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Wang will have a satellite phone to keep in touch with friends and family.

Julie Wang wants to be on top of the world.  And she will be as of this past Saturday, she embarked on a mission to become the first Chinese woman to fly solo around the world.

She took off at 8 a.m. from Witham Field Airport in Stuart Florida.

Her first stop is Texas, then on to San Francisco and next to Hawaii. She will make a total of 17 stops and travel over 26,000 miles, 23,000 of those over water, before coming back to her home in West Palm Beach. Her journey will take 35 to 50 days.

Wang would become one of only a handful of women to complete the solo trip.

“I hope to influence other women pilots,” Wang said. “I would be really happy to do that.”

Wang’s passion for flight began in China, where she was born. Both of her parents were aerospace professors at Harbin Institute of Technology in China.

Wang moved from China to West Palm Beach six years ago with her husband. In China, she worked in the advertising industry, but in America she decided she wanted to pursue her passion of flight.

“In America, the aviation culture is pure, and it’s kind of spiritual to fly,” she said.

In 2011, she received her pilot license. She later met Wei Chen, a Chinese man who flew around the world in 69 days, who inspired her to take her own journey. “I told myself: ‘I could do that, I could actually fly around the world,'” she said.

Wang is optimistic but wary of a few things. Her single-engine plane doesn’t have a parachute, and she will spend most of her time traveling over water. She also has to sit in the plane for extended hours — her longest trip is 17 hours. During these times, she said that she needs to concentrate to avoid being distracted.

“I have snacks that I will eat every hour and drink a lot,” she said. “I will avoid any coffee and chocolate, that can make me [tired].”

She also said she has a satellite phone so she can talk to friends and family along the way.

Patrick Connell trained Wang to become a pilot. He is confident in her abilities to make the trip.

“Julie is an extremely intelligent, knowledgeable individual,” Connell said. “She’s the kind of person that will aggressively pursue anything that sparks her interest.”

Connell said around-the-world flights can be dangerous, but he wishes Wang luck.

“There’s always dangers with the environment and the weather,” he said. “My biggest concern would be potential mechanical and environment issues, both of which you have very little control over.”

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Tropical Storm Earl 

Tropical Storm Earl formed Tuesday morning and was headed for Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula, according to the official forecast from the National Hurricane Center. It was not expected to become a hurricane. (National Hurricane Center)

The Atlantic now officially has its fifth named storm of 2016.

Tropical Storm Earl was located about 215 miles south-southeast of Grand Cayman in the northwest Caribbean, according to the first advisory on the system issued by the National Hurricane Center just before 11 a.m. CDT Tuesday.

Earl was moving west at 22 mph and had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph.

Watches and warnings immediately went up along the coasts.

Mexico and Belize issued a tropical storm warning. Honduras also issued a tropical storm warning for its entire north coast.

A hurricane watch was issued for the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula from Punta Allen, Mexico, southward to the Belize-Guatemala border.

Read more about Tropical Storm Earl here….

From Bad to Worse

It was a memorable day trip into the woods for Calgarian Steve Hyde — his motorhome got stuck, he had a heart attack, a search crew helping out him drove off a cliff, he got a ride in a medical helicopter and the RCMP babysat his kids.

Hyde recently headed to the Crowsnest Pass with his daughters, aged 11 and 12, with plans to dirt bike up a mountain to the scene of a Second World War bomber that crashed there.

Well, the best laid plans …

He took his motorhome up a side road to get near the area of the crash but got stuck.

His first Good Samaritan of the day jumped into action and pulled his motorhome out using their pickup truck.

The girls went ahead on the trail on their bikes while Hyde, 53, followed behind in his motorhome.

He started to feel unwell.

“Probably three or four km up the road, there is a fork in a road and a stream there.” Hyde said

“I laid in the stream to recover, I just thought I overdid it.”

But the cold mountain stream didn’t improve things for Hyde.

“About 15 minutes later, I didn’t get any better. Not one bit. I knew I was in trouble,” he said.

Cue Guardian Angels Part 2, a group of quadders who where heading up the trail.

