JohnHuth

Dang, Ed, you beat me to it! Yes, that's probably the best website. FWIW, the Etowah is probably the most popular among Appalachian Trail thru-hikers. In one week in Maine, I counted about 7 of these in use. It's cheap and gets hot pretty fast, It also has some kind of hobo-appeal to it.

I use an MSR "pocket rocket" - it runs on iso-pro (isobutane/propane - which comes in handy cannisters). http://www.rei.com/online/store/ProductDis...vcat=REI_SEARCH When I was hiking in the 100-mile wilderness over the summer, I ran into a bunch of thru-hikers coming up from Georgia. Those guys had packing light down to a fine art. The two stoves that were the most in favor were the pocket rocket and a denatured alchohol stove (which may as well have been a sliced off beer can). If you want "super light" - there are these small titanium pots - again favored by thru-hikers. This is in my x-mas wish list (along with a waterproof camera).

Actually this doesn't have to do with map reading at night, but it's kind of neat. I do orienteering with my son's scout troop, and their maps have the lines of magnetic north drawn in, as opposed to true north. Recently, I've been taking a pair of dividers and drawing in lines of magentic north on my charts - with a spacing of about 1 or 2 nm (depnding on the scale). This takes the hassle - for me - of taking out variation (do I subtract or add those 18 degrees...going from compass to map, or back...?). So I can get fast bearings and headings this way. Also the 1 or 2 nm spacing makes it easy to estimate distances without having to flip to the scale and back.

>Ok, I think I'm missing something. What's the difference >between a bivy, a bivy sack, a tent and a sleeping bag? Are >we using different names for the same things? Bivy: is a bivouac - it's a noun for the act of staying out at night with little or no shelter. Actually in modern usage, it can also be a verb, as in "It looks like we're gonna have to bivy tonight" Bivy sack: is a thin, more or less waterproof bag- usually with a zipper. It's the equivalent of a "raincoat" for a sleeping bag, if you want to think of it that way. If you bivy for the night and you think it might be cold, you put the bag into the bivy sack, and crawl in. Usually this combination can keep you pretty warm and dry. Bivy sacks are much more compact than a tent, and hence, easy to stow. Sleeping bag: just that - goes inside of a bivy sack or a tent. Tent: has poles, stakes and is reasonably roomy (unlike a bivy sack), but is also larger and heavier than a bivy sack. If you get a bivy sack, I'd recommend that you spend one night out in it - in non-emergency conditions, just to get the hang of it. Maybe try it even in the rain or bad weather, just to give yourself a feel for how to operate like that.

REI has several. A good one will cost around $100 or so. I'd also bring a sleeping bag, while I was at it. I don't know about the 5*'s, but if I'm in a situation where I might have to spend the night, I'll bring extra water, some freeze dried food and a little backpacking stove -if you have to "settle in" overnight.

Curious minds want to know what goes on in the inner sanctum of the 5*'s. I'm guessing bioluminescent lighting for that "find the rock in the middle of the night" exercise they put you through.

The current "standard issue" advice is to have the away-side arm rest right on the cockpit coaming and the water-side part below the shoulder with the elbow bent. Both arms should be close to the cockpit to prevent over-extension. Also - you're supposed to first try a low brace and then go to a high brace if the low brace fails. Mark Schoon showed me a good exercise to try - first try a low recovery on the move, then deliberately blow it and then go to a high recovery. It takes a bit of patience to get this right (I flipped a bunch of times trying this at first) - but it really helps develop that reflexive action needed to hit a high brace or recovery. In the past, I stretched way too much on high braces and felt the stretched tendons in my shoulder the next day. I can see why the BCU is thinking of scratching that from the 3* syllabus - but I'm glad I have it in my bag of tricks. But it took a fair amount of practice to get it right.

Tent, sleeping bag, pad, some spare clothes, water and FIVE DAYS OR MORE of food. I'm not talking about an emergency, I'm talking about what *should* be in my hatch. Alas, that's only about once, maybe twice a year.

Typically as you approach the gap between S. Nauset beach and S. Monomoy, from the north, the population of gray seals increases a lot. I think that a fair number of fish funnel through that gap (S. Nauset and N. Monomoy) with the tide running. They all look pretty fat and happy.

