Bristol balloons

It's balloon festival weekend in Bristol, so I decided that rather than write a lengthy blog on my Japanese adventures (that blog will follow), I'd put up a short and mostly photographic post on the balloon fiesta. It's billed as an international balloon festival (not exactly sure what that means) that apparently started in 1979, and has now become an icon for Bristol (and, according to the web site, attracts half a million visitors!). 

The festival started on Thursday evening with a "Nightglow" event, which I didn't attend - apparently all of the balloons are lit up, for show. I did watch the accompanying fireworks, which were spectacular and visible from my spare bedroom... And then I got up early yesterday morning for the "mass balloon launch", which was definitely worth it! I arrived at around 5:45am, when the first balloons were being inflated. It was fun to arrive in the half-light of the early morning... people milling around and balloons starting to the roar of generators and gas flames (it still just doesn't seem to me to be a good idea to propel nylon balloons with flames, but they seem to have worked it out!). 

As the sun came up, the balloons started to launch and drift slowly to the west. It was perfect balloon weather, very calm and warm, just a hint of a breeze. It really was spectacular to see the skies crowed with balloons. I carefully positioned myself to the west of the launch site, so that most of the balloons passed directly overhead. Photography heaven! Which is why I'll let the photos speak for themselves. 

Another watery blog

It’s the 4th of July and the power is off at my house so I can’t bake the berry pie that I was planning to make this afternoon. SO - I decided to wander over to the Pump House to see if they had power. They don’t - apparently it’s a break in the line. So I decided to settle in to one of their couches with a ginger beer. and write a blog post They’re playing music on someone’s computer; the wait staff and chefs are hanging out and a few customers are outside drinking beer. [My waiter friend Adam - who, it turns out, is an avid reader, particularly of American literature - just handed me two books to read ... Don Delillo’s White Noise and a book called The Fourth of July by Peter de Bolla!]

Several of you have asked about the Diamond Jubilee, so I thought I’d try to get caught up on the blog by starting with that weekend in early June. Alison, Mark and I took a late morning train to London, so that we arrived in the early afternoon. Alison and I immediately headed for the place where we were meeting Sue Kieffer for coffee (Sue is a fluid dynamicist/volcanologist who was visiting Durham, UK, for a few months). Mark, sweet guy that he is, took our bags to the hotel that we were staying in, north of the city. By the time Alison, Sue and I had chatted about geophysical flows for awhile, both Mark and Sue’s partner Jerry had found us, and we all headed off to see the big sailboats that had come in for the Jubillee... they jammed St. Katharine’s docks (yes she spells her name correctly) and lined the Thames below (downstream of) Tower Bridge. The boats at St. Katharine’s included many famous British yachts, such as the Gipsy Moth and the Suhaili (both round-the-world boats) as well as Sceptre, a yacht that sailed in the 1958 America’s Cup (apparently the first year they sailed the 12 m class). And of the larger ships moored along the Thames, I was happy to see my friend the Matthew [which is now back in Bristol’s Floating Harbor].

That night, Alison Mark and I went to the Globe to see Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing... in French! Part of an international Shakespeare festival that has included troops from all over the world. Had a nice dinner at the pub in the theater and then found our seats - we were late in getting tickets so we were all sitting separately in the very steep and narrow gallery seats perched almost on top of the stage. Below us was the pit, where people stand in the open air to watch the play. Because the entire theater is open to the air, they have blankets for rent... given that it was a rather chilly (and eventually rainy) evening, I took advantage of the rental! Alison, as a Canadian, is fluent in French... Mark and I both had English editions of the play with us which I did look at occasionally. Actors were great and were clearly enjoying playing at the Globe (and interacting with the audience in the pit). Definitely a fun experience. Walked back across the Thames to the tube station in the dark and rain and made our way underground toward Hampstead.

Next morning we had breakfast at a bakery we’d noticed the evening before... turned out to be an excellent place for breakfast so we grabbed some lunch supplies there before heading back into the center of the city. We emerged from the tube at Westminster and decided to work our way upriver from there, on the theory that the crowds would be thinner at greater distances from a tube station, and that we’d rather be at the beginning than the end of the flotilla route. There were crowds along the river even at 9 in the morning, several hours before the flotilla was due to start. But there were also large screens lined up along the river showing footage from the Queen’s coronation and other notable events of her reign, so that there was plenty to see as we wandered toward the Chelsea Embankment, where we eventually found a riverside place to hunker down for the wait. Which is what we did. We’d all brought books to read ... I think it’s the longest I’d ever waited for any event - but as I told Mark and Alison, I’d never been to an event that hadn’t happened for 250 years!

