Rough Seas

Two men were airlifted from rough seas after their fishing boat capsized, but one died later, the Coast Guard said Saturday. A third crew member was found dead in a life raft. The 53-foot vessel True Life reported it was taking on water Friday night about 30 miles east of Chatham on Cape Cod.

A spotter jet over the Indian Ocean late Thursday made contact with 16-year-old Abby Sunderland, the Thousand Oaks solo sailor who was adrift in rough seas and heavy winds in her quest to circumnavigate the globe, a spokesman for the teen's family said. The Qantas Airways jetliner with dozens of harbor patrol spotters on board made radio contact with Sunderland. Her boat was upright, but the mast had been knocked off by rough seas. She was in good health and had plenty of food and was waiting for the arrival of a fishing boat in about a day, said Jeff Casher, a technical advisor for the voyage.

A man fell out of his kayak in rough seas off the Malibu coast Friday and was presumed dead, federal authorities said. Nicolas Buttle, 55, of Malibu was reported missing about 5 p.m. Friday while kayaking with his friend Eric Hammer, 20, of Westlake Village, said Coast Guard Lt. Drew Cromwell. Hammer was rescued. They were paddling separate kayaks when they each capsized in heavy wind, authorities said.

A weakening Hurricane Bill spun northward, churning up rough seas, creating dangerous riptides and closing beaches to swimmers on the Eastern Seaboard, including President Obama's planned vacation spot, Martha's Vineyard. The Category 1 hurricane was expected to pass the mainland well off New England, but was still packing high winds and waves. By the evening, Bill had maximum sustained winds near 85 mph and was about 250 miles south-southeast of Nantucket, Mass., according to the National Hurricane Center.

The Walt Disney Co. is running into rough seas in the Legislature as it seeks to press for passage of a bill that would allow construction of a $2.8-billion resort along the Long Beach shoreline. Disney began its legislative push earlier this year with what appeared to be built-in advantages: enormous goodwill, a high-powered lobbying team and a growing list of supporters, from Long Beach to Los Angeles County.

A gasoline tanker crippled by an explosion last week broke apart in rough seas early Sunday, the Coast Guard said. The bow sank off Cape Hatteras, N.C., but a tugboat continued towing the stern toward port. No injuries were reported and no fuel spillage was sighted on the surface.

A weakening Hurricane Bill spun northward, churning up rough seas, creating dangerous riptides and closing beaches to swimmers on the Eastern Seaboard, including President Obama's planned vacation spot, Martha's Vineyard. The Category 1 hurricane was expected to pass the mainland well off New England, but was still packing high winds and waves. By the evening, Bill had maximum sustained winds near 85 mph and was about 250 miles south-southeast of Nantucket, Mass., according to the National Hurricane Center.

Jon Rogers' boat, the Amanda Marie, rocks in 4-foot swells as he hauls a wire trap from the sea and pulls out half a dozen lobsters, their tails flapping and shells glistening. Like his father and grandfather, Rogers has grown accustomed to lobstering in rough seas and bad weather. But these days, he and other lobstermen along Maine's 3,000-mile coast are buffeted by more than the elements. Their profession, their way of life, some lobstermen and dealers say, is in crisis.

It's 12:30 a.m. on an overcast December night and a frozen stillness enfolds Duluth's ice-packed and almost empty harbor. Duluth, perched above the harbor on steep, snow-covered cliffs at the northwestern tip of the Great Lakes, stares quietly down. The Minnesota city's lights glare from empty streets, reflecting off the broken harbor ice that extends from Duluth's wide piers to the steel aerial lift bridge that separates the port from the slate gray waters of Lake Superior beyond.

