Instead of a submarine (see the last post) how about an ebike? That’s an electric bike, not an electronic bike. One with a battery-powered (those long extension cords are rather inconvenient, dontcha know) motor on a bicycle. So when the pedaling gets tough, the motor gets going. Seems to be a nice concept, and here’s a related vacation idea: Visit the international bike show, Eurobike in Friedrichshafen, Germany. It featured bike fashions, racing bikes, mountain bikes, seminars, vendors, excitement, parties, the works. Well, that’s where it was this year.

One of their tamer bike rides during the show

Not quite so tame

(ahem) Your Serenity agent can fix you up with a trip to next year’s event. It’s sure to be an adventure.

Yup, your own submarine. Take on passengers (for a fee) and take them on underwater tours. I posted about a small sub being tested off the coast of France a while back, but these guys have been in operation for a while, and their subs are dry inside. They have boats that can take as many as six passengers.

This is in the Caribbean, off Aruba

They’re made by a Dutch company, and they’re marketing to the super-rich, scientists, and people who want to start an interesting business.

Dutch company U-Boat Worx builds two- and three-person submarines for private and tourist use and has been doing nice business catering to the superyacht owners of the world for the last five years. Recognizing that its aspirations are greater than the number of independently wealthy superyachters, the company has set up a submarine center on the Caribbean island of Aruba aiming to “break open the luxury tourist submarine market.” “By catering to tourism ourselves, we are showing third parties, such as luxury resorts, hotels, and cruise companies, what the opportunities are” says U-Boat Worx founder Bert Houtman.

Looks like fun.

When you run a blog, you can get a lot of “junk mail.” Mostly it’s people (or software) cruising for links. Their site of choice is part of the form you fill out when you post a comment, and if you accept their comment, the search engines find a link to their site on your site, and it makes them look good. The comments tend to be bland and complimentary, such as “I found your post really helpful for my homework. You must put a lot of work into it.” or, “Your posts are very insightful and clearly represent a lot of deep thought. I really appreciate reading what you have to say.”

Bleah. This site doesn’t have too much deep thought, though I do think it’s a fairly interesting read, and I do put some time into it, both from research and my own experiences.

Normally I toss this stuff immediately into the trash folder. I’m not interested in supporting forex traders or their scams.

But my last post, below, garnered one of these from someone who runs their own travel blog, about Bantayan Island in the Philippines, and the site looks pretty interesting, especially if you’re considering a visit to the Philippines. (Ahem, your Serenity agent can fix you up with a vacation there.) So here’s a photo of the beach:

Sugar Beach in Santa Fe. Click to enlarge.

Looks like a pretty nice place, and the blog seems to be pretty active. Go take a look. http://www.bantayan-island.net/

There. I’ve done someone a good deed. Maybe I’ll go plug this site on that site!