JohnHuth

The taxpayers in Harwich are paying for it, I guess (I'm one of them). Yes, it's pretty slanted. I like Tom as a person, and his wife, but he is pushing the envelope on this. I'm not apologizing for this - but when people get emotional about something, the always tend to ignore evidence that doesn't support their viewpoint, and pay attention to things that support it.

Well, I don't think their intent is to make our life miserable. The bill was born of emotion - and the desire to "do something" in the face of a tragedy. I'm against the bill, for all the well articulated reasons above. In fact, I think that, in general there is a lot of overlegislation that is based on single incidents like this one. At some point, people have to just take responsibilities for their lives and the risks they take and not expect the legislature to save them from doing risky things. Having said that, I can give you some insight into the mind of the person who helped push the bill - he's a harbormaster on Cape Cod, and was involved in the search for the girls. Many times he'll motor by someone in a kayak doing something risky. Once he saw a mother, with a very small child in a recreational kayak - in rough water at the end of a jetty that sticks out about 500 meters into the ocean. Neither had PFD's on, and they were getting tossed around. If the girls had been in a canoe or a sailboat, we'd probably see a different piece of legislation. I think someone said that powerboaters or canoists had far more fatalities than kayakers.

Here's something I've been playing with - many of you have seen David Burch's book "Fundamentals of Kayak Navigation". Perhaps you know this, but he runs an outfit called "Starpath Navigation", and has written a book, mainly for blue-water sailors called "Emergency Navigation". The book is what to do if you lose your sextant, or watch, or navigation tables, and also about coastal piloting etc. Another book I've read is calle "Finding your Way Without Map or Compass" - it's about navigation..well...without map or compass. The combination of all three is something I've been playing with - some "seat of the pants" celestial navigation (no tables), wave/swell/wind/cloud reading, range finding using various methods, and assorted other tricks. Anyway, there may be some interest in this down the line - of if I'm paddling with some of you, I'd be happy to tell you about it.

Anyone have any advice on pogies? I'm looking at the problems of cold water on windy days, particularly this time of year. Here's one I found, but I'm open to advice http://www.nrsweb.com/shop/product.asp?pfid=2445&src=champ

There hadn't been a significant flow through that gap between S. Nauset and S. Monomoy before the closure, so I don't expect it would make a huge difference after the closure. The main flood/ebb currents are coming from Nantucket Sound, not the ocean. Example - the current floods to the east at the southern tip of Monomoy and ebbs west. So, I don't expect much change because of the closure.

Yup. I think it was Mark Schoon who told me about the "straitjacket" roll. Maybe someone in NSPN knows about it. Here's what my rapidly failing memory recalls from what Mark told me: some people can basically cross their arms in front of them and roll just from the hipsnap. I don't know if there are many practitioners who can do this - but it illustrates the importance of the torso coiling up and then unwinding.

I think people have said it all - "attack angle" and "hip snap". It's totally frustrating, I know. Here's what worked for me: I started out with the extended paddle (Pawlata) roll. This is more forgiving of just about everything. With your rear hand on the blade, it makes it easy to get the proper attack angle on the sweeping blade, and you also get more leverage than in, say, a sweep roll. Once you get that down, you can use it as your back up as you progress to a sweep (or whatever). When I got to the sweep roll, I'd check the attack angle of my blade a few times by doing preliminary passes with the blade on the water before I'd commit myself to a roll. The most frequenct error is the tendency to want to bring the torso up early. I had to say to myself, over and over..."throw your torso back into the water" for the hipsnap part. It's so counterintuitive, but that's the bit that I had to work hard to conquer. (it's actually physics- you're transferring rotational intertia that you've gotten into your body from the windup, and the hipsnap transfers that to the kayak - once the hull of the kayak comes into a buoyant upright position, the rest of the torso can come along for the ride - think of righting the kayak, not your body).

