can be done faster or better or to learn what’s beyond the next corner. In the olden days, people who asked questions like that became sailors and explorers. Today, they become astronauts and deep sea divers. Or they become scientists and explore things like cancer in their laboratories.

You can be an explorer, too. Start out close to home. Look under rocks and in holes. Ask questions. Hunt for answers. Who knows what you’ll find!

It’s hard to imagine, but did you know it’s possible to die of thirst at sea?

The reason for that is that the ocean is made up of saltwater, which can be poisonous to the human body if you drink it in any but the smallest quantities. Salt is processed in your body by your kidneys and is perfectly healthy in small amounts. Normally, if you have a little too much salt in your food, your kidneys use the liquid you drink to help flush the salt of your body when you urinate. When your body has more salt in the bloodstream than it can handle, it starts pumping water out of your other cells to help flush the salt out of your system. Seawater, however, has a lot of salt in it — way too much for your kidneys to handle. If you don’t drink more freshwater to help replenish the water that comes out of your cells, eventually your kidneys can’t handle it anymore and shut down, and your body’s cells start to die.

Because you need water to live, Skipper Wilson and other sailors use what’s known as a desalinator, a tool that removes the salt from sea water, making it safe to drink. He uses this tool to change seawater into drinking water, which he then stores in the Great American III’s 88-liter freshwater tank. You can read more about it here and here.

People have been interested in removing salt from seawater for a long time. In fact, Thomas Jefferson wrote a report about desalination back in 1791!

Sailors use this technology so they don’t need to haul lots of water with them on their voyages, but some places remove the salt from seawater for drinking water for their land-based populations, too. The Middle East, which is made up of lots of deserts bordering the sea, has a lot of desalination plants that produce close to 9 million gallons of drinking water from seawater a day!

(The title of this post comes from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.)

If you’ve been following Skipper Wilson’s progress in the Vendée Globe, you’ve probably noticed that periodically he talks about having to go through an ice gate.

An ice gate isn’t a gate at all. In fact, it’s not even an actual thing. Instead, it’s an imaginary line drawn between two points 445 miles apart. At each of these imaginary lines, the boats must pass north of at least one of these endpoints. (You can see in this image the different ways a boat can achieve this goal. The different colored lines are possible routes around the ice gate, which is the solid black line connecting the two circles.) The race creators came up with the idea to keep the sailors and their boats safe from icebergs.

Staying north of these points help keep the racers away from the dangerous southern waters, where summer temperatures are warming the freshwater glaciers and ice shelves. This causes pieces of them to break off (in the same way that an icicle might fall off a snowy roof as the weather warms up), drop into the ocean, and float away in the ocean’s currents. These pieces are called icebergs.

Icebergs range in size from relatively small (less than 16 feet long or high) to the huge (some are more than 250 feet tall or 660 feet long). Obviously sailors can see to stay away from something really big, but smaller icebergs pose bigger problems. This is especially true because although icebergs float, a lot of their mass is below the surface of the water. In fact, only 1/8 of an iceberg is visible above the surface of the water. So while an iceberg might look small and like a boat could move around it easily, it could stretch out quite a ways under the water, where a boat could crash into it.

Scientists monitor where larger icebergs can be found using satellites, buoys, and radar. Because ice can melt and break up, though, race organizers want to keep the sailors far from where icebergs are likely to be found.

Captain Murray Lister, a friend of Skipper Wilson, writes a little about icebergs in this week’s essay on sitesALIVE!

Skipper Wilson is approaching the final gate, the Eastern Pacific Gate, of the eight that the Vendée Globe officials announced for this year’s race and should pass through it this weekend or early next week. Read his latest log here.