Two sailors were missing Monday evening after a 652-foot freighter en route from Greece apparently sank in rough seas 400 miles southeast of Cape Cod. Twenty-three crew members were rescued. The 23 sailors from the Star of Alexandria were found on a lifeboat and picked up by the merchant ship Ravenscraig, Coast Guard Petty Officer Randy Midgett said in New York. "They're all in good shape, some minor cuts and scrapes," Midgett said. Believed on Life Raft The two missing sailors were believed to be on a life raft, which was the object of a hunt Monday evening by the 950-foot Ravenscraig and five Navy and Coast Guard search planes, officials said.

Rescuers searched by sea and air for dozens of Haitians after an overloaded sailboat ran aground and capsized in reef-studded waters off the Turks and Caicos Islands, killing at least 15 migrants fleeing the poverty of their homeland. The boat was carrying an estimated 200 people when it struck a coral reef and broke apart in rough seas near West Caicos. Officials said 15 died and more than 100 were rescued. Dozens were missing.

Dozens of Somali migrants sailing across the Gulf of Aden are missing and feared dead after one boat capsized and another ran into trouble in rough seas, the United Nations refugee agency said. A boat carrying 40 Somalis capsized late Saturday as passengers were disembarking off the coast of Yemen about 50 miles east of Mayfaa, where the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees operates a reception center. Twenty people made it to shore but the rest are missing, William Spindler told reporters in Geneva.

The worldwide economic storm might ease by the end of the year, an economist told a gathering Wednesday of international shipping lines, terminal operators, retailers and trucking companies in Long Beach. "The very worst part of this particular business cycle is occurring in this quarter, but as we move forward through the rest of the year, the decreases will diminish until the fourth quarter, when we actually move into the positive range," said Joseph P.

The two boats, named Free Gaza and Liberty, chugged into Gaza City on Saturday with quite an escort: a flotilla of fishing boats, sailboats, skiffs and even a swimmer carrying a Palestinian flag. Arriving to a boisterous reception, the international activists aboard the boats said they hoped their symbolic breaking of the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip was just the beginning. "We will surely try to bring the boats back again," said Huwaida Arraf, one of 44 passengers who contended with rough seas and communications problems after setting out Friday from Cyprus.

Rescuers saved dozens of people from two ships that ran aground in stormy waters off Britain's northwestern coast, but efforts to evacuate the injured captain of a freighter elsewhere were delayed. Thirty-seven people were airlifted from the two ships that ran aground. An effort to rescue the freighter captain in rough seas near the Scilly Islands off southwest England was deemed too dangerous.

Like the other old men at this Costa Mesa boatyard, where the hulls of peeling sloops and half-made cutters rot on their wooden posts, Karl Markvart can't be certain he'll live long enough to reach the water. Again and again, he's watched the boat builders around him lose their race to the sea, their unfinished vessels hauled off to the junkyard to make room for another boat, another mad dreamer.

Spring barracuda action is beginning. With the exception of the weekend's high winds and rough seas, the double Bs--barracuda and white sea bass--catches continue to reward anglers with spring action. The sportfishing party boats from Redondo Beach to Long Beach reported the past week has seen the best barracuda bite this year. The Southern Cal from Long Beach Sportfishing and the First String from San Pedro returned with 200-plus counts a day until the winds slowed the action.

Sensitive writing, inadvertent comedy, varying performance levels, graceful and awkward movement--Serendipity Theatre Co.'s staging of "A Little Mermaid" at the Burbank Little Theater is uneven to be sure, and a little more polish would go a long way toward making this thoughtful production something special. As adapter-director Denys Gawronski notes in the program, this is not the cheery Disney version of "Mermaid."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislators are navigating in uncharted waters -- brackish waters -- on a strange voyage searching for elusive healthcare reform. They're headed on a route never traveled before, at least that I'm aware of. The plan is to first pass a bill. Nothing unusual there. That's what legislators do. This bill would contain the basic framework of dramatic healthcare expansion in California, extending medical coverage to most of the 4.

WRITING about childhood is tricky territory for even the most skilled novelists. It's easy to lapse into loss-of-innocence cliches or pile on the period details until the writing becomes as cozily familiar as a Pink Floyd black-light poster.