Phil Allen

Google earth will give you lat lon in DMS, digital degrees, degrees digital minute and universal mercator. Can be set under the preferences, as Rick mentioned. One of those should be directly compatible with your GPS. Or if your computer handy, there are ways to get back and forth communication between google earth and some GPS units.

Phil

Gene-

Any idea of the water temps?

Phil

Blaine-

Since someone else suggested Charles River, I'll add that they're the company that does the season pass. Also, if you can hold out till mid summer, when MA has done its tax free sale day the last two years, they've sold their boats for <$2500 (the tax free limit). That can be a great deal on a high end boat. (Though no promises that they'll do it this year).

Phil

Blaine-

Everyone's given you great advice. I'm not sure where you're located, but my wife and I took advantage of a local oufitters "season pass" program for a year or two before we bought our boats. With the pass you could take out any of the boats they had for demo's on the river, and I believe the current incarnation allows for up to two weeks off-site use. Continued use of individual models over several days definitely influenced our final decisions, and we ended up with boats that were much more playful than those we were initially interested in. I don't want to advertise for them on the general discussion site, so PM me if you want more info.

Phil

Hi Karen,

I'll be starting in a VERY large pool adjacent Arlington this weekend, using the ramp between the MBC and the Tufts Dinghies.

Tongue ensconced firmly in cheek,

Ern

How's the water temp doing in the Mystic?

I would highly recommend SOLO and Todd Wright. Great outfit, and it's great to take a class that is designed for watersports. In this setting, kayak related situations (such as dislocated shoulders, & hypothermia, and moving ijured persons ) may be more emphasized. And doing the work at waters edge, or in the water, is of great value.

Also: taking wilderness first aid is vastly preferable (IMO) to standard first aid. Standard first aid emphasizes stabilizing a patient until EMT's arrive ("the golden hour"), where wilderness first aid gets into treating a patient where help cannot be counted on to arrive soon ("the golden day" ) , which is, of course, a scenario more likely to confront kayakers.

Sorry if anyone thought I might be disparaging SOLO by suggesting another option. They're a great organization that's been doing backcountry and rescue skills training at least since I was in college in the early eighties. The WFA H20 appears ideal for kayakers. And while I dont have a clue about the numbers for water rescues, the golden hour versus golden day scenario strongly applies to anyone stepping off the beaten path. Standard wisdom for land based backcountry rescue is that it will take ~ 1 hour for every 1/4 mile you travel away from a road.

And if I dont take it this spring through my employer, I'd be interested in WFA or WFA H20.

Phil

Just FYI, there's WFA classes at Boston Univ. fitness center starting next week open to all. 125$ for ~6weeks/ 4hours per week. Mondays 6-10 or Tuesdays 6-10.

See here: http://fitrec.bu.edu/programs/emt/eflexd.asp

Actually, now that I look, they're just listing tuesday nights.

Phil

Lessee, here. The halo around the moon (or sun) is caused by hexagonal-shaped ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. These are typically associated with cirro-stratus clouds, which can be quite thin, and then thicken up as a front progresses.

The most common halo is caused by the bending of light as it passes through the ice crystals. For a standard hexagonal crystal, and the index of refraction of ice, this angle turns out to be twenty-two degrees. You can also get a forty-six degree angle halo when the light passes a different way through the crystal, but the twenty-two degree halo is the most common. You can also get something of a "prism effect" that can separate out reds and such, if the ice crystals are large enough.

I've heard the weather adage "the bigger the ring, the bigger the wet", but I can't honestly say that I understand where that might come from, since the angle is always twenty-two degrees. The perception of the size of the ring, however, might change, depending on what you're looking at in the foreground.

Next time you see one, check out the angle, and see if it isn't 22 degrees (angle from the sun/moon to the rim of the halo).

The thickness of the ring itself reflects both a lack of perfect hexagonal shapes in the crystals and random orientations - so if you're getting thicker rings, it would imply thicker clouds.

In any case, the ring and frostiness is caused by cirro-stratus clouds, and is one of the standard indicators of an approaching low-pressure system.

Here's a fun fact: If you look at a moon or sun halo when either are close to the horizon, you'll sometimes see an increase in the amount of light on the horizontal parts of the halos. This is because the ice crystals in the atmosphere tend to be oriented with the flat side horizontal, exposing more of the hexagonal parts to light passing through them- this give an increase in the amount of refracted light.

Does that make sense?

Hi John-

The 22 degree makes sense to me for sundogs/moondogs (saw one the other night at the full moon before the recent storm), but wouldn't the "ring" be due to multiple scattering events and therefore related to the concentration of scatterers (sp)? I think this is what happens with imaging point sources in turbid media for microscopy, the turbidity increases the apparent size of the point source, as different photons take different routes to the detector, which makes them look like they come from different places.

Turning over the physics geek hat and returning to my role as a biologist/skier/kayaker now.

Phil

not laughing at all...that will be a FUN class.