Some background (off the top of my head... I feel handicapped without access to the internet!). Apparently flotillas down the Thames used to be part of festive occasions related to the monarchy. In particular, the organizers envisioned reproducing a famous painting by Canaletto (which is now in the National Gallery) from the Lord Mayor's parade in the 18th century, including a reproduction of a yacht in the painting... the new yacht was christened the Gloriana (see photo above). However, the Queen was not on the Gloriana, but was instead on another yacht that had been completely refurbished for the occasion. Our vantage point actually afforded us fairly good views of both yachts... and even the Queen and her family (see below).

But I must say that my favorite part of the entire event was the initial flood of “man-powered” boats... of every shape color and description, manned by people in colorful costumes and flying flags and banners and standards... it really was an impressive sight, as were the Dunkirk boats that followed... and the narrow boats and the boats with orchestras and ...

The rest of June flew by in a blur... from the trip to Clermont-Ferrand, France to the trip to Eugene. France will have to wait for another blog. But I will end this one with my return to my end of the harbor. Because this weekend was the Baltic Wharf Sailing Club (BWSC) Regatta, which was a sufficiently entertaining affair that I thought I’d add an account to the blog. Particularly because my friend Rupert was in the safety boat for Saturday morning’s race - with a camera - so I can include a few pictures of me sailing (all the photos below are by Rupert, except for the one of him, which I took at the BBQ that evening). Regatta unfolded as follows. Saturday morning was a “head of the harbor” (HoH) race, which entails sailing down the harbor to the center of town and back (see map... also labeled are my house 18RM, the Cottage Inn CI, the Grain Barge GB, and the location of bacon sandwiches BS - keep reading!) and then sailing around a simple course at our end of the harbor until the OOD (Officers of the Day, who, that morning, were Rupert and his son Tom) decided it was time to stop. Well, actually, they usually try to run the race for about an hour, but make sure that everyone has made it back. And since I was crewing for Ben in his RS400 (RS stands for Racing Sailboat) we ended up going down and back in a record (for Ben) 35 minutes and therefore had several more laps to complete. Which tells you how windy it was. You can see from the pictures below that Ben (who is much younger and more athletic than I am) likes to sail standing up (when he’s not hiked out).

The afternoon continued to be quite gusty - and the race was a rather complicated course at our end of the harbor... Ben and I did manage to set the spinnaker several times, AND put on a show for the folks spending Saturday afternoon at the Grain Barge, because the downwind port mark (it was a gate mark) was such that we were pulling down the spinnaker and rounding the mark and then tacking just before crashing into the Grain Barge. Again we sailed the course for an hour... not quite in time to miss the rain that had been threatening all afternoon. But it had already been decreed (by Chris) that the BBQ would be in the “Dutch barn” where some of the boats are stored (it has a roof but no sides). BBQ included tandoori chicken and salmon as well as hamburgers, veggies and salad. My contribution was chocolate chip cookies (with chocolate chips imported from Eugene) - they disappeared rapidly! I’ll have to get someone to send another shipment of good quality chocolate chips :)

Sunday was still gusty and gray... morning race was in the cute little colorful Access boats - two adults can fit in the boats so several of us doubled up (I sailed with Pete). Started with a sail down the harbor for bacon sandwiches and tea/coffee (our commodore phoned in the order ahead of time so they were ready for us). We then raced back up the harbor... it was pretty funny - no one was used to sailing the boats and the winds along the harbor are really flukey, so everyone was in the lead at some point during the race. But it turned out that Pete and I (in the orange boat) ended up crossing the finish line about a foot in front Kelvin and Jackie (in the yellow boat). Winds continued to be gusty, so eventually Chris decided to call the afternoon race but said he would be safety boat if anyone wanted to just go for a sail. I went out with Pete on his Lark and it was exciting... we only sailed for 30 or 40 minutes before we were tired!

A final note... it’s continued to be a social week. On Monday night I didn’t leave the University until after 8 (it had taken me awhile to get going in the morning). Was walking home past a pub called the Three Tuns (a tun is apparently an old English unit for a wine cask - close to a cubic meter). I’d noticed that they had an Irish session night every Monday but had never been... I heard the musicians tuning their instruments so decided to stop by for a beer. It turned out to be a lot of fun. Lots of good music, including several guys with great folk singing voices who would sing traditional songs interspersed with the instrumental music. And then there was the woman who sang a beautiful Basque song. And the people in the corner dancing Irish sets. And all this in a tiny pub crowded with people, windows gradually steaming up and obscuring the rain outside as the dark encroached (not until well after 10pm). And the cheerful guy at the door as I left, who said that he hoped I’d come back... I said certainly!