Yup, I know the feeling well. On Dec. 28th, I went out on Nantucket Sound - made it home just before sunset and took a photo with my new Pentax optio W20... my old Nikon coolpix fell victim to swells off of Great Waas in August. It wasn't the most significant kayak paddle I've done, but it was nice to feel the old muscles move again, the wind on my face and hop over some breaking waves. Sometimes simple works.

Lynne is amazing. There are a number of people who manage to swim some distance in these kinds of water temperatures. There's a lot of talk about how they make blood flow to the right places as an act of willpower. I don't know if I really believe that, but it's an amazing feat.

Yes, Rick, I had a float plan, VHF, flares, strobes, smoke, a bivy sack, you name it, but I don't like to call for help if I don't have to

Hey, I'll do another weather workshop, if y'all want. Thanks - I was actually thinking of getting the Suunto Orca, but wanted someone to back this up.

Gear head alert: I was out on Nantucket Sound yesterday. I'd timed my return to my home-base to be close to sunset. I got a bit of a scare - within about 10 minutes of pulling up my kayak on the beach, a very thick fog rolled in and it got totally dark. The speed with which visibility went to zero - even on my deck was a bit sobering. I wouldn't have been able to see my compass in that gloom (maybe my handheld...I don't know). So...my question - what's a good way of illuminating your compass? I have to get into more light-technology for night paddles. I'd heard that a simple, strap on compass that can be illuminated from underneath by one of those little bioluminescent rods you can get at Halloween. Does anyone have any brands of compasses for this works, or other ideas?

It's all sand (and the water pockets). What's surprising to me is Butler Hole, which is an area that has a run from about 120 ft. to beach level in a very short distance. The waves dump there pretty heavily and I've never understood how this feature remains and doesn't get washed out over time.

If you check out the aerial photos of South Monomoy (now called....whatever), the middle part of the island is getting narrower and narrower. I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a break in the neck of the island in the near future.

Yup, you can now walk all the way from Chatham to the tip of South Monomoy (or whatever it is now) without getting your feet wet.

I can't say that I'm surprised. If anything it'll help the gray seal colony there, because the boat traffic will go down to nothing. I'm pretty sure it would be an easy portage for anyone wanting to "circumnavigate" the Monomoys.

There are some well established water trails in the swamps of south Florida. They have nice wooden tent platforms, and you can be sure of warm weather. There are many good sources for this. The conditions are decidedly not challenging, although mosquitos can be a problem.

You're right! That's kind of interesting - a whirlpool that's located at a confluence point. Talk about geographic mojo!

Just an amusing FYI. In this month's issue of "Backpacker" magazine, there is a discussion about "confluence" points. These are the arbitrary crossings of latitude and longitude lines. For recreation, folks will travel to various confluence points. I checked out their website - www.confluence.org and found a few ones in New England that are accessible by kayak. 42 N by 70 W is only 1.3 km off of Truro on Cape Cod 41 N by 72 W is 2.5 miles off of Montauk Beach, LI 44 N by 69 W is near Rockland Maine, near Matinicus Island 45 N by 67 W is near Deer Island, New Brunswick Probably not the most exciting thing to do, but if you're paddling in some area, maybe bagging a confluence point could add a curiosity factor to a trip.

>John, I have never heard the term "roller cloud" before: are >you referring to lenticular clouds? If so, their formation >has nothing much to do with an advancing air mass, but >rather they form orographically when saturated air is forced >up over a mountain (and down again) or another obstacle >(example of the latter: around the front end of an active, >moving thunderstorm). It seems to me that they do tend to >form very locally and in very stable conditions. (Perhaps >you are referring to some other type of cloud, though?) >They are beautiful to see and come in all shapes and sizes, >but they always have a regular, smooth shape wherein you can >see the local air movement. They're altocumulous clouds, not lenticular. Altocumulus is a name that has to do with both height (alto) and the puffiness (cumulus). Not all altocumulus clouds are "rollers" - "rollers" are a specific kind of altocumulus that forms when there is a large variation in wind velocity with height, causing horizontally rotating "eddies" in the air. The use of the term "roller" is not widely used, although the cousins "makerel scales" for cirrocumulus and "mares tales" for cirrus are more common. For more taxonomy of clouds (including lenticular) - I think that some slides I showed from a weather class I gave in January this year are still around (?) Typically altocumulus clouds are the sign of a warm front encroaching on a cold front.

