The dude posing in the picture above doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into. I try to avoid drinking coffee before heading out, for obvious reasons. Particularly when I’m on small, open boats. Problem: Being on the water on the margins of the day, especially over consecutive days, can make a person bone tired. Something’s got to give.

I’ve tried Vivarin. It’s like mainlining espresso straight into your veins. You’re uber-edgy and the same issues with coffee arise. An anecdotal aside: I tried a few to stay up on New Year’s one time. It worked but the next day I temporarily lost the ability to sweat. Verdict: Avoid on boats.

I’ve tried Mountain Dew. It has less caffeine than coffee, but the pure sugar content usually provides a quick boost, without the edginess. But, for me anyhow, the weaker caffeine crash is partially offset by the sugar crash. Plus, a 12-ounce can has 170 empty calories. The 20-ounce diet Code Red is pretty awesome, but I found it only once in a gas station mini-mart in South Carolina. Verdict: Maybe.

I bring energy bars. I eat them and like them and want them aboard, but that early in the morning I’m trying to stave off delirium, not run an exercise circuit. Not enough juice. Verdict: Maybe.

Lately, Five-hour Energy’s have been getting it done. I’ve taken them on fishing trips and felt alert and sharp, but usually for only around three hours. For me, at least, it starts to fade at that point but there’s no crash as with coffee, and none of coffee’s unwanted side effects, even though it contains caffeine. I’m not convinced taking 8,000 percent of your recommended B12 is a healthy thing in the long haul, but until someone tells me otherwise, I’m sticking with it. Just not every day.

From Noah to the sinking of the whaleship Essex to The Perfect Storm, maritime disaster stories have kept audiences riveted in accounts recorded on the written page. But in the Youtube and reality TV era, and particularly with the immense popularity of Deadliest Catch, the written word has some stiff competition. It is against these outlets that Kalee Thompson’s new book Deadliest Sea must hold up. And it does. In a fast-paced 289 pages, Deadliest Sea delivers the goods its readers will crave.

Thompson originally wrote about the Coast Guard rescue operation launched for the crew of the fishing boat  Alaska Ranger for an article in Popular Mechanics. From there she had the foundations for this book. Thanks to Thompson’s heavy-duty reporting, Deadliest Sea offers a depth of background and information that would be impossible to reproduce in a video or television format. The book brings together the backgrounds of both the Alaska Ranger crew and their rescuers, and how they all intersect in a singular dire situation.

With all the reportorial detail, the book also has the requisite riveting moments that captivate even despite knowing the eventual outcome. A favorite passage:

Ryan’s mind was racing. He was pretty sure he’d heard the ship’s officers talking to the Warrior. The other FCA boat would be on its way, but would they have relayed the message to the Coast Guard? If they did, the Coasties would be coming all the way from Kodiak, Ryan thought. That was so far, hundreds of miles away. It was still dark. Would it be easier to spot him at night, or during the day? he wondered. Maybe at night. His strobe light was still flashing. He thought about how he’d look from the sky. Would they see the suit, the light? Jesus Christ, how long could he stay like this?

The waves were huge: twenty-footers, Ryan guessed. From the deck of the ship, seas this size wouldn’t be any sort of spectacle. It was a different story when you were submerged in the goddamn things. He couldn’t keep the freezing spray out of his nose and eyes, the only parts of his body that weren’t protected by the suit. What if no one was coming?”

It’s a scenario anyone who has taken even a day trip out of sight of land has contemplated, and all the details, and the ensuing Coast Guard rescue, come to life in this book.

Find Deadliest Sea at Amazon.com or at other locations listed on Thompson’s website.

Takemefishing.org has put out a free Boat Ramps iPhone app. Notice the “free” is not capitalized. The app itself is free, rather than an app that lists where there are “free boat ramps.”

I downloaded the app and checked it out. You can search for nearby ramps based on your current location, by zip code, or by city. There’s a “marina” setting where you can look for marinas as well.

The flaw in the app, if I were in charge of future updates, is that it doesn’t tell you if the ramp in question is a public ramp, if you need a town permit, or if there is a launch fee. It just tells you it’s there.

Most of the time you have a plan where you are launching well before you hitch up the trailer, but it could be a good aid in travel planning to new locations and cities, or if there’s a better ramp in your normal boating area you just haven’t heard about.

To download it, search for “Boat Ramps” in your iTunes account.

I tested the 2010 Scout 210 XSF today. Ran out of the Shinnecock Inlet, courtesy of Dave Bofill Marine.

I have a full review due on Boats.com soon, but here are some quick vitals:

Tested with two aboard, 3/4 fuel load, running an F150 Yamaha.

