I take the plunge

... and purchase a sailing dinghy. Not that this will surprise anyone who has been reading my blog! It’s been a bit of a saga (or, I should say, a process). First I needed to secure a place in the Harbour Master’s boatyard (which is right next to the sailing school). Then I had to find a boat... Rupert convinced me that buying a Mirror dinghy made the most sense. So what is a Mirror dinghy?
It is a quintessentially British dinghy, and yet a boat that I grew up sailing. According to the Mirror dinghy web site, the idea was generated by a host of a BBC do-it-yourself show, who set about designing a family boat that was constructed using plywood panels joined by resin and fiberglass ribbon. The prototype boat was seen by a writer for the British newspaper, the Daily Mirror... he presented the boat as a possible promotion for the newspaper. After consultation with a Yachting World expert, the design was modified  to include (1) “Viking red” sails, to match the front page title of the newspaper, as well as a newly designed logo. According to Kelvin, one of my sailing friends, the Mirror dinghy also came to symbolize the postwar do-it-yourself culture of Great Britain. Mirror dinghy No. 1 - Eileen - is now housed at the Maritime Museum in Falmouth [see below].

The boat that we had when we were growing up was No. 6136 (it now lives in Arcata with sister Sue). As you can see from the first photo, my Mirror is No. 70163! Built in 2003, it’s a youngster. Mirror dinghies are nice friendly boats that are responsive and easy to sail... and not too fast... definitely a plus (from my wimpy perspective) in the floating harbor, where even slow boats have to tack every minute or two going upwind. I located a boat online... in Chichester (on the southern coast). So then the question was how to get it to Bristol. Well good ol’ Rupert suggested that he and some of the other sailors swing by to pick it up on their way back from a boat show in Southampton... which they did, while I was in Cornwall. But then there was this slight problem - the mast was missing! (It had been stored at the boat yard for awhile). Which meant that I had to shop around for a new mast... which arrived on Thursday.
Rupert agreed to meet me at the boat yard on Friday to help get the boat rigged and on the water. He had already arranged to sail with John that day, so he brought his son Tom along to help me out... Tom has a lovely little red Mirror dinghy of his own. SO after a bit of fussing and figuring out the rig and improvising a few missing bits and pieces we were on the water!  My friends Pat & Bart were visiting, so that the launch was properly documented.

Rupert suggested a maiden voyage down the harbor for bacon sandwiches & coffee, which seemed like a perfectly reasonable (and quintessentially British) thing to do on a sunny Friday. So we set out, Rupert and John in the boat with blue sails, me and Tom in the red-sailed Mirror. It was a lovely sail that went without incident (well, a little bit of shakedown but nothing major). A very nice inaugural sail.

Yesterday was race day. Again Rupert to the rescue, as he agreed to crew for me. Another beautiful day, so lots of boats on the water. About 20 boats racing, and several sailing school boats up at the far western end of the harbor (with their own race course, which ran up against ours!). Luckily the course was straightforward - a simple rectangle with the up- and downwind legs the long sides of the rectangle. Start was a bit unnerving - challenging when everyone is going different speeds (and with the Mirror dinghies being the slowest boats)... not to mention the Pyronaut, a former fire engine boat that now takes tourists into the Cumberland Basin for a water show. But Rupert informed me that I had to worry about only one thing, which was to make sure that we beat the only other Mirror dinghy sailing that day, which was being sailed by Rupert’s sons Tom and younger brother Joe (Rupert told me that he’d never hear the end of it if the boys beat us). And we did (beat them). Didn’t do very well overall, but the short course (with its several laps) really shows up deficiencies in the helmsperson! With such frequent tacking, it's easy to lose speed unless you are a really good sailor (which I am decidedly not). I also need to get better at paying attention to the frequent wind shifts across the harbor (although the wind was reasonably steady yesterday, relative to what it’s like sometimes). But it was a lot of fun - it’s nice that I’ve sailed with the club for the past year, so that they are all friends out on the water. 

So does your boat have a name, I hear some of you ask? Well that will have to wait for another post, when the name is properly painted on the boat...

A taste of Cornwall

I wrote pieces of this post throughout my week in Cornwall, while sitting on my bed our National Trust cottage overlooking Gerrans Bay. From my room I could hear the surf and watch the play of sun through the clouds across the water.

I think that it will take at least two posts to cover Cornwall - one on castles and the other on everything else! Maybe I’ll start with the latter, which is more impressions than history lesson. 

