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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

"Ice Control Zone"


A couple things about this picture. The red light (red, right, return), harbor marker is on at five sec intervals. It was still a small challenge to coordinate the camera digital delay time with the Red 5 sec harbor light marker to get a shot with the red light in the picture. About four different tries.
Listening to the weather station on my VHF I am hearing and have been for some days now that St. John's Bay about 1.5miles give or take from shore is declared an "Ice Control Zone" this means that there are significantly sizable icebergs out there that post a hazard to mariner navigation. To top it all off there has been pea-soup thick fog whereby you can't even see St. John's Bay. The little Bergy Bit in this shot is at the entrance to St. John's harbour. Though this may not appear menacing to huge boats to the smaller boats like fishing vessels it could be hazardous if struck unexpected. It is cold this evening and thinking on the sinking of the Titanic in such cold waters and similar weather as this, sent chills down my spine, as I envisioned the passengers floundering for their lives in the black of night, in cold Atlantic waters. April 30th, 2008, the last day of my birth month.

2 comments:

Silbs said...

Nice post, bad timing. I was just thinking how nice it would be to have a warm spring sun warm my bones. Then I read the Titanic reference. I need a hot shower :)

Stan Mac Kenzie said...

Lots of talk of icebergs for sure in our area now Silbs. Ironically enough, a CBC news member was filming one yesterday in a small bay when it broke apart on camera and the unexpectant news person was washed with the wave that ensued, standing on shore no less. So the kayakers here recognize them as a force to be extremely cautious around and we have iceberg cautions on our web site to alert paddlers to the dangers of paddling near them. Hope your bones get warm though!!