A few months ago I posted a note here complaining about the lack of consistent names for many regions on the SL grid. The continent south of Nautilus is a good example of the point I was trying to make; it’s ‘real name’ is Mãebaleia, but I’ve actually never heard anyone call it that. Most call it… Satori.
Lindens call it that too.
This problem is actually worse for sim clusters within a continent, since the names and even the locations of these regions can change unnoticed, over time. Last August I posted a few maps of Sansara, trying to highlight the changes DPW made over the 2010 summer. I used region names that I took from the Linden Wiki, but then quickly discovered the information listed was two years old, and rather misleading. 🙂
I’d therefore like to give a big shout-out to Icarus Fallen. He’s been working on an update of the Sansara map that includes a pretty comprehensive (and accurate) list of the regional geographic names and locations in that continent. Here’s the current version of his map. If you see anything Icarus may have missed, there’s a great discussion thread on this topic in the Linden Forum.
click to enlarge
Speaking of Sansara, let me segue here a bit to tell you that Linden Lab recently added roughly two dozen new sims to Bay City’s western edge.
Bourne: Summer-long traffic jam
Woots! The new sims all have Cape Cod maritime names, including Falmouth, Wellfleet, Edgartown, Oak Bluff, Truro, Mashpee, and many others. A channel divides the new “West Bay City” from the older, original “East Bay City” sims. (This is starting to sound a bit like Great Gatsby‘s East Egg and West Egg. 🙂 )
Click (or double click) to enlarge
My favorite part about this story is the fact the West and East sides are linked by a bridge located in the new Bourne sim. In real life, the Bourne Bridge spans the Cape Cod Canal. It’s the major land access to the Cape, and it’s the ‘gateway’ to the offshore islands (Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard).
Marianne McCann thinks the thoughtful, accurate naming may be Blue Linden’s legacy. 🙂 Be that as it may, the addition of such a large cluster of potentially nautical sims will surely add excitement and enthusiasm to Bay City’s already wonderful and vibrant community.
Bay City: "It doesnt suck" 🙂
I took a few moments to add the new sims to my earlier maps of Sansara, and I updated the names of waterways using Icarus Fallen’s definitions. There are two versions listed below. The top one is annotated and shows the names of the principal waterways in blue, and the five Linden race lines in yellow.
The one on the right below it has no text, and is intended as a template for sailors who would like to make charts. Both graphics are roughly 6,000 pixels wide, so click (or double click) to enlarge them and feel free to cut out any small piece that suits your need. 🙂
annotated
I do have one tiny request, however. If you use the templates and add your own annotations, please remember to visit Icarus Fallen’s website and use his naming conventions. That way we will all be on the same page!
template
As a final comment today in this ‘Jane does National Geographic‘ post, 🙂 let me add that there are still two large inland water regions that lie unnamed and largely unexplored by the SL Sailing community. The inland seas are located south of FABLES, and lie between the BEAR and BRAUNWORTH regions.
If there’s a push to name these waters, I will of course defer to all the wonderful people who’ve made such huge efforts over the past several years to build Sansara; it’s their call. However, let me at least suggest a couple names that might memorialize a job very well done.
How about Icarus Sea and Fallen Lake? 🙂
Metaverse Sailing 
The west side Bay City land mass is the former copy of Bay City from the Teen Grid, which has been moved and joined with the initial Bay City land mass from the Main Grid.
By presumption on the naming is that Blue Linden was heavily involved with the Teen Grid, and many locations there have his fingerprints. Most notably the Blue and Cyan roads (Cyan Linden was his teen grid alt), the Bleu region, and other spaces and content on that land mass. He was also one of the primary movers on Bay City, and also hails from Massachusetts in his First Life. 🙂
While I did not say “it (Bay City Westside) doesn’t suck,” I do endorse this thought. 🙂
I live just east of one of these lakes for 3 years now. I tend to call it ‘Liv Sea’. Just a suggestion 😉
It’s kind of ‘funny’ that the west side is largely a copy of the east side. Still.. it’s probably worth it to keep it as such. The different infill of the superstructure of ‘east’ and ‘west’ will make for the difference. It’s interesting,.. as long as this kind of thing is not going to happen all over the grid. 😉
@Liv – There is some ongoing LDPW work to”unduplicate” the regions. Some duplication will remain, but some will not. In particular the changes in the Westside “industrial park” area.
Also worth noting is that the Northern Passage is dropping this week, which will connect Bay City to ANWR and the Heterocera Atoll continent.
I am so, so happy Bay City is getting a waterway linkage to the sailing areas further East in Sansara and Heterocera Atoll.
Woots! It will open wonderful options for cruising and racing over long distances.
I know there’s a Bay City parade planned for May 14 that will celebrate the new Western sim expansion. Maybe Leeward Cruising Club could help you coordinate a group sail as part of the event; it might run parallel to the land route in adjacent sims.
The cruising flotilla would show off all Bay City’s new water, and also keep the land sims on the parade route from overcrowding! 🙂
I admit I’m talking out of turn here though. I don’t speak for LCC; there’s a cat and a duck you know who can help figure out the options!