First impressions:  Towns starting with “Tre”, cornish pasties and cream teas - the usual specialties of seaside resorts, including fudge, ice cream and sugar packets with pictures of local landmarks (I remember collecting those as a kid when we visited Cape Cod and the sugar packets had different light houses) - the points in England farthest west and farthest south and farthest from John O’Groats - towns with names like Mousehole, Catchall, Come-to-good and Gweek - crazy double and even triple roundabouts on the roads - the black Cornish flag with a white cross, pirates and smugglers, shipwrecks and wreckers...

So where to start? Perhaps with a literary association encountered on our drive from Bristol: Jamaica Inn. Location of a book of the same name by Daphne Du Maurier... now an inn and tourist destination, but its location is properly isolated. I bought a copy of the book to reread during the week - a good gothic novel that capitalizes on the shipwreck and smuggling history of the Cornwall coast, which apparently occasionally went hand-in-hand: one way to get goods to smuggle was to lure ships onto the numerous rocks that surround the coast... people who did this were known rather descriptively as “wreckers”.
 

Jamaica Inn lies just west of Dartmoor, in northeastern Cornwall, which tends to be more windswept and open than the rolling cultivated hills and bays to the south. The north coast is characterized by rugged cliffs, which I saw only when we visited Tintagel, which will feature in the castle blog! But I did learn a wonderful new north coast landscape term that is apparently unique to Cornwall: zawns are fissures in the cliff that are incised along joints in the rock.



We did visit important points along the west and south coasts. The westernmost point in England is Lands End... the last point of land seen by departing emigrants, the first point seen on return. Rocky reefs offshore, only some identified by lights. We walked to Land’s End from the small coastal town of Sennan Cove, charming in its own right, particularly as we were treated to a roof thatching operation... first time I've seen thatchers at work!

It was difficult not to look at the geology on our walk, as the path was over the very coarsely porphyritic granite that dominates this part of Cornwall and therefore constitutes all paths and building stones as well as the rugged jointed cliffs. These granite plutons also host the famous Cornish tin mines that were operating even before the Romans arrived (as described in the account of the voyages of Pytheus the Greek). 

From Lands End we retreated from the threat of rain  to one of the many beautiful National Trust gardens in Cornwall. The gardens are associated with large and still private inhabited estates... clearly the gardens are too expensive to maintain, which is why they have been handed over to the National Trust. Cornwall seems to be a “banana belt” (I didn’t realize that this was a North American term, but Alison and I had to explain it to Mark), so that gardens associated with older estates feature tree ferns and ginger and palm trees and other unexpectedly tropical exotics. Another benefit to visiting National Trust gardens, we discovered, is that they (1) have tea rooms with excellent cream teas and (2) they have nice gift shops with surprisingly inexpensive books - I bought books on preserving, foraging in hedgerows (more on that later) and one of nice knitting patterns. All antidotes to work!

Northeast of Land’s End, along the south coast, lies the town of Penzance (as in “Pirates of...”) and south of Penzance is the charmingly named town of Mousehole. For real (except that it’s pronounced Mowzel). But it is just as cute as the name would imply, so we wandered around for a bit, enjoying not only the boats and the water view, but also all of the carefully carved slate and bronze plaques in town, with tributes to the oldest house, the last native Cornish speaker (who died in 1777) and the Fitzroy barometer (now mounted outside the Ship Inn), which was given to the town in 1854 by Admiral Fitzroy, for the purpose of providing data to the Met Office for improved storm forecasting. Across the bay from Mousehole lies the town of Marazion and St. Michael’s Mount, which will also feature in the next blog.

The next important point as we work our way east along the south coast is The Lizard (the name for the entire peninsula), or Lizard Point, the southernmost point in mainland England. Lizard Point is known to geologists as the type locality of lizardite, a variety of serpentine (lizard-skin rock). For the geologists - these ultramafic rocks are apparently unique in England ... although there are outcrops of ultramafic rocks in Scotland. The rocks brought Victorian tourists (another common theme) - there is still a thriving industry of rock carving and polishing. As the southernmost mainland extent of the UK, the Lizard has also been important in trade, smuggling and technological advances. It was close to this site that Marconi set up an antenna for transatlantic radio transmissions. Additionally, the rugged offshore rock reefs have caused numerous shipwrecks over the years, so that the Lizard lighthouse now hosts a museum of both lighthouses and rescue missions (although we arrived too late to go in).