Top End: 44.7 mph on the GPS (47 mph on the speedo)

Time to Plane: 3.2 seconds

0-30 mph: 7.8 seconds

I’m not sending out props for this book just because the authors sent a signed copy to my daughter, or because my name is listed in the acknowledgements, or even because David Seidman and Jeff Hemmel are colleagues from way back. I’m pimping the Anti-Pirate Potato Cannon because, well, even though it’s written for kids, there’s plenty of stuff inside I…um…didn’t know. And I’m supposed to be a professional marine journalist.

I didn’t know, for instance, that you could use your cat as a weather forecasting tool. Nor did I know how to use a compact disc to signal for help. Nor how to make a barometer out of a soda bottle.

The book has plenty of obscure and absurd topics that will entertain kids, as well as practical information like how to tie a bowline and how to throw a cast net. All good stuff for the nautically inclined youth.

I’m in the middle of reading my galley review copy of Deadliest Sea, a new book due out on June 1st. It’s about the sinking of the Alaska Ranger in the Bering Sea in 2008, and the rescue efforts by the Coast Guard.

I plan to do a full review soon. But, getting into it, I want to praise the author Kalee Thompson for her hardcore reporting. A former editor at Popular Science and National Geographic Adventure, she puts all her skills to use in describing all that went down in great detail. Click on this link to get the Harper Collins synopsis.

I’ve got a thing for dry bags. Finding one in backpack form has been a challenge. The typical PVC material just doesn’t feel as pliable as it should, especially when stuffing it with things. The Aquapac Waterproof Backpack is made of TPU coated nylon fabric. TPU stands for Thermoplastic Polyurethane, which gives the pack its waterproofing.

I used the Aquapac on a weeklong boating and fishing junket, stuffing it with my cell phone, digital camera, video camera, wallet, and various garments for layering. Everything stayed dry. There’s a clear interior pocket that seals with hook and latch strips, where I kept my phone and wallet, and a yellow waterproof interior pocket where I threw the clothes.

The bag took a lot of saltwater spray and the outer shell lost none of its pliable feel. It also felt like a real backpack, comfortable to wear when I adjusted the straps. We’ll see how it holds up over a season of hard use, but so far I’m a fan.

Price: $85, www.aquapac.net

The revolutionary bucket.

From the newswires comes word of a rotomolded plastic apparatus that could change the face of boating. This cylindrical device has an enclosed bottom designed to contain viscous liquids. With this gear, called a “bucket” in layman’s terms, a boater can keep water in a contained area for use in cleaning or dousing situations. For the desperate, it also doubles as a portable marine sanitation device. Check your local marine supply store for further inquiry.

The Sea Shocks pad absorbs some of the impact of boating.

The curse of the small-boat owner who stands at the helm all day is an aching back. All that up and down impact over the course of a season, and over the years, takes its toll on your spine.

Since I like to operate center consoles in the 20-24′ range, I fall right into back pain central. Last season, I sought to alleviate that problem by placing a blue Sea Shocks mat under my feet at the helm. It was my first season in a while without experiencing back problems. So I’d say it worked.

The pad itself is pretty basic. It’s a blue marine-grade cover placed over a SKYDEX core. SKYDEX is a shock absorbing and vibration dampening cushioning technology . (They also sell military grade products with blast dampening capabilities.)

SKYDEX at work in the Sea Shocks mat.

The only drawback is the mat is expensive. But in the long run it could save on chiropractor and doctor bills.

Price: $149. Contact: www.seashocks.com

The Boating Suite app has six functions.

Here’s where Apple gets insidious. You buy an iPhone or iPod Touch and think the score is settled. But the practically-free $.99 songs add up when the purchases total in the thousands. Worse are the revolutionary apps that change your life for a small fee. If an app says “boating” or “fishing” in the title, or appears even remotely related, I feel compelled to buy it. Even if just for research purposes. Which is why I bought the new Boating Suite App.

So, I hit that little blue rectangle that reads $4.99 and quickly watched it turn into the green “Buy Now” one. Here’s what I got. It’s a suite of six lists: A Fuel Log, Maintenance Log, Expense Log, To Do List, Shopping List, and Reports. It does some things for you. Like in the Fuel Log, if you input all your hours and fuel fill ups, it will track your fuel economy. But mostly it looks like a way to compile all the information you’re supposed to about your boat in one place.

Since I just got it, I won’t have much more useful to say about it until trying it for a while. And there’s the rub, too, will it be an app that breaks the trend and actually gets used? Most, according to CNET, gather figurative dust.

For the record, I check some, like the NOAA Buoy Data app, the Weather Channel app, and the Oakley Surf Report app on at least a daily basis. So it is possible for some useful ones to be habitual. Time will tell.