Friday, December 10, 2021

Hold the ice, please

     
The State Ferry Leconte heads for Juneau under a coat of ice.
T
he cold spell that cloaked southern Alaska a couple of weeks ago raised the recurrent realization
that if you live near big water, no matter how bad the weather gets, there are people out there offshore encountering conditions worse by magnitudes. Twice facebook users posted photographs of vessels on the ocean icing up, a dangerous situation for any vessel. It occurs when temperatures drop toward zero while wind whips up waves and as the boat crashes through them the spray that rises attaches to any exposed surface freezing to it almost immediately. That can be dangerous. Just one incident I am familiar with related to me by friends: A tug pulling a barge approached Whittier, Alaska, one January expecting to dock and at least release the barge. Ice stood in the way. The tug took on so much ice crossing the Gulf of Alaska all the doors to the cabin had frozen shut and the crew could not get out. A radio call to Whittier’s harbor brought a crew out to break the ice up enough so the crew could escape
Now as another such weather episode approaches, I am again recalling my own experience with that condition several years ago.
     I was delivering an 83-foot fish tender from Valdez, Alaska, to Port Angeles, Washington. We
Ice coats the rails on the Sikuliaq after a night
of wind and spray.

departed in early November after waiting for a week or so for a weather break. When it did, we hightailed it out. A low near Kodiak to the southwest of us was forecast to dissipate with calm seas and light winds to follow. Now I can say based on a previous experience I should have been suspicious. After all it can't happen twice, can it? 
     We had smooth sailing through Prince William Sound and turned southeast following the south coast of Alaska. Through that first night we pushed along in fairly calm waters on into the next day. We had planned to continue through the next night and reach the entrance into Southeastern Alaska the following day. That was until around the time we rounded Cape St. Elias and heard an updated weather forecast. That weakening low near Kodiak had deepened explosively (their word, not mine) and was moving rapidly to the northeast straight at us. I had heard a forecast like that once before (Singin’ them songs about them storms at sea). As the seas began rising I decided it would be better to hide out in Icy Bay, about a third of the way across the Gulf and wait out the storm. We found what looked like a suitable anchorage and settled in for the evening. What had looked good turned into a lee shore when the wind direction changed and sometime during the night we had dragged anchor dangerously close to that shore. Fortunately it turned out to be a steep shore and I was able to back the boat away from it and moved farther into the bay, this time tying off to a large buoy that was also holding a raft of logs. We spent the rest of the night and the next snuggled up to the logs while the storm howled outside the bay.
     The morning of the second day the wind and waves had subsided considerably. Supposedly we were facing winds no more than 20 knots and seas to 5 or 6 feet, nothing this boat couldn’t handle. The only problem might have been that we had to head into those waves and the temperature had dropped considerably. We headed out and into the waves. With the vessel tanked down we plowed through the waves and barely noticed the spray the bow threw up. Before we had gone too far as I looked out over the bow, something didn’t seem right. It took a while but in a few minutes I realized I couldn’t see the blue paint on the bow trim any more. I asked one of the crew to go out and see what was up and he came back shaking off water. That’s when I figured out what had happened. That spray we were throwing had hit the cold metal and frozen. We were freezing up and hadn’t even realized it.
   
The Tradition on a better day
    I knew this boat had some stabilization issues and more weight from ice topside would only add to those. I immediately slowed to about half our speed. We only had 48 miles from the anchorage to another bay and dock at Yakutat. Along the way I kept slowing in stages to keep the spray down and we proceeded across the Gulf, it took us 10 hours to go those 48 miles. Toward the end of the trip I could feel the vessel sluggish to steer and in a roll took a little longer to right itself. Then at the bay we had to cross a bar, where the sea floor rose creating waves. Now we had to cross it with a potentially unstable vessel. I tried the Coast Guard but a local answered. In a short conversation he told me where it was best to cross and we made it without difficulty though it did throw us around a little, motored into the harbor and found a place to tie off, glad to be stopped. Once safe in harbor we tackled the job of knocking off all that ice, in some places more than an inch thick.
     So, now as another wave of Arctic air heads this way, again my thoughts turn to my own brief encounter with an icy boat, and too, I think of all those mariners out there, catching our food and transporting our supplies and products under those conditions and know that here on shore I have nothing to complain about if it turns a little colder.

Go here for more information on vessel icing, causes and danger.

Best headlines ever

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel

Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel