Sea

The battleship Iowa will return to sea duty next month while awaiting repairs on its badly damaged No. 2 turret, defense officials said in Washington. They said the Iowa would serve a four- to six-month tour in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean before returning for repair of the turret next winter. Except for the disabled turret, where an explosion killed 47 sailors during practice firing on April 19, "the ship is sound," one official said. The ship could use its two other turrets, as well as other weapons systems, if it became involved in hostilities, but a moratorium against test-firing the 16-inch guns remains in effect until the cause of the accident is determined.

Children and adults plunged into the surf off northern New Zealand on Tuesday to lug dozens of beached pilot whales to safety. Residents said that 250 children and 50 adults struggled for 2 1/2 hours to pull about 100 whales by their tails out into the sea at Doubtless Bay. "The kids were excellent--we couldn't have done it without them," builder Graeme Jay said. "The adults were getting tired. We might have given up."

She listed to starboard. Her stern sank, and she settled. The sea washed in through the galley, and they saw it sweep away an ice chest. Then she sank some more, and her bow rose straight up. From the life raft, she looked like a buoy against the sky. Tom Jacobsen heard her port engine rumble and die. He could smell diesel fuel. She sank steadily, a foot every three or four seconds. The sea rushed in through the stern, and it forced air up and out through the foredeck vents.

Len Paschoal's meticulously rendered drawings and paintings depict piers, beaches and breakwaters familiar to anyone who has strolled along the seashore. The Milan-born, L.A.-based artist's first solo show at Koplin Gallery is promising not because each of his works on paper and canvas captures a fraction of the beach's daunting beauty, but because in them Paschoal skillfully plays blinding light against impenetrable shadow to form tight compositions.

From land or sea, the Big Sur coastline dazzles. This 90-mile stretch of rugged Central California landscape draws millions of visitors annually, most of whom are content to pull over at Highway 1 viewpoints to catch a quick glimpse of the rocky Pacific shoreline. But I wanted more. I wanted a window on the sea. The bed High above the ocean, Ragged Point Inn & Resort offers a spot of green in a landscape of browns and blues. The 17-acre park-like resort [19019 Highway 1, Ragged Point; (805)

A Navy enlisted man, just back from five years at sea, won a $2,575,000 annuity in the California Lottery's "Big Spin" on Saturday. Operations Specialist 1st Class David Gintowt, 36, who lives in a Chula Vista apartment with his wife and 13-month-old daughter, will get an annual check for $103,000 for the next 20 years. The lottery deducts 20% for federal income tax. He said he was born in Philadelphia and attended Temple University, but he now considers his home to be Lake Worth, Fla.

The ship, a fragment detached from the Earth, went on lonely and swift like a small planet. --Joseph Conrad Like Joseph Conrad, Richard Bosman tells colorful adventures of the sea, only Bosman lays them on thickly with a paintbrush. Bosman, 45, was in town last weekend for the opening of "Gifts of the Sea," an exhibition of his densely textured oil paintings at UC San Diego's Mandeville Gallery through June 25. His paintings heave, hiss and seethe with the motions and sounds of the sea. Bosman's curling, white-capped breakers and foggy, still waters are not realistic but expressionistic, pulsing with the ocean's contained energy.

In just 14 days, they accomplished something remarkable. Called to a crisis halfway around the world, several dozen ships moved the equivalent of a town of 50,000, plus all its vehicles, food, water and other supplies, from ports in the United States to the Persian Gulf. Over the months, they built U.S. troop strength there to 240,000.

Talk about a wing and a prayer. Two men adrift and clinging to the pontoons of their capsized catamaran spent 17 chilly hours at sea--passing the time talking, singing hymns and speculating about the impact of their deaths on family and friends--before being rescued Sunday morning, several miles from the Malibu coast.