My constant companion Juju the talking snake and I love to relax at home in our Blue Heaven, our rental in Second Life´s digital sky. Yet, sometimes the mood strikes us for a change of pace.
Hello again my dearest dears. Some time ago, I happened to stumble across a pretty public harbor in OURANOS on Sansara´s east coast. Just on a whim, I put some ocean ambient sound on my computer , unpacked the simple little freebie sailboat I had been carting around for ages, poured myself a big glass of spicey Spanish wine, and set sail. It was lovely! It was fun! It was completely relaxing! I thought, I could really get into this. Ever since then, in between blogging and scripting and the mad hunt for freebies, I have been trying to get a handle on sailing in Second Life.
There is a staggering amount of interest in metaverse sailing. There are websites, blogs, yacht clubs, harbors, groups, sailing communities , maritime sims, nautical sims, racing, regattas, rules of conduct, hundreds of navigational items, flags, the smallest boats have incredibly realistic, complex navigational controls, ban line huds, wind “setters” you can use when you find SL winds too difficult to navigate. Yes my dears, there is wind in Second Life.( Here´s the link, look it up, please. SECONDSAILING.ORG WIND WIKI You should never take a strangers word on something this fundamentally wierd.) Nearly everything was geared at serious sailing aficionados who belong to private clubs. But I don´t want to do anything big or serious. I just want to get in a pretty little boat I can easily control with a glass of wine in my virtual and real world hand, and sail around looking at neat stuff. And I want gaggles of different sailing locations to choose from. Oh, and I want it all for free. I’ve sifted and sifted, and here are the results.
Go to the SLRR Lunalis Station in LUNALIS. This is a Second Life Railroad Station in the region of Lunalis, on the pre -teleportation, transportation crazy, Heterocera Atoll . For more details, see my second geography post. Across from the platform is the "Around the Atoll" area you see behind me. Above my head is the tiny picture of a sailboat. Click on it. Make sure the boat is in your inventory.
This is your wonderful new sailboat! It is a gift to you from Linden Department of Public Works, created by Abnor Mole, a public works contractor . It has no complex navigational array; You sit in it, it goes. You steer like you walk and fly, with your arrow keys; just touch the hull, and it changes to phantom, so you can get under low bridges. If there are brakes, I can´t find them. I just hit edit or stand up. It goes at about bicycle pace, so you can enjoy the scenery and get some nice pictures. I have tried alot of free boats.
All the other free boats have done this,
and this,
this one took off without me so fast I didn´t have time to put on my angry face!
Our little boat works pefectly, always shows up in my Beta Grid inventory, and is cute as a button!!! See my Beta Grid Post for more details. Now for the WHERE to sail question.
I want you to go to the Starboard's Yacht Club in HOLLYWOOD. Genuinely ghastly sculpture aside, this is one of the oldest sailing clubs in Second Life. You want to go into the building on MY right. Ground floor.
You are looking for this! Click on the box on MY bottom left! Now head to wherever you call home, and open this into your inventory!
This is Aerial´s Boatload o´ Launch Sites, SL Sailing Guru Aerial Karu´s comprehensive updated(Nov. 2011) list of SL launch sites, public and private. Read the "Read Me!" notecard for more details. Just open one of the Continent Notecards, pick a landmark and click! It will open your landmark window- just click teleport! If you run an search on the word "sailing " the destination guide will show you 14 destinations. These notecards have HUNDREDS! If you don´t understand the Geographical references ,no problem! Check out my SL World Map at the top of this blog, and/or read my geography posts! You may have noticed in Aerial´s Launch Site folder, that under the notecards are maps of the Continents waterways. If you click on them, you will see that they are textures,way too small to read. Again, no problem!
I hope you are someplace that allows building! First, create a prim!(In case you don´t know how, Click Build, then select the cube from all the shapes offered, and click the wand. Move your cursor, which will now look like a wand, somewhere near your avatar and click! A prim will appear! )
Click the Object tab( second from the left) and then look on the left side of the screen at the Size(meters) boxes. Reduce the x size until the box is nice and thin! (Click and hold on the little arrow buttons!)
Now increase the Y measurement till the prim is really long!
Bet ya saw this coming! Increase the z measurement until the prim is really tall.
Now click the texture tab (fourth from the left) click the texture box on the left, which will show a picture of plywood. the texture selection window will appear. Type map in the search filter. Aerials map textures will come up . I selected Nautilus, and clicked okay! Now you have a nice big map of Nautilus waterways(! This is a great way to look at all your textures, by the way!) Much easier to read!
It might be handier to use these nice big pictures of Aerial´s maps ! Enlarge them,print them out, or just refer back to them. Here´s the Blake Sea! As you can see, this area is all about sailing.
Corsica!!
Gaeta I!!!
Gaeta V!!
Heterocera!!
Nautilus and Satori!!
Sansara!!!!
Jeogeot!!!!
Please remember , other people have put alot of time, money and effort into SL sailing! They obey real world nautical rules, and use real world nautical language. I don´t plan to master any of that, but I also don´t plan to ruin anybody elses good time. This means staying out of the serious people´s way! Also, there is protected water, but nothing comperable to the road network. on the land . Which means, unfortunately,the Blake Sea and United Sailing Sims are the only placses mostly free of yellow ban lines. SL sailing forums have alot of info on route planning.
Now my dearest dears, my post is finally finished, and I will leave you again. I hope you find it helpful, I had a marvelous time writing it. Thank you, all of you( there are so many of you now!Oh frajuous day!) for joining me ! See you soon!
Hi Christine,
It seems you seriously need to visit Tradewinds YC and experience some real sailing with real virtual boats. Be glad to go sailing with you.
Noodle
Hi Noodles! Thanks for the comment! I looked at your excellent blog, Gads! it all seems complicated! You are seriously underestimating moi and the klutz factor. Although the boats were really beautiful. Not to mention your hair. See you sometime! Christine