Chesapeake Bay (12/30/2014)

Time to pull in one more sailing day this year!

Me (photo taken by Ben)

Ben, a friend of mine invited me to go sailing on his boat today (a Catalina 30).  It was cold, temperatures were in the mid 30s and we actually had flurries.  Wind was approximately 15 knots and it diminished to 10 later in the day.  In other words it was cold, but it was fun.  The boat had a good heel, and at times, according to our GPS, we were going well over 6 miles per hour.  We had a four our sail from the York River Yacht Haven to the Seaford Yacht Club.  A nice sail.

Here we are coming by Yorktown, I'm on the helm (photo taken by my wife)

There was very few people out on the Bay today, which is understandable, considering the weather.  We saw a few pleasure boats with people fishing, no sailboats but even one kayak, with a brave soul. There were a lot of migratory waterfowl on the bay; always a pleasure to see them.  By the end of our sail the clouds broke and there was even a peak of sun.  It was a pleasant sail, but as of this writing, I have not yet warmed up.

Yorktown (12/27/2014)

It was a wonderful day for a walk in Yorktown this past Sunday; and yes we had to bring the camera, dogs etc,  The fathers of Yorktown had the foresight to construct this wonderful walking trail along the river.  It officially goes from one victory center to the other (kind of the Feds competing with the State).  These photos were taken during our walk.  There is the one near the state's center overlooking the York River with part of the beach visible; you can barely see the rooftops of Yorktown (on the other side of the bridge.

The next two pictures were taken from the walking trail when it runs in front of the River Front Walk restaurant.  The reflections in the window were very cool and you can see the bridge and in the other the York River and my family.  Next door to the restaurant is the "Tap House".  Both restaurants are great, and they are nice places to visit with friends and family.  My only gripe still is that there is no good breakfast place in town; but then when I drive there early in the morning, there are not many people out and about (in particular in the winter).  Oh well.  At least there are no chain restaurants in our little town; although the "Carrot Tree" has another establishment in Williamsburg that carries the same name.

During our walk, the river was glass, in other words no ripples were seen for a while.  For us sailors this means there was no wind.  Sailors learn very quickly how to read the water for any wind, puff, or increases in wind that we can use to propel our boats; in particular racers.  We also saw one sailboat in the distance, which I immediately recognized as a boat of a friend (and that I've sailed on twice this year).

In all a great day to be near the water and enjoy the views; something I need, since I have "horizon deficit disorder".

Newport News Park (12/25/2014)

Christmas day and time to play with our new toy camera (an Olympus TH-3 ... kind of Olympus' answer to the Gopro).  This camera is waterproof and shock proof, and this was our chance to try it out in water.  Thank goodness it rained the day before and the ponds had some water in it.  Below are two pictures, the first one was just before I submerged the camera and the second one is actually an underwater picture in the pond.  The water is somewhat murky with leaves and pine needles sticking up.

It is definitively a camera what we will be having fun with, in particular on the boat and in other more nature oriented situations.  Everything I've done with the camera is very satisfactory.  I love it.  Time will tell is we keep that opinion.

To everyone, hope you had a great Christmas and a happy new year.

Yorktown (12/23/2014)

It is really nice to be outside in the woods early in the morning after a day of rain or when it is foggy.  Today it was both.  All the trees were still damp, which makes the bark turn really dark and makes the lichen and moss stand out.

Lichen are very interesting organisms.  They actually are a symbiotic relationship ship (you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours) of algae, bacteria and fungi.  Somehow by living together they are able to create these wonderfully colored structures that live on rock, and in our woods on the trunks of trees.  This symbiotic relationship makes them strong and able to live under very harsh conditions.  Typically they live on the northern sides of trees and rocks, where they are not baked by the sun.

Here is a picture I took today during my walk this morning.  It was great to be out in the woods again.  Life is still dry, the ponds have no or very little water in them; but regardless it is so enjoyable walking in the woods.  Foggy day walks are my favorite.

Stormwater Management (12/21/2014)

What, no location on this post?  My back yard, Yorktown or even Newport News Park would be a decent heading as well, but this post is more than that.  It speaks more to one of the things I like to do (landscaping, architecture, building, paving) and things I teach (stormwater management).

Over the past two weekends we decided that a strip of grass between two paved areas in our back yard was more of a bother than an asset.  The few things it was good for was that it had some clover (good for bees) that sometimes did reasonably well early on in the year, and that it is the area that receives the overflow from one of our rain barrels and thus serves as an infiltration area for water coming of our roof.

That water infiltrates into the soil is a very important thing to me.  I give impassioned talks about this subject in the classes that I teach and talks that I give throughout the state, in particular since we are definitively seeing a drastic drop in groundwater tables in areas that are developed.  Areas that are turned into subdivisions and shopping areas become less pervious to rainwater than the forested area or agriculture land they were before development.  Rain falls onto impervious surfaces (roofs, roads, parking lots, etc) after which it enters some form of stormwater management system and is piped into the nearest stream or river.  As a result, rainwater that used in infiltrate and recharge our groundwater tables now runs down ditches into a river and out to the sea, or in our case the Chesapeake Bay.  All this added water in the streams also causes flooding downstream and more erosion in the streams during rainstorms while in dry periods the streams are drier than they used to be.  In essence, building subdivisions is not the best for our natural environment; although it is a necessary thing to do; we need to live too.  But I believe in sensible development and less urban sprawl (search my blog for the label urban sprawl and you'll see what I mean).