The largest estuary on the south coast is the Fal estuary, hence the location of Falmouth where the estuary enters the sea between two castled headlands (yes, more later). The estuary is also known as the Carrick Roads, which I found quite fascinating, particularly as I am reading a book (called The Old Ways) that retraces ancient walking and sea paths in the British Isles... hence the concept of a sea road. Falmouth is a thriving town that is, not surprisingly, full of boats of all descriptions. It is also home to a wonderful maritime museum, where we saw not only one of the first Firefly class boats (that’s the boat that Rupert sails - built for the 1956 Olympics and the first sailing dinghy to have trapezes for hiking out) but also the Finn that Ben Ainslie sailed to a gold in the recent Olympics.

To complete the Cape Cod associations (for all of the New Englanders reading), at the head of the Fal estuary (where the river Fal meets the ocean) lies the town of Truro... there’s also a Barnstaple on the northeast coast, and the major port of Plymouth to the east, in Devon. It’s pretty clear where the early New England settlers set sail from! And this brings us around to Gerrans Bay and the nearby village of Veryan, with its round houses, village pub (the New Inn) and Open Show, an annual event that we happened to coincide with and that Mark insisted we visit... we checked out all of the winning vegetables, flowers and baked goods (including numerous Victoria Sponges) before partaking of tea and scones served by the ladies of the village. I felt rather like I was taking part in a set piece for Masterpiece theater!

And so back to Gerrans Bay, where we spent the last day reading and walking on the beach an foraging along the ever-present hedgerows - a favorite British past time. Hedgerows definitely have their pluses and minuses ... they line ALL the country roads, thus blocking the view and serving as rather intimidating obstacles on narrow one-lane roads. But they are replete with blackberries, sloes (from the blackthorn tree) and haws (from hawthornes), all of which can be turned into something edible. I concentrated on blackberries and sloes, and yesterday made blackberry and sloe jelly. Sloes are more famous as the essential ingredient for sloe gin, which I may or may not try making (I do have leftover sloes but have heard varying accounts of the gin!).

 

Iceland - land of fire and ice

Where to begin? It has been a whirlwind of a summer... but I’ll attempt to provide at least extended captions for the photos that I have assembled from Iceland (not sure that I’ll ever have the energy to go back and assemble photos from the Japan research cruise!).

SO - Iceland. My Iceland trip was motivated by an invitation to teach at a summer school for Nordic graduate students. Apparently the earth scientists at the University of Iceland (some pictured below) have run a summer school for several years now. It’s funded by a nordic foundation, and every year has a different theme. This year the theme was “tephra” - inspired (not surprisingly) by the recent eruptions that have disrupted air traffic. The students? A fascinating spectrum  from across Scandinavia (there was even a student from Greenland - she’s doing a PhD in Denmark) who are working in a range of research fields: from tephra stratigraphy to glaciology to geography (soil science) to archaeology to (of course) volcanology. The other lecturers? From all across Scandinavia as well. The course was organized by interspersing travel days (in a bus equipped for Icelandic mountain roads) with lecture/poster days - an effective format, in that too many days of lectures in a row would have been stultifying, and the field days allowed for much more casual interactions than occur during lecture days.

We met in Reykjavik - had an orientation the first evening followed by a group dinner at a restaurant in town. I must say, although I felt a bit guilty about eating it (having read Mark Kurlansky’s book on Cod), the Icelandic cod that was served as the main dish was wonderful. AND I was excited to be served Skyr for dessert - for those of you who haven’t been to Iceland, Skyr is sort of like Greek yogurt but better. And it is actually a cheese made from skim milk, rather than a yogurt (making it requires rennet in addition to bacteria).

The next morning we were picked up by the bus (photo above) and we traveled from Reykjavik (which is in SW Iceland) to Leirubakki (south central Iceland). En route we were introduced to some of the important tephra (volcanic ash) layers in south central Iceland. Which only served to underline the extent to which Iceland is a profoundly volcanic country!  We also made a stop at a site of historic interest: Þjóðveldisbæinn (yes, Icelandic is challenging to read AND to pronounce) - it is a farmstead that has been reconstructed based on the ruins of a farm that was buried by pumice and ash from an eruption of Hekla volcano in 1104 AD. The reconstruction seems very liveable - well insulated peat walls and sod roofs, big communal spaces, more private sleeping spaces, communal (but indoor) toilet facilities ... but no windows.

