Thursday February 1, 2007

Living on the ice here is truly excellent practice for a cruise north. There will be almost 3' before spring and even 0.25" of steel can feel frail. It is mating season now and there is a fair sized pack of our County coyote/wolf's prowling the ice boldly at night coming within feet of Defiance, absolutely unafraid.

Hanging out in Belleville yesterday confirmed my suspension regarding ice thickness. Dru Harrison reported over a foot mid channel just east of Myers Pier. Defiance is now in hard and life on the ice begins.

Defiance is feeling the pressure as the ice in the channel deepens. Hearing nothing but silence is most restful after weeks of becoming tuned to the snaps, pops, and pings created during the freezing process. It takes a while but you become able todistinguishh between the crunch of ice compressing and splitting versus thespringg of a plate finding a new form.Theree is a foot of ice now and it extends below Defiance's chine, leaving the next couple of feet to be much easier to live with .

I spent time yesterday around Meyers Pier in Belleville where Dru Harrison and the A.L. Killaly were hard at work breaking the ice in the river. The water levels are already begining to rise and Dru reports over a foot of ice now choking the channel east of Meyers Pier.

This amount of ice now exceeds what Defiance could break as we simply do not have the weight. The Killaly could not break through with 2.2 times the mass and twice the horsepower. Not that I ever expected to run in hard ice conditions. My plan has always been to watch and run at the right time. Defiance should do fine in ice up to 6 or 8" thick but then we are just too light.

Check out the following sequence. The A.L. Killaly is 50' and 50 tons and as he tries to break through you can see him lift up out and begin a nice heal. Ice breaking is a pretty rough sport.

The wild kitties are doing fine. Serendipity the mom has now lost her hair ball throat and is very social. Sweetie is all fluffy with a thick winter coat and as coy as ever. unfortunately Rufus has the alpha tom thing going and will not let either of them approach the boat let alone come on board.