Pogies - who uses 'em? Do you like them? I use thick neoprene gloves, but I could imagine times when enough cold wind hits me and I'd need pogies. I know of one time when I was having a devil of a time getting on my spray skirt and my fingers got numb even with the thick neoprene. I finally got going, and figured my fingers would thaw out with some motion. They did, but it was kind of painful. I'd heard about some disorientation phenomenon that's associated with very cold water in the ear - or is it nose? Has anyone experienced this?

There's a phenomenon that happens when you're in a region where current varies substantiall from place-to-place. This can cause waves to be magnified in some areas. Typically, a wave moving against current will get more magnification, so, yes, incoming swells on an outgoing tide would tend to have more of this.

I'll give it a try... Standing waves arise when you have a change in the velocity from the surface of the water to the bottom. At the bottom, the drag of rocks and such is strong enough so that the water right at the bottom is nearly at rest. On the surface, the current is the largest. When the change in water velocity from the bottom to the surface is large enough, it creates standing waves. You can think of these a bit like eddies that are circulating vertically, as opposed to horizontally. In waves, you can think of little parcels of water undergoing circular motion. Under the right conditions, the circular "orbit" gets broken and the waves break. This is what happens when swells feel more drag on the bottom as they reach a beach. The same thing happens with standing waves, except the origin of the waves is in the change in water velocity from the bottom to the surface. You can also see this phenomenon in clouds. There are some cloud formations called "roller" where it looks like the clouds are forming a bunch of cylinders. This is the same kind of thing happeneing, where the air velocity varies with altitude and creates standing waves (or eddies) in the air. Inside the rollers, the air pressure is lower and water vapor condenses. This is usually a sign of an approaching warm front. The "Froude number" is a dimensionless number (that is - no units like meter/second) that's ratio of the inertia (momentum) of a little parcel of water to it's weight. Large Froude numbers (I think...) would indicate more of a tendency to break because the water's moving faster and sort of overtakes itself. I wouldn't run around talking about Froude numbers to new kayakers, however.

I have a list of "jackass" encounters as long as my arm. I rescued a couple who were out in a recreational kayak in 25 knot winds in Nantucket Sound. I'd been paddling earlier, but was on shore, and saw them flip and they couldn't right themselves, so I went out and hauled them in. Any heroism was convincing them to let me put their kayak on top of my car and drive them home. The guy wanted to go out again, but the girl was pleading "no way am I going out into that again..." A more serious one was an early October surprise storm in the high Sierras. I was backpacking. My buddy and I were hunkering down in the blizzard in our tent, when a guy mysteriously shows up in front of the tent. He and a friend had glissaded down a snow slope - but his friend, who was wearing tennis sneakers, broke his ankle and was stranded at 12,000 ft. in a blizzard. He wanted us to go rescue this guy. I had to explain that hiking up to an unknown location in the dark in a blizzard at 12,000 ft wasn't an option for me. The next day, I hotfooted it out of there, over passes 3' deep in snow, to get a search and rescue going for this guy. He survived, barely, but three other people died in that storm. One party got stranded on Mt. Shasta.

The two biggies were the Etowah and MSR pocket rocket. The Etowah is cheap and lightweight. The aluminum screen is very malleable, so you can configure it in different wind/weather conditions. It's also pretty rugged. A number of the Etowah "converts" said they started out with heavier, white gas stoves, but they were too heavy and tended to fail more often. A lot of them found it easier to resupply methanol at the gaps in the trail than either white gas or iso-pro. The MSR pocket rocket crowd seemed to have used these from the git-go. They also seemed more organized in terms of their supply system (ie. having dedicated folks who would send them gear to the nearest post-office).