Our first point of call was Leirubakki - a nice low-key hotel in the middle of nowhere (from many perspectives) but close to the very active volcano of Hekla (source of all the white pumice layers in the first photo collage), which has also been known as the gateway to Hell (whenever I see references linking volcanoes to Hell I must confess that I get just a bit defensive!). Despite the assertions of one of our waiters that it was very unusual to see all of Hekla revealed, we had several good volcano views.

And symbolic of what I came to consider a uniquely Icelandic sensitivity to art and the artistic, was an art installation on the wall of the dining hall that was titled “Hekla” and comprised individual pieces of volcanic scoria from Hekla glued onto the wall (the photo inset is mine, not part of the piece).

After two days of lectures and posters (and evenings in one of the three hot tubs on the grounds - the Icelanders know how to take advantage of geothermal energy!), we headed for our next venue, Kirkjubæjarklaustur. To get there, we crossed the highlands - unfortunately, it was probably the worst weather day we had... and perhaps the best potential for scenery. BUT just as well - nothing frustrates a photographer like traveling on a bus with (almost nonexistent) stops!  We did make one stop at a spectacular hole in the ground created by an eruption that interacted with groundwater - I´ll confess that I can´t remember the name (and, I have discovered, GoogleMaps for Iceland is pathetic, and my maps are in my office!). Oh well - the photos illustrate one of the more surprising (to me) aspects of the Icelandic landscape: despite the complete lack of tree cover, much of the country is surprisingly green with the green of mosses and lichens, which is often almost fluorescent, in a way that is startling in a landscape that might otherwise be seen as unusually barren.

Our hotel at Kirkjubæjarklaustur was more upscale than the one at Leirubakki, but had much less character (and no hot tubs, although the public swimming pool was close by). Our time here alternated between lecture days and field trips. The first field trip day was to look at tephra deposits from the volcano Katla, which lies underneath the Mýrdalsjökull glacier. Katla erupts one or two times a century - last eruption was in 1918. Additionally, its eruptions have sometimes been associated with those of Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano that wreaked havoc on Europe in 2010. Therefore, Katla is considered “overdue” for an eruption (so is Hekla, for that matter). Katla is also a witch (in Icelandic folklore) or a huge ancient monster in the land of Nangijala, with the ability to spray flames from her mouth... this based on a story by the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren (who also wrote Pippi Longstocking). Anyway, from a volcanological perspective, Katla has left an impressive record of very black tephra layers (see below... also shown are several of the Icelanders who joined us in the field!).

On the way back we stopped at two interesting sites - one is the location of numerous jokulhlaups (glacial breakout floods) from Katla ... these floods commonly accompany an eruption from under a large glacial ice cap. The outwash plains that they have developed are impressive, as are the enormous rip-up clasts that could be seen along the edge of the channel. Which makes sense of the other (nearby) site where we stopped - an “island” that has been joined to the mainland by glacial outwash sediment... it has an interesting history, in that it was “high ground” during the last big jokulhlaup that accompanied the 1918 eruption of Katla, and as such became the site of a farm for the next few decades. It has spectacular views and lovely grassy slopes (more startling Icelandic green in the algae and grasses) but is VERY exposed to the southern winds. Not too surprisingly, it was eventually abandoned.

Back for another day of lectures... but not until we took the time to admire the clearing evening views of Öræfajajökull volano to the east, and evening colors on the rivers and lakes near Kirkjubæjarklaustur. I must confess that I found the expanse and relief of the Icelandic uplifting... not that I think about feeling enclosed by the lack of mountains in Bristol, but I do feel energized by topographic relief! I also love the light in Iceland (and, for that matter, in the UK). At heart, I´m clearly a high latitude person.

The field course ended on Aug 28, when the group headed back to Reykjavik via Eyjafjallajökull. However, by that time Alison and Mark had arrived, and we (together with my new graduate student Emma - not to be confused with my niece Emma) headed off for a few days of field work and geotouristing...“Lost in Iceland” is a phrase that you see on T-shirts. Although it’s hard to imagine how one would get too lost in Iceland, at least if you stay on the roads - there aren’t that many of them - so I assume that the phrase refers to losing oneself in the spectacular landscape, which is easy to do.

