Rattled Confidence

South Burilington, Vermont
44 28.211 N 073 09.716 W


Well, we made to Vermont.  We had a week with John, Katelyn and Victoria.  Now, we are Jenny's house.  We'll stay here until Libby has her fill with gardening.  (It is evident that Libby misses gardening more than any other thing.)

It was something of a relief to leave the Mohawk Valley of New York.  The depressing news about flooding just kept pouring in.   Worse, every day brought new downpours causing fresh flooding.  The Erie Canal has been closed much of the time for the past month.   Twice they had to remove all the gates from the dams to empty the river and the canal in preparation to receive fresh flash floods from the mountain areas.

On the way, crossing the Champlain Bridge, we noted that the lake waters are about four feet higher than when we last saw them.   We also stopped in Vergennes, hoping to see some of our cruiser friends.  When we got there, we were shocked at the sight.

Otter Creek was flooding.  It was about 6 feet higher than when we left last September.  Not only that, the current was extremely swift, and the water was full of mud and debris.   It was similar to, but not as severe as, the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.

Normally, one would find a dozen or so boats there at this time of year; one of them being Tarwathie.  Yesterday there were only two.  One was a Krogen 49 from SC.  The other was a sailboat from Quebec.   I think both of them were trapped there, unable to leave because of the swift current.  The sailboat was beam on to the current and being pressed to the dock with tons of force.  The sides of the Krogen and the adjacent dock also showed signs of very much swifter water.  Perhaps it had been as bad as 2011 in recent weeks.

I was also reminded of a radio program we heard in Canada about the flooding in Calgary.  They said that the entire provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan had been saturated all srping and ripe for floods.  That is definitely not normal.

Lets review.

• We started cruising in 2005.   
• In 2006, they had a  flood of the century on the Mohawk and Susquehana Rivers.   
• In August 2011, Tropical Storm Irene caused devastating floods in Vermont and the Mohawk Rivers. 10 days after Irene came Tropical Storm Lee causing a new flood of the century.
• The winter 2008-2009 was so cold that we nearly froze in Vero Beach Florida.  The freezing weather that winter extended as far south as Mexico City.   Even the trade winds in the Virgin Islands reversed direction.
• The winter 2010-2011 was so cold, and the spring rains in 2011 so high that we dared not come to Champlain in June.  We killed a month on the Erie Canal, to delay our arrival. 
• The winter 2011-2012 was so warm that they had no snow.  The following summer of 2012, the lake level was so low that we almost got trapped in Vergennes aground in the creet.  
• Now in 2013, both Vermont and the Mohawk Valley are being flooded again, but this time with the floods of the century coming repeatedly less than a week apart.

I had imagined that we could continue to navigate the same waters that we are used to since the 1970s forever.  Now my bubble is popped; my confidence rattled.  I realize that coming to the inland areas of The Northeast is fraught with risk.  If we continue to choose summer cruising grounds as in the past, we will certainly get caught sometime.

I am not one of those who rushes to attribute all change to global warming.  But the climate sure seems to be changing.

Two Boats, maybe stranded, in Vergennes, July 6, 2013

Vergennes Falls, top 2013, bottom 2009.

2011, ten days after Irene.  A different sailboat and a different Krogen 49 still stranded in Vergennes.

2009, Tarwathie in Vergennes, normal water level.

Shepherders as Cruisers

Rome, NY

Here is a connection that I never thought of before.  While touring The Rockpile Museum somewhere in Wyoming, we came across a beautiful wagon.   Peering inside we immediately recognized the interior as being highly suggestive of Tarwathie, or of any modern cruising sailboat.  The placard explation was that this was a sheepherder's wagon, which had evolved from European Gypsy wagons.  Of course, that makes sense, they needed a mobile home, sturdy and practical.

It reminds me of one of the appeals that attracted me to cruising in the first place.  Sailboats in general, and cruising sailboats in particular, have evolved for 12,000 years.  Their designs are highly  refined.  Countless ideas, both singly and in combination have been tried.  Bad ideas fade away and good ideas percolate to the top.   That kind of refinement is why today's automobiles are so alike, regardless of manufacturer.   But automobiles have benefited from only 100 years of refinement.  Tarwathie is the descendant of 12,000 years of refinement.   Libby and I admire and respect the accumulated wisdom embodied in the designs.

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More Pictures

Rome, NY

Now this IS idyllic.  This lovely view of Oak Creek is seen near John and Mary Ann's house.  People gather  here to swim on hot days.  Photographers gather here to get shots of the moon rising through the V in the rocks.

We learned that Ponderosa Pine trees near Sunset Crater evolved to grow in this corkscrew manner.  It makes them able to bend without breaking and thus able to survive in high winds.

Why do you need to remind people to not jump?  Most bridges don't have a sign like this.  But this bridge over The Colorado River near Lee's Ferry, Arizona is exceptional.  It almost screams at you to try base jumping or  bungee jumping.

The Sounds of Wind and Water

Rome, New York

[We are stopping this week to visit family.]

Years ago I wrote about the sounds on a boat; especially sounds at night when you are trying to sleep.  Now we have fresh experience.  Sleeping in a tent, few if any sounds are blocked.  Also, because of our diverse camping locations, we were exposed to many environments.  I found the nighttime sounds to be a lot of fun.  Several times, I laid there trying to figure out what I was hearing.

Not all sounds are mysteries.  In several places, the sounds of stiff wind were very loud.  In several other places, the sounds of swift running water were very loud.  One night it struck me,  I couldn't tell the difference.  Wind and water sound alike.  So much alike, that I'm sure that I could not tell the difference merely by listening.  It is a white noise.  To my ears (which can not hear high frequencies) it sounds rich in the low frequencies. That is surprising.

To repeat, the sounds of wind in a forest, wind in the open desert, white water rapids in a mountain stream, and swiftly flowing water in the much larger but calmer Green River in Dinosaur National Monument, all sound alike.  I exclude the moaning sound of very high winds; it never blew that hard.

So what exactly is the mechanism of wind noise?   I always thought that it was the sound produced by the wind in the tree tops.  Now, I don't believe that any more because it sounds the same when there are few trees around.  When I research this question online, I find answers such as this:

In many cases the sound is not due to direct vibration of wires, branches or whatever. Let us assume we have a horizontal wire with the wind blowing past it horizontally. Vortices are created in the air downstream of the wire, alternately above and below the wire at a frequency which depends on the wind speed. The frequency f is given by the relation f = Sr u/d

where u is the wind speed and d is the wire diameter. Sr is a number which is about 0.2 for a circular cylinder and is called the Strouhal number.

As an example, a wire 5mm in diameter in a wind of 10ms-1 gives a frequency of 400Hz.
The pattern of vortices is known as a von Karman street.

That sounds good until I note that the wind sounds the same in open desert or in a forest.   You might ask if it sounds different at sea?   The answer is that we don't know.  At sea wind noise mingles with the noises of the water surface so we never hear the wind alone.

So what exactly is the mechanism of running water noise?  No matter what the answer, it is very surprising that the sound is indistinguishable from the sound of wind.

Perhaps readers can enlighten me.

Scenicity Index

Rome, NY

We didn't explore each state equally, nor was the weather alike.  For example, the day we crossed Arkansas was cold, wet, and low clouds hid all the mountains.   Despite it's flaws, here is a count of the pictures we have taken so far on this trip.

Utah	763
Arizona	525
Wyoming	413
California	179
South Dakota	75
Tennessee	51
Texas	47
New Mexico	44
Other states	97

What about the best picture so far?  That's a tough question.  How about this one from Texas?