Tuesday evening was the monthly Tuesday steak night with the sailors (which I finally managed to make it to). At a pub called the Knights Templar (we ARE in England), near the Temple Meads train station. An evening of sailing talk and occasional questions about geology (Rupert made the comment that by the time I left their conversation would have converted to geology interspersed with sailing!.. actually, I think his comment was that they’d soon be discussing the strata of the Avon Gorge). There was a video projection of the tennis matches at Wimbleton on a large screen, so we could also keep track of the tennis. All English eyes are on Murray, the local boy, who advanced today to the semi-finals.

And this afternoon the power did come on in time for me to make a 4th of July dinner for Alison (Mark’s away) and Juliet (another volcanologist/geodesist in the department)...

Olympic torch brings summer to Bristol

This week has seen the passage of the Olympic torch through Bristol, leaving summer in its wake! As I sit in my living room this evening I’m looking out at a raft of colorful kayakers who have entered my little water way, and sailboats drifting by beyond the blue bridge. It’s warm and hazy - like East Coast summers (though not QUITE so hot and humid). The sun is still remarkably high at 7:30pm, making up for the short days of winter.

But the real excitement this week was the Olympic torch, which arrived in the city on Tuesday evening and departed on Wednesday. Tuesday’s event brought the torch to the center of town, which means the harbor. And the harbor means boats, which in my world means the sailing school and the sailing club across the way! The sailing school had been asked to supply kids in boats for the torch event. Last week Rupert (the connection between the sailing school and the sailing club) sent a message around to the club to say that they weren't sure that they would have enough kids to fill the boats, and did any of us want to be part of the sailing escort for the torch? I of course said yes. The plan was that we would sail the Access boats - cute boats with colorful sails that are designed for handicapped sailors - and accompany the sailing school kids in their boats.

Not surprisingly, when we arrived the school had found kids enough to populate all of the school boats... and what they needed were adults in the support boats, to shepherd the kids. So that’s what we did. It was a riot... I’d describe it as somewhat organized chaos. There seemed to be only a loose outline of a plan. We had been told to be ready to sail at 5:30.. shortly after that we escorted (or towed, in our case) the kids in boats part way down the harbor, where we assembled for instructions. Which were that we had to wait an hour! They soon realized that that didn’t make much sense, so sent the kids back out on the water to sail, and gave us instructions for guarding the perimeter (to keep the kids out of the center of the harbor until they were ready for us). 

And so we puttered around and delivered kids’ lunches and rescued boats that got hung up along harbor walls and dodged errant boats and watched over capsized boats and shouted instructions to the less experienced kids who claimed that their boats wouldn’t work correctly! And all the while the kids were giggling and waving and shouting and just plain excited. 

All of a sudden we got the word to start herding the sailors into the city center where the torch was being ferried across the harbor from the south side to the north side. The torch bearer was Blair Hannan, a woman who sails with our club - she has a rare degenerative disease that has left her without the use of her legs, but she has become an expert sailor and is hoping to make the 2016 paralympic team. Her boat was escorted into the harbor by some rowing skulls and gigs, and was followed by a gaggle of kayaks - we were coming from the other direction so that there was colorful chaos on the water in the city center as Blair used her traveling torch to light a large Olympic torch on the pavilion in the center of town.

With remarkable timing, some of the famous Bristol balloons drifted overhead as the torch was being lit... 

Rupert sent us all the following message from the sailing school folks (WESSA - the West England Schools Sailing Association) the next day, which describes the event nicely:

Geof and I would like to pass on our grateful thanks to all of you for your brilliant work last night with getting the sailing fleet so magnificently in the right place at the right time!!! As with all these occasions there were decisions being made instantly, which required immediate action that often had to be changed because of situations beyond anyone's control. Wind conditions varied and activity on the water varied thus not making briefings easy. AND WHO told anyone the torch would be 20 minutes early???!!!!!! But for all this - to see virtually ALL our boats on the water, filled with young people, who sailed so well, with so few collisions - was SPECTACULAR!!!! The BBC, RYA [Royal Yachting Association] and the Local Authority have passed on their appreciation of the occasion and I know that all of you have done WESSA proud in front of a very important audience...Rupert, can you thank your club members for being there, not sailing as we thought, but getting on with what they were asked to do. They were brilliant!

And Alison sent me some photos from her perspective, including pictures of me handing out lunches and in the melee!