“I think I’m having a heart attack,” he told them.

“They took charge, and there was a nurse there.

“One of the guys took me onto his ATV, and was thrashing over boulders, I was holding onto whatever I could.”

After escaping the brush, the quadders used a satellite phone to call for help.

Read Full Story Here…..

Giant Tree Falls on Girls During Camping Trip

A hiking trip during summer camp almost turns deadly for two young teens.

Kaylie Eisenberg and Dresden Cogan have been through just about everything together, including escaping death.

The 15-year-olds were on a camping trip, just a month ago up in Isle Royal on Lake Superior when suddenly they went through a nightmare.

“That day we had just gotten done with a four-mile hike. We get to the camp and set up our hammock,” said the girls who were also with another friend.

Then the girls heard a crack.

“Basically it was like slow motion. It happened to so fast. I just heard them screaming and then you could see a tree coming down. Just very terrifying,” said the girls.

A large, dead tree landed on the girls.

Read Full Story and Watch the Video Interview Here….

The satellite phone Joe Stutler carries during fire season rang on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and “scared the living bejesus” out of him.

His elite Type 1 Incident Management Team had just come off a fire and the Bend, Ore., resident was elk hunting in the mountains of central Oregon, secure in the assumption that he would have a few days off before being called back to duty. He didn’t know two planes had flown into and brought down the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, another had slammed into the Pentagon and a fourth had crashed in rural Pennsylvania in coordinated terrorist attacks.

The voice on the other end told him his team was on alert, meaning it was in line to be mobilized. Two other teams had already been called up and were on their way east.

Read Full Story Here……

 “…the rescued men weren’t carrying a satellite phone, an essential backup tool for contacting rescue officials”.

Friday September 30th, 2016

Two men rescued from a sailboat in the Gulf of Alaska Wednesday may owe their lives to a mariner off Hawaii, who heard an initial distress call when Alaska-based U.S. Coast Guard members couldn’t.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Meredith Manning said in a statement Wednesday that the 35-foot Rafiki was sinking Tuesday night in 6-foot seas about 230 miles south of Cold Bay.

Manning said the Rafiki had previously put into Dutch Harbor after reporting problems with its sails to the Coast Guard. The vessel was en route from Dutch Harbor to Victoria, British Columbia, when the men saw water pouring into the hull near the engine.

“They were trying to contact the Coast Guard in Alaska, but it was coming through staticky,” Manning said. “They also didn’t have any kind of survival suits — they had life jackets.”

Read Full Story Here…..

Nov 18th, 2016

Most people opt to make a transatlantic sea voyage on a cruise ship.

Matt Kent, the U.S. Brig Niagara’s fourth mate, plans to sail the Atlantic Ocean in 2017 in a boat measuring just 3 feet, 6 inches by 3 feet, 6 inches. If successful, Kent would set a world record for the smallest sailboat ever to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

Kent, a native of Portland, Oregon and 33 years old, has spent the past five years designing and building his boat named The Undaunted. Kent, who has been on the Niagara’s crew for eight years, is attempting to raise money for science-based education programs at The Bioreserve, a nonprofit in Glenmont, New York.

See Full Story Here….

Usage of the satellite phone would automatically signal the end of the contestant’s participation in the challenge”

Nov 30th, 2016

Lopez, Washington native Callie “Blue Heron” North, tackled the untamed wild of Patagonia Argentina for History Channel’s survivalist television show “Alone.” The series’ season premiere will air on Thursday, Dec. 8.

“I had this overwhelming intuitive feeling like ‘I’m going to do that,’” said North, who owns Pachamama Apothecary in the Lopez Village.

Now in its third season, the show features participants who enter the wilderness carrying only what they can fit in a backpack (see page 3 for what North had with her). They are alone in harsh, unforgiving terrain with a single mission: to survive as long as they can.

They must hunt, build shelters and fend off predators as they endure extreme isolation and psychological distress while plunging into the unknown. They document the experience themselves. There are no camera crews or producers. It is the ultimate test of human will as contestants hope to win a cash prize of $500,000.

Read full article here….