It's beginning to sound like a baptism. "sister won't you cool my fevered brow"

You have two middle fingers? Darn, I'm going to have to get me some of those. You have a website I can go to? For what it's worth, the BCU handbook says to skip PFD knives, they just make you look like a commando. They *are* good for opening oyster shells (and have used one for this purpose). They could be useful in other situations, if someone was tangled up in lines, but I don't think it falls under the category of a "must-have" item. I'm just a gear junkie.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/art...ail_to_a_friend

A lot of the seals in Maine are harbor seals. They do migrate, and are still mostly up in Maine. On the other hand, there are a bunch of gray seals that don't migrate who live year-round. This may be a bit far afield, but there is a huge gray seal population in the Monomoy Islands/Nauset Beach area. They're pretty curious, too, and will swim right up to you (even though we're supposed to give them a good distance). From what I can tell, gray seals tend to be less skittish than harbor seals. Anyway, on the southern end of South Nauset Beach, there is a large colony of gray seals. A good launching point is the "causeway" next to stage harbor. Paddle south in the embayment between S. Nauset Beach and N. Monomoy Island.

I had to "expend unused ordnance" on the 4th of July and gave a couple of Orion's the dunk test (i.e. jumped into the ocean with them, got them wet and fired them off). They passed. My wife was a bit irritated with me.

Jason - that's a good choice. I often don't pack my knife - only on longish trips. I still feel a bit like I'm playing commando when I wear that, my VHF and hydration system - but that's what a gearhead does, huh?

Nova Scotia would be at least 60 nm from Great Waas, so if you saw it, it was an impressive case of looming. This is the right time of year for this - the air temperature is relatively high, but the water temperature is quite low. That hot air layering over cold water creates prime conditions. And - yeah, the side of Great Waas that faces the Gulf of Maine is pretty amazing.

The Hopkinton Resevoir is a pretty nice place to practice. I live in Newton, and it's a bit of a drive to get there, but I've gone there many times, and it's my favorite local venue. (no traffic on route 9 or 30 to alarm, and they seem used to people rolling there).

>What was the paddling like generally while you were there? Great. East of Steven's Island there were no other kayakers. We saw one party on Steven's and that was it. One day was a bit windy and had a decent swell, the other days were amazing - clear blue sky, not too much wind. Picture post-card days. > >Seriously, how far off were they before they veered off? Not so bad as to make it look dangerous. I really don't know - they seemed to keep changing their heading to coincide with ours, and they weren't hauling traps or anything. It seemed harmless, just to chase the boredom away. As soon as we stopped dead, or seemed to take obvious evasive action (e.g. ducking behind a moored scallop boat)they always veered off. That comment was really in keeping with the "wild west" sense of Moosabec Reach.