Scotland - a land of castles, scenery, geology and stories

I’m now convinced that every geologist should visit Scotland. From Edinburgh, haunted by the ghosts of Hutton, Playfair and Lyell (not to mention the host of other scientists, economists, etc. of the Scottish Enlightenment) to the Highlands with the successive orogenies the comprise the Caledonian and Barrow’s classic sequence of metamorphic grades, Scotland truly does seem the foundation of classical geology. But it’s also a fabulously beautiful part of the world and one that’s rich in history blending into myth and just plain stories... so here’s a brief travelogue of our geo-exploration of NW Scotland.
We are: Jon Blundy and Mike Walter (U. Bristol), Ben Harte (retired metamorphic geologist from U. Edinburgh) and me. Purpose: to scope out independent mapping areas for U. Bristol third year students (and for Mike and myself - the two Americans - to get acquainted with classical UK geology).

Day 1: Bristol-Glasgow-Oban

Jon, Mike and I left Bristol at ~7am on Tuesday morning in a torrential downpour. An hour later we touched down in Glasgow in brilliant sunshine. A small island indeed but it set the stage for our week a world away from SW England. Picked up a vehicle and headed north, past the bonnie banks and braes of Loch Lomond (with a quick stop for photos of Ben Lomond and coffee at the tourist bus/boat area), which are really only a short drive north of Glasgow.

And on to Tyndrum for a late morning sampling of SGB (“so bloody good”) fish & chips - Jon’s designation, based on a recollection from a former trip along this route. And they were... and we were ready for them, having gotten up ridiculously early to catch the flight north. As we then headed northwest toward Oban, the scenery continued to improve... Ben Oss and Ben Lui snow-capped above the valley of the River Awe, and on to Loch Awe, where we couldn’t resist stopping to take a look at the ruins of Kilchurn Castle. I will confess that I was clamoring for a stop, as I was in the middle of reading a book called Castle about the history of castles in the UK (but the guys didn’t show any reluctance to follow up on my suggestion...) and a castle on a Loch called Awe was just too good to pass up. And Awe seems an appropriate word - the castle had lovely views up the Loch to the peaks we had just passed, and down the loch studded with islands, missing only the Swallows and Amazons in their sailing dinghies (I kept thinking throughout the trip what lovely sailing was available on all the little lochs that we passed!).

We then followed the River Awe NW to the coast and the picturesque town of Oban - known primarily (at least by me) for its whiskey. But it’s a lovely little seaside town overlooking the small island of Kerrera (our target for the afternoon) and the larger island of Mull (our target for the following day). So we dumped our things at the Glenbervie guest house (pictured in the upper right of the photo collage below... upper left is the view of Oban from my window the next morning) and walked to the docks to find the ferry to Kerrera.

Ferry ride was short - boat was small, passengers only because Kerrera has no roads although it does have a busy marina and boatyard. Spent the afternoon poking around, checking out both the geology and the exposures to sort out the best combinations of geology plus exposure for student mapping areas. Caught the last ferry back at 7 and were treated to a wonderful view of sailboats emerging from Oban for an evening sail - made me want to join them! The evenings are long in Scotland even though we’re not yet at midsummer - for the dates that we were there, sunrise in Oban was a little after 5 and sunset a bit after 9, but there was light in the western sky until after 10 (the beauty of high latitudes!). And the days were even longer farther to the north...

Day 2: Mull  

The next day we headed to the island of Mull by ferry. Mull is the second largest island of the inner Hebrides (the largest is the island of Skye, of Bonnie Prince Charlie fame) and has numerous Bronze Age archaeological sites (i.e. it’s been inhabited for a long time). In the 14th century Mull became part of the Lordship of the Isles; it was later taken over by the Macleans and then the dreaded Campbells (more about them later). This isn’t just random history - instead it’s part of the history bedtime story that we were told each night by Ben, who carefully doled out interesting historical tidbits related to the land (and sometimes the rocks) that we had explored during the day. So - the Kingdom of the Isles was originally part of the Gaelic kingdom of Dal Riata, or Dalriada. And our sage geology guide Ben spent much of his career studying Neoproterozoic (~800 to 510 million years) Dalradian Supergroup. A somewhat later history relates to the island of Iona, which lies just west of Mull (we didn’t quite have time to go there to explore - had thought of putting some students on the island but decided that the geology was a bit too difficult for 3rd year undergraduates). Apparently Columba (later St. Columba) traveled from Ireland north to Iona in 563 AD to found a monastery - not only is this center credited with spreading Christianity to the Picts and Scots, but it is also thought to be the origin of the famous Book of Kells (an illuminated manuscript). But we weren’t there to be tourists (more is the pity - north of Iona is the uninhabited island of Staffa, which is famous for Fingal’s Cave, a cave in spectacular columns joints that are similar, in form and origin, to Giants’ Causeway in northern Ireland... I whined a bit about not being allowed to visit famous volcanic rock sites, but was reminded that that was not the point of the trip). But I really couldn’t complain - weather was spectacular, as was the scenery AND the rocks of the Dalradian (as you can see by Jon and Mike’s intense interest in them).

