photo provided

photo provided

photo provided

photo provided

I went to the Web site (www.earthball.org) to see what it was all about and, not surprisingly, I'm still not sure what it's all about, given the frenetic and rambling nature of the information contained therein. In the end it's pretty obvious the guy is a sort of save-the-earth hippie. Further, in the realm of 'it's a small world,' as I went through the Web site I couldn't help but notice one particular photo-shopped picture of an Earth Ball superimposed over a photo of the vessel Earthrace. You may remember Earthrace, a futuristic trimaran that spent several months here before embarking on a round-the-world dash powered entirely with bio-diesel fuel. Earthrrace suffered several setbacks during her voyage, not the least of which was running over a fishing boat, killing one of the fishermen. Then, just last week it was all over the news that down in Antarctica a Japanese whaling ship rammed into a boat that was trying to harass the whalers. The boat was described as 'a futuristic' sort of craft and then I saw an accompanying photo it was indeed the Earthrace vessel, renamed the Ady Gil by the 'conservation' group, Sea Shepherds, who now have their own reality T.V show (Whale Wars) you may have seen on Discovery Channel. By comparison, I suppose I should cut the Earth Ball guy some slack since he's just harmlessly floating down the ICW, not running over fishermen and in turn getting run over in the name of environmental awareness. I don't know what it all means but it seems to me that it all adds up to that sort of ‘life is stranger than fiction' sort of thing that Brooks could make another comedy out of.