What I teach is also known as Low Impact Development.  Yes, we need homes and subdivisions, but we can build them sensibly, with respect for our natural environment and for the ground water resources.  When we do that we alse take care of the water quality and quantity in our creeks, rivers and streams.  Instead of piping the water away, we need to help it infiltrate with things like rain gardens, bioretention permeable pavement and other measures.  That was what I was looking at when doing my paving job. 

In this job, I used all kinds of recycled materials.  When we lived in Cincinnati my wife and I would even clean up the Ohio River and pick up old brick that were dumped along the river.  In this job, the tiles were from a walk way we took out and the brick are all recycled from old building projects (my wife and I spent long hours chipping away the cement that clung to some of these brick). 

Giving the brick and tile a bit of a grout line will help with some water infiltration; but we had to deal with the overflow from our rain barrel.  Luckily we had what I call holy brick, or brick that is uses as veneer to a home.  These brick all seem to have three holes in them (hence the holy in holy brick).  So we constructed a slightly depressed channel of these holy brick between the tiles.  We routed the water from our rain barrel through this channel in the hope (expectation) that any overflow will infiltrate through these holes into the soil; thus achieving what I teach: runoff reduction.  We will have to monitor it and see how it works.  The photo below show the results of a two-weekend job, minus the sore back.

Yorktown (12/17/2014)

After rain the previous day, it was foggy this morning.  Conditions were just right around sunup and the moisture laden air coming off the land over the cooler water created this wonderful fog.  Naturally not a good thing, knowing there is a bridge hiding in the fog and boaters beware.  I have not sailed under foggy conditions, and reading some accounts it can be quite mystical; especially one of the accounts of a cruise in the northern Pacific/Bering Sea area. 

As usual, I had to drive by the Yorktown riverfront on my way to work, and had to shoot these familiar pictures.  Like it or not seeing the water, especially on days like today, give me this amazing feeling inside that is hard to describe.  It is the same feeling I get when looking at my loved ones; a feeling of pure bliss.  On top of that I saw two bald eagles along the parkway.  They are often there during the winter and early spring.

This morning I got the email of this week’s challenge by Cee Neuner that I sometimes participate in and it asked for seascapes.  Boy do these photos fit in; so here is my entry.

Seaford Yacht Club (12/13/2014)

The nice thing about being a member of a yacht club is the sense of community.  Research has shown that one of the things that is important to longevity is being part of a community; and while this mostly relates to houses of worship, I am sure it applies to yacht clubs as well.  The yacht club that I am a member of serves this function very well for me and its members; although one could argue that for some members it may not be good on their liver and actually decrease their longevity.

Previously I had my boat at a marina and as I described it, it was a place where boats went to die.  There was a sunken boat that stayed under water for weeks on end; there was a boat with an actual tree growing in the cockpit (being a botanist, I am fairly confident that that tree was at least two to three years old).  The owner of the marina confiscated the boats of owners who stopped paying and then sold the boats to unsuspecting people who showed up two or three times and then quit coming and paying.  The boats were then confiscated and sold again and again, thus making up the slip fee and entering this vicious circle.

Suffice it to say that I was happy to be out of there and I have never regretted my move to the yacht club now two and a half years ago.  There is always a person at the yacht club to give you free advice, give you a hand, or even offer you a beer. 

In addition, the yacht club is one of my only community type Christmas parties.  Working for the state, we do not have any of the perks like luxurious Christmas parties that I had when working for engineering firms.  We had a “Christmas breakfast” without any speeches or real community, just a quick run for the food, scarf it down and back to work.  It really had nothing to do with Christmas at all.  All the warnings about poor behavior at these kinds of parties, getting drunk, and having sex on top of the copy machine with an office partner do not apply to state employees.  Oh well, we live up to other clichés; dull and just plain boring.  On top of that, we even have not seen a real raise for the past 5 years, let alone a good party.

So we had a wonderful party it is always good to see friends, eat good food and have a few nice drinks.  Everybody behaved; my kind of office party; no stress and a great sense of community.  The photo of today was taken outside the club house.  The committee had set up one of the dinghies outside the entry and decorated it with lights.  My wife took this picture of me in front of the boat.   

Seaford (12/7/2014)

One advantage of having a (sail)boat is that I am even more intimately in-tuned with the weather.  There isn't a day that goes by that I do not check what is going on out there.  This is somewhat amazing, having a wife who is a micro-meteorologist by training.  However, like a lot of generations in the past, for me weather was something that happened; something you had to live with and could not do anything about.  When we lived in Cincinnati you were aware of large thunderstorm complexes.  Cincinnati was kind of at the far end of "Tornado Alley", so always something to be aware off.  However getting a boat, you have to keep an eye out for hurricanes in the summer and nor'easter in the winter.  On top of that you need to know if it is good sailing weather.