Again we caught an early evening ferry back to Oban, which gave us time to change clothes and head back to the wonderful seafood restaurant on the pier that we had found the evening before.

Day 3: Cuil Bay-Ballachulish-Glen Coe-Onich

The next morning again dawned sunny (we were starting to feel a bit guilty, as we were receiving emails from Bristol, where it was dumping with rain, condoling us for being consigned to field work in Scotland!). We headed north to check out mapping sites at Cuil Bay and then on to Ballachulish and Glen Coe. The latter two are famous in geologic circles as, respectively, a pluton and a caldera, both formed in the Devonian (more than 400 million years ago) during the Caledonide orogeny (when the continental pieces that now comprise the UK were assembled). We had a spectacular view of the Ballachulish pluton... our guide Ben was amazed at the visibility (which he continued to be, our entire time in the Glen Coe region).

We drove past Ballachulish and on to Glen Coe, a stunning exposure of a sequence of caldera-forming eruptions from the Glencoe volcano... but equally stunning simply as a landscape feature (the glen of the River Coe). We spent the rest of the afternoon scrambling up the valley (lower right photo) to check out the contact between the upper lava flows and the lower Dalradian... the scenery reminded me of Colorado, with the intensely blue skies and new spring green against the dramatic rock faces. And then up the road to the Queen’s Cairn (constructed for Queen Victoria’s traverse through the area) and my only good look at the famous caldera-forming rocks of the area. 

At the end of the day we headed back down through Ballachulish to our B&B near Onich - a wonderful old Bishop’s house called Creag Mhor... we barely had time to change and grab a quick beer before realizing that we need to race walk a kilometer to get dinner at the Hotel Onich before they stopped serving at 9. Enjoyed a more leisurely walk back to the Creag Mhor and then a relaxed evening in the wonderful living room/bar, which had won several Whiskey Gold awards, which meant (so we were told) that they had AT LEAST two hundred different whiskeys on offer! Well clearly we couldn’t make a dent in that number, but we did decide that we should try a few. And so we had a proper setting for the next in what became Ben’s nightly installments of Scottish history. This evening the stories encompassed both the battle of Glen Coe and the story of James of the Glen. First Glen Coe. The story starts in 1688, when William, Prince of Orange, took over the English throne. The Scots backed James VII of Scotland (= James II of England... yes, it’s confusing) instead, which led to the short-lived Jacobite uprising (we’ll hear of other such uprisings later). When returning from the battle, a member of the clan Macdonald looted Campbell lands... In 1691, William offered a pardon to any Jacobite who would swear allegiance to him by Jan 1, 1692. After waiting for permission from the exiled James (never granted), Alastair Maclain (of the Macdonald clan), 12th Chief of Glencoe, belatedly set out for Fort Williams (north of Glen Coe) to swear allegiance. However, he was then told that he had to proceed to Inveraray to have the oath administered... so he was late in getting there, although he had met the set goal in spirit. BUT again the Campbells make an appearance... this time trying to break the Highland clans, and using Maclain's failure to take the oath as an excuse. Capt Robert Campbell brought troops to Glen Coe, where they were taken in by the locals. After two weeks, the soldiers were ordered to massacre all of the inhabitants. However, the story goes that by then many of the soldiers were sympathetic to the locals and alerted them to the plan. So although several died, others were able to escape through a narrow defile into the neighboring valley. The massacre became an important rallying point in the mid-eighteenth century Jacobite uprising (more later).

OK - I realize that this is a lot of stories at once (maybe if you’re still reading this you should pour yourself a nice single malt island whiskey, which is how we heard most of the stories) but it was part of the whole ambience of the trip (you can just skip to the next photos!). On to James of the Glen (James Stewart), famous for being (apparently wrongly) accused of killing Colin Roy Campbell (yes, another Campbell - you get the picture) and hanged at the bridge across Loch Leven from Glencoe to Onish (and visible from our B&B). Colin Campbell was a British government agent who was sent to evict farming tenants from nearby Duror (and replace them with his relatives). He was shot in the back (i.e. murdered) and James Stewart (a veteran of the Battle of Culloden - more later) was the highest ranking authority around, and therefore was condemned. This is more than a local story, as it shows up in RL Stevenson’s book Kidnapped. Of interest to me is the speculation of the actual assassin, whose name was Alan Breck Stewart (my grandfather’s name was Robert Breck Moran). Apparently in Kidnapped, Stevenson has his hero David Balfour meet up with Alan Breck Stewart, and has them witness the murder. Must re-read Kidnapped!

