It was about six months ago on a Sunday morning, as ‘Spanish Fly’ ended and some fresh water bass pro came on kissing a crappie or something, that I overheard a newly coined man term. The kitchen’s diminuitive 7-inch TV radio was on as I poured my second cup of coffee. That's when I overheard The Today Show’s weekend anchor talking about “Mancations.” My ears perked up for two reasons. One, the term “Mancation” sounded ridiculous. Two was that I realized I myself could already be a Mancationer.

Though I hesitate to refer to my annual fishing trip with the boys to the Florida Keys in such obtuse vernacular, it seems to me this type of escape-now with a Madison Avenue-friendly title of its own-ought to be a staple of any grown man’s life.

Update from the editor-May 31, 2007

Some of you may be wondering what is happening with SWO. More than it seems, I can assure you. After endless months of intensive work including site design and development, logo design and creation, t-shirt design and printing, writing, travelling, fishing (less than I'd like actually), photographing and more, we have continued to identify much needed areas of improvement. We also identified many of our own strengths and other weaknesses. One weakness has been identifying genuinely high-powered site development staff. The other is that without the site being fully operational (yes, that is a thinly veiled Death Star reference-I couldn't help it) all our other goals for the show, the retail products and more have been severely limited.

Filip Olszewski is the original designer of the site but as he would tell you-he is a masterful artist but only an adventurous developer; at least when referenced against this site-one that is technically demanding to render properly so users derive its full intended benefit. So we heartily set out to find the next developer. After weeks of porposals and consideration, we selected one. Off they went. And nothing much happened. Then some progress was made-but it stagnated. So we terminated them (metaphysically speaking). I am now very close to beginning a new relationship with a third developer and as the saying goes, I am hoping "the third time is a charm".

So for those of you (especially Capt Vin Calabro of New York, Captain Jim of Florida and Rusty_Amspec of Texas) that are bearing with us, I wouldn't question your sanity if you did abandon hope. But I am glad you haven't. I promisee to keep at it until the site is as fun and useful as I have planned it to be.

I'll keep you all informed as we progress again. Thank you endlessly for the loyalty and faith.

Arturo the Bull

'Aceshigh'

Previous editorial:

SWO has already reached a few milestones and now stands at its most recent crossroads. We are now welcoming�several new registered members each day. We finished April, our first full month, with over 9000 page views. So the first order of business is to say Thank You to all of you have visited the site and registered as our charter members. We greatly appreciate your loyalty and contribution to the site.

Filip and I have worked hard to realize our plan for Salt Water Outpost. In additon to good content, the plan includes a robust and fun social networking element, an inviting reports and forum function and a quick, nimble user experience. Right now, the site has yet to fully realize these things. It loads slowly at times, the video feature�is sometimes glitchy and there are coloration,�mapping (or ease-of-navigation) issues and�other minor things that have been quite a challenge to resolve. Some are a hindrance to you, the user.

As a result, we have selected�an advanced�engineer who is in the process of�massive upgrade, redesign�and retooling of some of the site's most important elements. Work has already begun�and will be complete by 5/21/07. The news site will debut the same day and downtime will be 1-2 hours. When you see the change,�as always, please feel free to contact me with your thoughts and suggestions. The process of improving adding to SWO will always be ongoing. I can be pm'd through one of my two profiles�'Aceshigh' or 'AVFish' or via email at: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it �

Finally, please say hi to 'Rusty_Amspec' and 'Karen Ann Charters'. Both are registered members and have been desiganted as SWO's first forum moderators. Thanks to both of them for their reports and time spent as important resources for SWO!!