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.