Day 4: Kinlochleven-Ben Nevis-Great Glen-Inverness

Back to geology [my companions kept giving me a hard time about lack of focus on geology because I kept being distracted by castles, stories, volcanology, and the ever-present and very familiar (from Scottish dancing an my infatuation with celtic music) Scottish music that was always playing in the tartan-carpeted breakfast rooms of our B&Bs]... the next day we spent in the same area, hiking the hillsides above Loch Leven, where the students will spend several days getting up-to-speed on mapping skills. It was a good reminder for me of structural geology... and has some spectacular rocks (including lovely refolded folds, for the geologists!)

At the end of the day we headed north to Fort William (where Alistair Maclean attempted to take the oath of allegiance), past Ben Nevis (the highest peak in the UK - photos below) and northeast up the Great Glen fault, marked by Loch Lochy (for real!) and the very famous Loch Ness, to Inverness, where we managed again to sneak into dinner under the 9pm deadline. Then had the next installment of Scottish history, the beginning of the story of Montrose (James Graham, the Earl of Montrose). Initially a Covenanter opposed to the imposition of Anglican prayer by King Charles 1 (in 1638), he really was just in favor of the separation of church and state and therefore ended up taking the King's side against - you’ve guessed it - another Campbell, a Presbyterian. Montrose ended up imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle... after being sprung free by Charles I, he rallied the Catholic highlanders and won crushing victories including, among others, against the Presbyterian Campbells at Inverlochy (just north of Fort William and near Loch Lochy)...

Day 5: Inverness-Ullapool-Inchnadamph

The next day took us back across Scotland to the northwest, to Ullapool, Knockan Crag and Inchnadamph. Spent the morning checking out mapping areas around Ullapool - started in the driving cold rain but weather was mostly cold and overcast. Then went on the Knockan Crag (Creag a’ Chnocain... all signs are bilingual in this part of the world), which is a “Natural Nature Reserve”, preserved for its geology, as it is a classic example of the Moine thrust, where older Moine schist is thrust over younger limestone (see photo below!).

But its also just spectacular countryside... and continued to be as we made our way north to Inchnadamph, another classic UK geology locality and famous mapping area for students (for good reason!). But it’s mostly just drop dead beautiful. 

And here we settled in at the Inchnadamph in with the touring Scottish fishermen for our last installment of Ben’s story of Montrose. So we left Montrose at the height of his powers, proclaimed lord lieutenant and captain general of Scotland by the King. Montrose called for an assembly of the Scottish parliament, but not before King Charles was defeated. He escaped to Norway, tried to come back in 1649 to revenge the death of the king, but was defeated and finally surrendered at Ardvreck castle, on Loch Assynt (upper right photo, above). Needless to say, he did not meet a good end.  

Day 6: Inchnadamph-Inverness-Culloden-Bristol
Our last morning was greeted with a dusting of snow, and sun, and more snow... And demonstrated for us the old adage that in Scotland you can experience all seasons in a single day... 

A brief addendum - Jon, Mike and I had a couple of hours between dropping Ben off at the train station and having to show up at the airport, so we stopped by Culloden, site of the final battle of Bonnie Prince Charlie (who was a bit of a young hot head and a fool, I must say) and location of his flight across the highlands and over the sea to Skye...

Travel diaries

March 9 - Glasgow 

I flew in over a green golf course, exited plane to be hit by gusty winds, and entered the airport to see several men in kilts lined up for boarding. All my preconceived notions about Scotland were met in the first few minutes. The Scottish theme continued as I left the airport.. my taxi driver sounded just like my old Scottish dancing friend Bill McKay, who was from Glasgow, and who I hadn't thought of in years. There was a Chivas Regal factory just outside the exit, and Loch Lomond (according to my taxi driver) lies just over the distant hills. My B&B was on a small branch of the River Clyde... which made me start thinking, especially on seeing a sign for the Clydesdale bank - at that point I suddenly realized where the name of the horses came from (duh).

I went into the city for the morning, before meeting the University folks for lunch. My first stop was the Willow Tea Rooms... Originally designed by CR Mackintosh for his patron, it has been restored to accommodate tourists although Friday morning it was quiet and populated by a few older people who looked local. My quiet breakfast ended with a fire alarm before I had barely begun to eat. Rather than wait to get back into the restaurant (given that I had so little time to explore) I headed up Garnet Hill (it’s not just a catalogue) to the Glasgow School of Art, a famous Mackintosh building. Unfortunately the construction in front of it rather ruined the outside view but I wandered around inside the imposing wood-framed and sky-lighted upper floors for a bit.
As I headed back down the hill I was passed by a passel of school children led by a teacher in a kilt... and kilts were certainly the theme of many shops (to buy or rent) - even the street musician in town was a kilt-clad bagpiper. The impressive Victorian buildings in the city are dark red sandstone but they sit amid a pastiche of architectural styles... I ended up at The Lighthouse, another Mackintosh building now converted into a city museum, including its tower views (not as impressive as they might have been given the dull gray skies of the day). By which time it was time to head to the University to start the working part of my day!