This weekend the wind was 30 to 40 knots (1 knot is 1.15 miles per hour) from the north and north-north-east.  A wind coming straight down the Chesapeake Bay at that force forces the water to pile up on the southern shore of the bay and in the little creeks that jot into the shore in the area.  Currently the actual tide is running 1.5 to 2 feet above the astronomic (predicted without the wind) tide (see here for the website).  I just learned that the storm is redeveloping and moving back towards us.  It seems that is will pile even more water up in our creeks,

I went to the boat on Sunday, just to check it and to get a little water out of the bilge and the front locker.  Water always seem to accumulate in these areas.  While my ports (windows) are relatively water tight, I do have a leaky anchor locker and leaky stanchions.  Moreover, my companionway hatch is not waterproof, so yes I will have to dry the boat out after a rainstorm.  On top of that, winter time also means condensation time for my boat and water will drip anywhere and from every thing on a cold day in winter.  I wonder if I can turn my boat into a whiskey still.

It was mid-tide when I got to the boat, and the water was higher than an ordinary high tide.  The wind was whipping.  Two friends of mine arrived just after me, announcing they were going for a sail (remember 30 to 40 knot winds).  They later told me they made it out to the mouth of the creek, but waves were 5 to 7 feet and they decided not to chance it.  Waves can be the general problem where we sail.  Our part of the bay is very exposed to winds from the north to the east and the waves can build pretty high when it blows out of that direction; there is nothing to stop them between us and the eastern shore.  Even in summer there are days we feel uncomfortable going out; when the wind is from the northeast waves can easily top 2 to 3 feet, and that is not much fun in a 25 foot Catalina.

Anyway here is a photo of my slip; you can see how high the water is; and this is mid-tide.  At least our marina is very sheltered and the water is relatively calm.

New Kent (12/5/2014)

Guess I should show nice pictures of New Kent County, but this is a picture of my somewhat favorite abandoned building.  I took the pictures as part of an on-line challenge by Cee Neuner; regular readers of this blog know I sometimes participate in it.  This challenge was abandoned buildings, and although I had taken a picture of this building group before (click here to see my favorite picture taken this year in August and my for my somewhat philosophical blog entry) I wanted to come back to it.  In particular since a few weeks ago the recliner was still there.  The County fathers must have read my blog and finally removed the chair.  I hoping it was still there; oh well.

What still amazes me is red metal roof on the side building.  It looks brand new.  It really looks like someone really tried to make something out of this building complex but failed.  Route 60 between Richmond and Williamsburg is very quiet and I think any commercial endeavor in the middle of nowhere would have a hard time.  I love this road because it takes me away from the stress of the Interstate; and truth be told the commute on Route 60 may take 10 minutes longer, but with a lot less aggravation.  Stress management is something I really need, so it is good to take that route.  I read somewhere once that commuting length and blood pressure have a direct relationship.  So the back roads are so much more fun (I remember so well reading Blue Highways by William Last Heat Moon; a book that made a huge impression on me).

But enough writing for today.  Here is my entry to Cee's challenge, my set of pictures of the abandoned building along Route 60 in New Kent.  It is really ashamed that these things are abandoned.  There are many groups that are concerned about them.  Abandoned in Virginia is one of those groups.

 

James River (12/1/2014)

I posted a small write up on the James River approximately 9 months ago (click here if you like to see that one).  However, here I go again.  It was such a beautiful day on Monday that I had to go for a walk that took me again along the James river in Richmond.  It was great to meditate on the old railroad bridge that juts out over part of the river and think about the force of that water and about where all those drops of water have been.  You can think about where the drop was introduced into the watershed, or even become more philosophical about it and wonder where those molecules have been in the past.  Were they in a drop of sweat that was beading up on the forehead of Leonardo da Vinci or where have those molecules been in the past.  I have mused about things like this before in a blog I did that I called George Washington's shovel.  But water is an amazing thing; without it life is not possible.  Moreover, the way it freezes is important.  If it froze like any other substance would when it cools down, life would be impossible.

We teach that of all the water in the world only 6% is available to us.  All the other water is locked up in ways that we cannot get to it.  Of the 5.85% is in the oceans, leaving only 0.15% usable/fresh water.  Of this fresh water two thirds of it is locked up in glaciers and the remaining is either groundwater or fresh water.  In other words 0.05% of the water on earth is available to us for consumption.  I guess this is why I am always a bit upset when I watch people water their lawns, and especially so when they do it with valuable drinking water.  It is such a waste in my eyes.

Anyway, this another picture of the James.  One of these days I am going to create an extensive post on the river; showing pictures of it's origin (headwaters) to it's outfall into the Bay.  The picture below shows the jumble of the various bridges that go across the river: the road bridge and the I-95 bridge in the far back; the old pilings of a railroad bridge to Petersburg within the back a railroad bridge to Danvville and on the side the main track from Lynchburg.  A virtual spaghetti bowl of bridges and ruins of bridges.  What amazes me that they were able to build them on the spot where the river goes over the fall line.  Just looking at the force f the water amazes me.