Category: Island

  • Fernando de Noronha

    Longtime reader “jlumsden” knows that I love to hear about the geo-adventures of my Twelve Mile Circle audience. Thankfully he’s kind enough to share some of his experiences with us. I haven’t encountered a lot of the world personally. That being the case, at least I can travel there vicariously through the adventures of others.…

  • Beaver Island in the News

    There’s an interesting human interest story about Beaver Island, Michigan making the rounds via the Associated Press, “Technology a blessing, a curse for remote island.” I mention it both because it’s an interesting narrative and because I’m one of very few people who’ve actually visited Beaver Island. If you care to know more about that…

  • Islands Split by Time Zones

    I captured the query of an anonymous reader. He or she wanted to know whether there were an islands split by time zones. I’d never pondered that before but I came up with a couple of quick examples off the top of my head. That didn’t satisfy me so I turned to a worldwide time…

  • New Highpoint for the Netherlands

    My brief vacation in Vermont over the weekend must have distracted me. Somehow I completely missed the news about the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles on October 10, 2010. So it took an email message from loyal reader Greg to bring its true significance to my attention. I’m not referring to the dissolution of the…

  • Nobody Wants to Visit Vinalhaven?

    I purposely feature somewhat obscure sites on the Twelve Mile Circle. Thus, my visitors tend to fall into two categories: Those who consider themselves connoisseurs of geo-oddities. Those who visit a single time because a search engine told them they should come here. Predictability I’ve become pretty adept at watching the news cycles. Often I…

  • Street View Comes to Antarctica

    If you didn’t catch it yet on the Google Lat Long Blog, you may be surprised to learn that Google Street View has now arrived in Antarctica. Now, truth be told, the coverage isn’t extensive. It can be found only on one tiny corner of a place called Half Moon Island. Some may argue, “well…

  • Ushuaia

    I can find good geo-topics practically anywhere. Often I derive inspiration from anonymous Twelve Mile Circle visitors who sprinkle digital trails behind them as they travel along. Every one of us leaves fingerprints behind whenever we tunnel through the Intertubes. It’s innocuous for the most part. Generally we don’t think much about it as we…

  • Chesapeake Bay Car Ferries

    I’ve noticed queries from various search engines that wonder whether car ferries cross the Chesapeake Bay. Apparently my United States Domestic Ferries page scores high on a related sets of queries but it doesn’t provide this specific answer. That’s because my page deals with the present situation and it doesn’t delve into the historical record.…

  • European Latitude Paradoxes

    There aren’t any great research efforts or revelations today, just some interesting observations about various lines of latitude in western Europe. I spend a lot of time simply looking at maps, at the patterns, and the logical contradictions that aren’t always apparent in our conventional thoughts. These are a few that have made me smile…

  • All Vowel Place Names

    I come across various language trivia lists on the Intertubes all the time. They cover a thousand different topics but some of them focus on words of unnatural length composed solely of vowels. It doesn’t take much to entertain me but you already knew that. They’re somewhat amusing but they do tend to stretch towards…