The University of Glasgow was founded in 1451... it moved to the top of the hill in the 19th century, where it now sits in neogothic splendor, overlooking the enormous red sandstone Victorain Kelvingrove museum. With its long history, the University clearly has a deep reservoir of stories, some of which are displayed in plaques on the buildings. Including the circular blue plaques that appear all over the UK as historic markers... I was particularly thrilled to see the former residence of Lord Kelvin (to whom I referred in my seminar at Glasgow, before I knew that he had a connection with the University). And then there was the rather tantalizing plaque not for a place of residence but for the site of a dinner party... one in which the concept of isotopes was first mentioned by Frederick Soddy, who worked with Rutherford on problems of radioactivity. A side story - it appears that the word ‘isotope’ was suggested by another guest at that dinner party, a woman named Margaret Todd, who was studying Greek (the word means “same place”). As we have Todds in our family, I’ll claim her as a relative! Frederick Soddy went on to win a Nobel Prize in 1921 and then moved into economics (I guess the link between physicists and economists has a long tradition).
After my seminar, a group from department headed off (in good geologist tradition) to the Curlers Rest pub (curling was invented in medieval Scotland). Originally the curling stones were flat-bottomed river cobbles, which meant that the game involved a fair amount of chance. Later the stones used were weights from weavers' looms that were fit with detachable handles. Traditionally the curling stones were made from two specific types of Scottish granite... the most popular is the Blue Hone, Ailsa Craig granite, from an island off the coast of Scotland... the granite has a very low porosity (which limits damage by freeze-thaw action). After a little conversation about curling, I learned various other bits and pieces about Scotland. Including the fact that Scottish banks all print their own pound notes - that is, the notes from each bank look different (and, although they state that they are legal tender for British pounds, are rarely accepted in England). Or the fact that the Scots have a tradition of using family names as first names, which explains some of the naming conventions of my ancestors (although I have always thought that McDowell Reid Venable was a rather distinguished name, and not nearly as strange as Campbell Campbell,  the name of the uncle of one of the students at the pub!). We then moved on to the Bothy restaurant (a bothy is a simple shelter that was left open for those in need). All of the waiters/waitresses were in kilts and the menu was a blend of traditional and fusion Scottish. For example, as an appetizer I decided that I couldn’t resist haggis pakora with Tandori yogurt! (for those of you not familiar with Scottish cuisine, haggis is a sort of porridge-based sausage dish). I followed that with Scottish salmon for dinner and Oban whiskey for dessert!


March 10 - Rock of Ages and Cheddar Gorge

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;

So starts the hymn... whoever would have thought the rock really exists? The hymn was written by the Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady (no kidding) who, the story goes, was inspired to write the hymn after being caught in a storm while traveling through the gorge of Burrington Coombe, in the Mendip hills just south of Bristol. And I have the photo to prove it! So started a Saturday afternoon tour with Steve Sparks and Carol Finn (USGS), who was visiting for a few days. Steve then took us to Cheddar Gorge... I hate to disappoint you but despite the wonderful mental image conjured up by the name, it is not a lovely orange color but instead is a limestone gorge, also in the Mendips. It is famous for the Cheddar caves (in which Britain’s oldest skeleton - at 9000 yrs - has been found) ... the caves are also a big tourist attraction. Not quite sure how the cheese become so popular (and altered) - the cheese produced locally now carries the official designation “West Country Farmhouse Cheddar” - I’ve had this, and it’s nothing like even Vermont cheddar, let alone the dyed orange supermarket variety!
 
We then drove on to Wells, the smallest city in England. Now this clearly depends on your definition of a city, which, in this case, requires a cathedral (and the Bishop who comes with it). Wells cathedral is actually the seat of the Bishop of Bath and Wells (Bath has only an abbey). Wells has long been an important settlement - there is evidence of Roman mausoleum on the site. The first church was built here in 705 by King Ine of Wessex. The first Bishop of Wells was Athelm (c. 909) who crowned King Athelstan (first king of a unified England). The cathedral was then constructed between 1175 and 1490. Much of structure is ‘early English’ in style, particularly notable for the statues around the outside of the building. It is also famous architecturally for the interior ‘scissor arches’ that were a late addition inserted to stabilize the piers (which were apparently damaged by an earthquake in the 14th century!). Steve hurried us inside the cathedral so that we were there by 4 to watch the famous clock run through its paces. The clock is an astronomical clock from the 14th century - one particular attraction is that it has both an inside and an outside manifestation, both of which are driven by the same mechanism and have parts that move on the hour.
After wandering around the cathedral and the Bishop’s palace (he still lives there), we made a late afternoon visit to the pub and then went on to an early meal before an exquisitely lovely choral concert of 16th Spanish church music in the quire of the cathedral. I had never heard the term ‘quire’ but it seems clear that it is the origin of the word choir. After the concert we headed back to Steve’s for tea and then Scotch - Oban again... Steve’s brother lives near Oban.