.........

....but the best emergency equipment to take as a hedge against getting lost is a deck of cards. if you don't know where you are, sit down and play solitaire....somebody will absolutely show up and watch over your shoulder, promptly telling you to play the red nine on the black ten.

or quietly approach an easy landing and proceed to slip on your but in the mud. There's always someone watching when I do that!

Phil

Mary-

There's been a few folks using and testing it for skiing in the backcountry. Kinda like kayaking, there's a fair amount of potential risk, but unlike kayaking, there's not always a clear view of the sky.

One discussion is here:

http://telemarktalk.com/phpBB/viewtopic.ph...=spot+satellite

Take home is that it seems to do what is says it does, and unlike some of the personal locator beacons, it can send several messages including: I'm OK and located here (with position), I need help but its not an emergency, and more critically: I need help, send S&R.

One issue some folks seem to have, possibly related to obstructed views of the sky due to high cliffs or overhanging trees is that it may take several tries for the message to be sent.

I haven't heard of someone using it for kayaking. I think it would be ideal for extended expeditions where one couldn't be sure of local radio coverage.

Phil

Anyplace we know that's unavailable (insurance reasons, etc)? Just so we can minimize calls.

phil

Hi Liz,

Thanks for hosting. The pant's might be Ernie's (subaruguy, suburaguru?). Sized for a six footer?

You didn't happend to stumble on some light weight softshell gloves did you?

Phil

Galen-

You could check out this trip report from some of the WildTurkey paddlers for some ideas Wellfleet Sunday Nov 4. It's just a bit farther out the cape but on the bay side. Lots of wildlife and little wave action.

Phil

Congratulations to Deb!

Consolation to Mary. This may have been the last assessments under the old system. Next year will be the new system with 2 day 4* assessment...

Congrats Deb! Smart one to take it where the water is "warm".

And Wilson, it was my understanding that the coming BCU changes wouldn't be implemented in the US of A for the next several years. Has this thinking changed?

Phil

Bob-

I'm looking to surf tomorrow, but not sure where to head. May see you up there.

Phil

Thanks for all of the nice posts.

The 4* with John was a lot of fun. John sure kept us on our toes during the assessment........ In the end he swam off at break neck pace as we waited for him to tire (following but keeping our distance).

......

-Jason

And exactly how long did that take?

Congrats guys!

Phil

Hi Bob-

Lorrie and I were all set for doing this trip, but I feel like I've got the beginning of a cold coming on (sore throat, drippy nose). So unless we're at the put-in on Saturday, you all should go have fun with out us.

Phil

The text of the forecast hasn't changed, but the graphical interface at:

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/box/

has indicator lines that suggest they may do the same thing down here. There's separate boxes for Boston Harbor, Cape Cod bay, Vineyard Sound, Buzzards Bay as well as the nearshore -25nm from Merimack to Plymouth. At this point they all point to the ANZ230 forcast.

Phil

I ran into this about six or seven years ago...

........

(Perhaps I can blame my dementia on brain-sucking amoeba?)

Nah- woulda happened in weeks, not years. If you're like me, all signs of dementia are caused by my family

Bob-

My wife and I might be interested. I dont know the put-in, so more details please. Also, expected distance and any landing spots along the way?

Phil

Naw, won't give me mightmares....just crossed my mind at the time what a great plot that would be for a horror movie...gigantic, brain eating ameoba!

Now if they were gigantic, where's the fear in that ....just run/swim/paddle away. It's the idea that they are always there (cue spooky music) but you cant see them that's scary. Unless they're really big, like that forest size fungus someone discovered a few years ago...

Phil

There are a couple of critters that do this, but not very commonly. I used to work on a different one; Acanthamoeba . It normally lived in soil, but could survive in pond water. People used to catch "ameoba brain (or more commonly called amoebic encephalytis (sp?)) from swimming in cow ponds where the soil and water had been well mixed. Snort some amoeba up your nose and there was a small but real chance it could crawl into your brain (the biologists in the audience know how difficult this might be). Problem was IF it made it in to your brain, little was going to prevent it from growing. Used to be about 1 case every other year.

Given how many people are swimming in fresh water, it's not something that's going to keep me up at night.

Phil

Updated forcast is for 15-20 with gusts to 30, so anything exposed is off the list. Those conditions are doable, but alot of work. May do the Anisquam or head to the south shore and explore some tidal rivers.

Phil

Lorrie's away so I'm looking for some people to paddle with this Saturday. Up for almost anything but a marathon. Surfing good harbour beach, Salem to Manchester, or playing out of Gloucester are all possibilities, so make a suggestion.

Phil

Desperately wish I could find the job that would willingly train and pay me to animate things like this all day! I'd thoroughly enjoy that kind of "tedium." Heavy sigh, I'll go back to typesetting now...

There are many art schools with intensive programs in animation (my kid just started at one). However, one has to pay upfront for the hoped for job later (and believe me, we're paying).

Phil