Yorktown ((9/27/2015)

The concept of global warming has been in the news the past week.  It started with the Papal visit to the east coast and when I posted a few pictures of the yacht club on my Facebook account, one of the first questions from one of my friends on the west coast was: "Global warming? "  At the same time a very conservative Facebook acquaintance posted something about the Pope being the Antichrist because of his opinion on the environment, evolution and homosexuality.  Boy it sure has been an amazing couple of days.  It is nothing I am going to solve in this blog, but it is also not something I wish to ignore.

Arriving at the yacht club around high tide Sunday morning it was evident that there was a coastal flooding issue. 

The water had retreated a little, but not enough for me to get on the finger pier and on the boat.

Blame a high pressure system over Maine and a coastal low off North Carolina, and there we had a stiff (20 to 30 mile per hour) easterly wind for the past couple of days.  Wind like that will pile the water up into the Chesapeake Bay.  With high tide it will push it in and even with low tide it will really not let the water out.  (This is a great website that shows you a comparison between the expected astronomic tide and the observed tide in the Chesapeake Bay, I assume there are other websites that do this for other places as well).  Thus with each successive tide water gets higher and higher.  Resulting in coastal flooding.  Yes, sea level rise increases the effect and we all know what causes sea level rise.  Or do we really?

High tide in the York River on Saturday

While you can't see it on this picture, the tide was still rushing in under the Coleman bridge at Yorktown.

We here on the east coast in particular in the Chesapeake Bay area are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to sea level rise, at least I am told.  We live in a subsidence area.  During the last ice age, our area was pushed up.  We were not covered by ice, but the oceans had retreated.  This made the land lighter, and with the ice pushing on the land further to the north, our land was pushed up.  Our countryside is currently sinking, making any sea level rise more pronounced.  On top of that we were pushed up by a meteor impact that fell in the lower part of the Bay and we live on the rim of the crater.  This rim is sinking as well.  Finally, out in the ocean, the Gulf Stream makes a bend towards Europe right near us, and that bend will push water our way as well.  So this is why they predict a larger sea level rise in our area while elsewhere on the east coast it likely to be less.

Seaside goldenrod swaying in the 20+ mph breeze at the beach

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.

Seaford (10/4/2014)

I have been working on my sailboat today.  I am rebuilding one of the port (window) openings of my boat, and tomorrow I will be putting a new port in.  I will do a separate blog posting on that tomorrow.
Coming back to close up my sailboat this afternoon I was taken by surprise that the water was so high.  It is not spring tide (yet); that happens with full and new moon, when the moon and the sun are either in opposite sides of the sky or in the same general area.  I hope it was the wind, which was coming from the north and might be piling the water up in our creek,.  I think and hope it is too early to see the results of sea-level rise.
Either way it was fun getting in and out of the boat especially since we do not have any floating docks.  As you can see, the access to the dingy dock is shut off and you would get wet feet if you would like to go laser racing.

Chesapeake Bay (6/14/2014)

A friend of mine invited me to go sailing on his boat, destination Cape Charles on the eastern shore (and back), something I have wanted to do for a long time.  It is the first (overnight) cruise I want to take with my boat, and now I know it is doable and really not that difficult.   You basically sail out of the York River, make sure you avoid the shallows on York Spit and set a course for 90 degrees or due east.  It probably helped we were sailing near high tide in the area with the biggest current, but we left at 9 and we were at the entrance to the Cape Charles channel by 2 pm.   Leaving the marina we were accompanied by a pod of dolphins.  It was great to see them, knowing we had such a large die off this past winter.  On the eastern shore we were chased by a couple of rays.  It was neat to see them almost come out of the water and chase the boat.  Other days that we sail we often see a lot of floating trash in the water, but this time it was relatively clean.  Not much trash at all. 

There was a large freighter anchored near the entrance to the channel into Cape Charles harbor, and we sailed passed it, before turning around and sailing back home.  Now it was mid tide and the water was flowing out of the entire Chesapeake Bay, and although we set the course on 270 degrees, or due west, we were slowly pushed more to the south, which was no real problem, but just fascinating to see how the currents work.  It kind of threw my friend off when we passed York Spit light on the other side compared to when we left the river; but then you always hear stories about people being turned around.  Unless you know your shore, a lot of the shore looks alike and you could get easily lost or miss an inlet.

On the way over we had good wind and 2 to 3 foot waves.  It was interesting to see that when you are on top of the wave you could see further over the horizon, then when you were at the bottom.  It was also fun to see the freighter that was anchored near Cape Charles come up from below the horizon.  On the other hand it was so clear that even in Cape Charles we could see the smoke stacks of the power station in Yorktown, and we could see what we call the NASA drop area on Langley Air Force Base.

I was using a great navigation app on my tablet (a Nexus 7).  I paid $6 or $7 for it and it worked great.  It’s called MXMariner  and it is outstanding.  My friend had a few I-Book apps and mine beat them hands down.  I have a few minor beefs with the program, and have contacted the developer about it.  We’ll see how they respond.

The photo below shows the freighter that we saw near Cape Charles.  It was anchored, probably waiting for an assignment or a spot in Baltimore harbor.  They were blaring music from our local classic rock station.  Also interesting was the escape capsule that was mounted on the back of the ship.  Neat to see it.  By all a great day!