In the realm of the faerie castles I’ll call my companion “Mister Clean”. I could explain the nickname, but I’m not sure he wants to be identified. Mr. Clean and I were kayaking out of Jonesport. We were camping on some of the MITA islands. On the second day, we were doing a crossing from Shipstern Island to Pond Island, enroute to Bois Bubert Island. Mister Clean pointed to a large yellow-tan object on the horizon, wondering what it was. I looked at it – it was this strange large box-like object. In that area, the only island was Great Waas, but it was so far away, it couldn’t possibly be that tall. I speculated that it was a large ocean liner. They do sail into Bar Harbor, so maybe they were up north – although I didn’t know why. Don’t they just bump between different ports of call like Falmouth and Halifax? I can’t imagine that an ocean liner would be interested in the Old Sow whirlpool. After passing Pond Island, Mr. Clean pointed to the same area, and drew my attention to what looked like a large piece of land. Again, this was in an area where I didn’t expect to see land. Mr. Clean speculated that it was Grand Manan Island. “Grand Manan dominates the coastline around here.” I figured that Grand Manan was at least 30 nautical miles away, and would have to be 900 ft. tall in order to be seen over the earth’s curvature. It seemed unlikely. The next day, we rounded the Petit Manan lighthouse, and, paddling to Goldborough Bay, I was looking west toward Mt. Desert. I could see the hill of Schoodic Head, and was looking at Shoodic Island. Schoodic Island looked unnaturally large, the trees on it seemed huge, and…boxlike. I pointed this out to Mr. Clean, and, within a few minutes, they seemed to shrink back down to a normal proportion and the box-like appearance vanished. I speculated that the image of Schoodic Island might have been a “fata morgana” – a mirage caused by a layering of warm air over cold water, and producing both an upright and inverted image that merge together and create strange sights. We paddled back to Bois Bubert that evening, and watched the clouds build out of the west. Mare’s tails and mackerel scales. Paddling back to Jonesport, I was looking from Flint Island to the abandoned lighthouse on Nash Island. At about ten degrees west of the Flint lighthouse, I saw another distinct lighthouse. Like the lighthouse on Petit Manan, it seemed to rise directly out of the sea. But, there were no lighthouses indicated on the chart. Mister Clean and I vowed to check out smaller scale charts on our return. Hitting Jonesport was like entering one of those wild-west towns with the saloons and cowboys staring at the strangers all down one main street. Rusting old lobster boats were moored with skull and cross-bones flying on top. Scallop dredgers were randomly moored in Moosabec Reach. I swear that the lobster boats kept trying to run us down and then veered off at the last moment. I loaded up the car, and vowed to make the drive back to Boston in one shot, taking an intravenous drip of caffeinated sugar-water to help me along. As I was driving, I mused that maybe we had seen four fata morgana’s. This would explain the strange box that I thought was the ocean liner, the improbable sighting of Grand Manan, the odd appearance of Schoodic Island, and the mysterious lighthouse that shouldn’t have been there. All mirages. It’s named after Morgan le Fay, the fairy half-sister of King Arthur. She could change form at will, and her castle would mysteriously appear out of the water. Sailors and explorers have been fooled by this mirage, seeing land where there was none – particularly in regions with cold water. They’re frequently seen off the coast of Norway. Admiral Peary, the noted polar explorer was fooled by a fata morgana. While exploring the northern coast of Greenland, he saw the hills of “Crocker Land”. Years later, the Danish explorers Knud Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen dog-sledded to the same point, and couldn’t see any sign of Croker Land. An expedition was even formed to look for Crocker Land. They ventured out onto the polar icecap for many miles, but didn’t see anything. When they got back to the shores of Greenland, they saw “land everywhere” – a huge fata morgana had given the appearance of a large chunk of land in precisely the place they had explored and had found none. From home, I got online and checked the charts and distances. There was one very flat island, Machias Seal Rock, roughly in the direction of the mysterious lighthouse, but a) it was over 20 nautical miles away and there was no lighthouse indicated. Grand Manan was even more of a long shot – a minimum of 40 nm away, and not high enough to be seen. That sealed it – we were seeing mirages. Fata Morgana (Longfellow) O sweet illusions of song That tempt me everywhere, In the lonely fields, and the throng Of the crowded thoroughfare! I approach and ye vanish away, I grasp you, and ye are gone; But ever by night and by day, The melody soundeth on. As the weary traveller sees In desert or prairie vast, Blue lakes, overhung with trees That a pleasant shadow cast; Fair towns with turrets high, And shining roofs of gold, That vanish as he draws nigh, Like mists together rolled -- So I wander and wander along, And forever before me gleams The shining city of song, In the beautiful land of dreams. But when I would enter the gate Of that golden atmosphere, It is gone, and I wonder and wait For the vision to reappear.

My kokatat drysuit was delaminating. I sent it into them, and they sent it to Gore - I don't know exactly what the problem was, but the replaced the drysuit and sent me a new one. I was pretty impressed with their customer service folks. John H.

This is off of Eastport Maine, and I've always wondered what the world's second largest whirlpool looks like http://easternmaineimages.com/whirlpool.htm It's a pretty nice collection. Don't know if I'd recommend paddling near it.

I've taken those tables and started to make current charts of the area around Nantucket Island. If you have a good graphics program - get a good base map and then use arrows to designate the direction and strength of the tides, using these tables. (sort of a "roll your own" Eldridge chart) Actually, it's an interesting proposition - if people are making current charts (maps), perhaps NSPN could put them into one place?