Alison, Mark, Emma and I left the group on the morning of the 28th and headed back toward Katla to sample some tephra layers (but not without a stop at the local store, where I stocked up on Icelandic yarn, which is one of the few bargains that remains in the wake of the monetary crash!). Turns out that there are a lot of politics involved with Icelandic volcanology, so that we were told in no uncertain terms that all historic eruptions were off limits. But given the frequency of Katla eruptions, there are plenty of prehistoric eruptive deposits to work on! Bergrun (a postdoc who did most of the organization of the tephra school, and who has done a lot of work on the tephrastratigraphy of Katla) pointed us in the direction of good outcrops. After just a little bit of bumbling around we found a superb outcrop to work on. Emma and I were particularly pleased that we could actually locate ourselves in the stratigraphy and thus identify specific layers of interest. Additionally, it was a gloriously clear day (finally!) but VERY windy, so we were pleased that our outcrop was sufficiently sheltered to keep us out of the wind. Until we tried to slog our way uphill and to the car!

Which led to the next pleasant (and only sort of) surprise. We knew that we were close to the guest house that Mark had found for us to stay in... but it turned out that our field site was actually in view of the guest house! Which turned out to be one of those magical places that one encounters while traveling. The Hrifunes Guest House - formerly a community center (where my Icelandic friend Siggi learned to dance as a kid). It is now owned by an interesting couple - he is a professional photographer, she is a wonderful cook, and their son competed in the Olympic marathon (and according to my friend Siggi, is an Icelandic hero). We stumbled into the house very windblown and were greeted with not only wonderful homey surroundings but also tea and crackers with hot-off-the-stove blueberry jam. Alison and Mark headed out again for a bit of exploring; Emma and I (who had just spent 9 days at the field school) opted for showers and hunkering down on comfortable couches with spectacular views of Katla and the south coast.

Next day was gloriously clear and we all agreed that we should visit Heimaey, the island south of Iceland that was the site of a famous eruption in 1973. We had a beautiful drive along the south coast of Iceland to the east where the ferry terminal lies and then a short (45 minute) ferry trip, with Eyjafjallajökull dominating the skyline to the north, and Heimaey looming ever larger to the south.

The Heimaey harbor is as picturesque and snug as one might imagine, given the money and manpower spent on protecting in from the inroads of the lava produced by an eruption in 1973. What I hadn´t appreciated was the reputation of Heimaey as a puffin refuge - puffin motifs everywhere ... I kept wishing that ´my´ Emma were with us!

After visiting the grocery store (for lunch) and the tourist office (for maps) we headed out on a walking tour of the island. Found an excavation where we could take some scoria samples from the 1973 eruption, then on past the new cone (Eldfell, which means fire mountain) and a picnic spot with glorious views of older tuff cones and recent flow fields.  We then wandered north, past tuff cone bays and perpetual ocean views.

We didn’t reach the northern tip of the island (with the famous puffin colony - will have to save that trip for when I entice Emma K to do some sea bird work in Iceland!) but were treated to spectacular views of the coast, offshore islands (including the island of Surtsey, formed by an eruption in 1963), and sea bird colonies (I was really impressed by how fast puffins fly!!!).

The inhabited parts of the island are also charming - throughout all of Iceland, bright red roofs and colorful houses seem the norm. A nice contrast to the blacks, grays and reds of the lava-constructed landscape and the variegated greens of the grasses and mosses. But rocks remain a common theme... the rocks and the ice and the geothermal heat from the hot spot source.

The end of the day was as clear and lovely as when we arrived - the upper decks of the ferry supplied an overview of the town and the two volcanoes: Helgafell (about 5000 years old, the more symmetrical cone to the right in the image) and Eldfell (formed during the 1973 eruption). 

The drive back to our home base at Hrifunes included a now iconic view of Eyjafjallajökull, made famous by a photo taken from this location during the eruption that was widely distributed on the web. So of course I had to stop to take my own picture! The farmer has capitalized on the event by establishing a small volcano museum across the road (although we didn't have time to go in).

Thursday was Mark’s birthday... which we decided was an excellent excuse for some exploring. We decided to head east, toward Skaftafell national park and Öræfajökull volcano. The southern coast of Iceland is really remarkably scenic, with water cascading over basalt cliffs and glaciers oozing through gaps in the rock facades.




And on to one of the most glorious places I’ve ever seen - Jokulsarlon, the blue lagoon where a glacier feeds icebergs directly to the sea. Big tourist attraction but in a low key Icelandic sort of way, so that it was not hard to spend hours playing with photography... I'll let the photos speak for themselves!