I think the 2x number is about as high as one would consider reliable. The Rayleigh distribution will show huge amounts of variation.

My curiousity was about the relative wave height: if >a swell in open ocean hit a inshore reef, shallow beach or >cliff (as you describe), would the height be that much more >than the NOAA forecast because it was cresting, dumping or >reflecting? For example, would an eight foot wave in open >ocean become 10 or 12 or more feet in height for a kayaker >to deal with? Well, one situation would be where an 8 ft. swell goes from deep water to a shallow patch. If it doesn't break, the wave velocity decreases, and the waves "heap-up". After hearing about the Plum Island incident, I calculated the wave height based on the bathymetric information of that shoal off of Plum Island. A crude estimate is that the waves probably hit 12+ feet as they first hit that shoal. The outgoing current would've further magnified the effect. Currents going against a wave direction can cause the waves to heap up even further. Once they start to break, that's where the significant energy loss occurs - before they break, there's not so much loss of energy, but some. > >Nick seemed to suggest that it would not be as terrifying as >the statistics would suggest because some or most of the >energy would have been bled off (via friction as you >explain) by near the shore topography. In other words, >features of the shore would decrease the energy (and >therefore height) BEFORE it hit the shore or reefs near the >shore where the kayaker would have to deal with the waves. > It totally depends on the underwater topography, how developed the waves are, and currents. In some cases, you'll get larger outlyers than that prediction, in some cases, other times, you won't get the large outlyers. A guy I work with has done extensive work on freak waves and has developed a mathematical framework that describes freak-wave data very well. The normal oceanographic models fail to predict the biggest outlyers - in part because these models neglect the effect of currents. Once he put in the effect of currents, he was able to get a better approximation to the unexpectedly high incidence of freak-waves. Currents tend to focus wave energy. I keep thinking about the conditions at Plum Island that Sunday. There was a significant swell coming from the east, a wind from the NNE producing wind-driven waves - both coming from deep water and hitting a shoal, and an outgoing current that would magnify the wave heights. All of those would've added up to something a lot more significant than what a distant buoy would indicate. On the other hand, if you'd been at the shore-end of the shoal, a lot of the wave energy would've been bled off by the breaking.

>Hmmmm. Waves lose a great deal....of what? Height? If so, >how? Length/period? How? Energy? How? > For a pure sinusoidal wave, like what you would get from a distant swell, the energy in the wave is proportional to the square of the wave height. In theory, it's independent of period (or wavelength). If you get into a wave that has a steeper shape - like for waves that are building up under the influence of wind, but are not fully developed, there is still an approximate proportionality to the square of the wave height (amplitude). In practice, for developing waves, there is only so much energy that can be stored in a given wavelength. As waves develop under the influence of wind, they'll build up until the the "angle" of the peak of the wave hits about 120 degrees, and then the waves break and become unstable. The energy then goes into progressively longer wavelength waves as the seas build. So, the relationship between stability, height and wavelength sets a constraint. Typically, the wavelength has to be about 7x as long as the height for the wave to be stable (not break and form white-caps). That's why the longest period swells indicate the most violent activity out in the ocean. Old mariners could tell about the approach of distant hurricanes from very long period swells arriving. >In other words, does "feeling the bottom" (even when not >rearing up or breaking) begin to sap the energy of a wave, >thus reducing the height and/or energy when it finally >breaks? Or is hitting other near-shore obstructions such >as narrow channels, wraping around points, etc.? > By "feeling the bottom" - this is when the frictional drag of the orbits of water sap energy as the water moves along the bottom. This distorts the orbits from circles (like in the open ocean) into ellipses. There's some drag that saps a bit of the energy when the depth is about 1.5 times the wavelength. As it gets shallower, the drag becomes so large that the orbits are broken and the wave breaks, and that can take away most of the wave energy. The condition where the waves have elliptical orbits is not so severe, but there is some loss of energy - remember that the wave velocity decreases when this happens and the waves steepen up, so it's not as easy as saying that the amplitude decreases. Yeah, reflecting waves, clapotis and all that can be fun. I've seen some real geysers develop under the right conditions.