March 14-16 Paris and Orleans, France
The next trip was to Orleans, France for a workshop on Mt. Erebus volcano in Antarctica (my first active volcano). To get there, Alison and I flew from Bristol to Paris and then made our way from Paris to Orleans via metro, foot, and train. It was my first trip to Paris in decades, and my first impression was the shear immensity of Charles deGaulle airport.  From the airport, we took the Metro to the station at Ile Saint Louis/ Notre Dame... walked out of the station to the striking sight of Notre Dame lit by the soft afternoon light of spring, rising above the river banks draped with greenery. The weather was warm and everyone was out enjoying the sunshine. We walked along the left bank of the Seine, past the famous lines of little bookshops selling used books and prints, to Gare D’Austerlitz where we caught the train to Orleans, about an hour by train to the SE.
Orleans lies along the Loire - in fact, it’s the farthest inland navigable point on the Loire (hence its historic importance). We made our way from the Orleans train station to our hotel via a cute little merry-go-round (I took a photo in memory of Mom) and the immense cathedral of Orleans, partially scrubbed clean, the rest cloaked in scaffolding and plastic. Like other French cathedrals, the Orleans cathedral is adorned with flying buttresses, an east facing rose window and delicately sand-castle sculpted spires. We then made our way through twisting cobblestone streets - both the buildings and the cobblestones were of a sufficiently light-colored stone that they almost glowed in the setting sunlight. It was apparent that we had changed latitude, as an evening walk along the river at 7:30pm was lit by a western sky still a rainbow of colors from orange to red to purple. The rainbow matched the lights along the river bank path which are oddly antiseptically bluish purple - a contrast with the warm orange-yellow of the lights that line the arched bridge. More lights as we crossed the open square where small round colored lights were set among the cobblestones; even more lights of red and green sparkling reflections from inside a bar. We were reading menus checking out possible eating establishments when I was hailed by Phil Kyle (Dr. Erebus), so we joined the group in a small restaurant with enormous servings. Alison and I opted for cheese salads (yes and that’s what it was but also with lettuce and tomato... I left most of the cheese in the bowl, though the toasts with warm melting chevre were excellent). The NMT group were ahead of us in eating and all ordered creme caramel for dessert... which came soup plate size, much to our advantage as we got the halves that they couldn’t finish! Back through the cobblestone streets as we passed outdoor tables full of smokers despite the chill in the night air. When we returned the impressive church across the square from the Jackhotel was also alight in an eery purplish blue... Orleans, the city of avant garde lights.

Icicle Pursuit

Apologies to all the non-sailors, but I decided to do a short sailing blog today, given that the Baltic Wharf Sailing Club has now started up its racing season. March and April Saturday races are called the Icicle Pursuit series... they then transition to the spring racing series. I crewed in yesterday’s race and therefore have a story but no photos - have dug out some sailing photos from last fall instead!

First - what is a pursuit race? The usual sailing race has all the boats (or at least all the boats in a designated group) starting at the same time. This can create a rather intimidating situation (for some of us) in that there are lots of boats going different speeds (if there are boats of different classes) all maneuvering to cross the starting line at once. The race then involves sailing around a set course a given number of times. A pursuit race is run differently. Boats start at different times, with the start time determined by the official handicap of the specific class of boat... thus the slowest boats start first and the fastest boats start last. The race then runs for an hour, with everyone doing as many circuits of the course as they can in the hour. In theory, if all else were equal, everyone should cross the finish line at the end of the hour at the same time. This makes for a much less hair-raising start and means that at least the fast boats don’t get out in front of the pack right away! The other twist to the race was that it included a “gate mark”. Which is exactly what it sounds like - instead of a single buoy that you leave to either port (left) or starboard (right), it’s two buoys and you can choose whether you want to leave the lefthand buoy to port or the righthand buoy to starboard. [for the sailors - the set-up was clever: the gate mark was the end of the downwind leg, and was set up so that you could either jibe around the port mark and end up on a starboard tack or tack around the starboard mark and end up on a port tack ...  clearly the jibing option was preferable strategically EXCEPT by the last couple of times around the course the wind had picked up to the extent that jibing was scary, so many of us were choosing the tacking option].

Second - a story about boats and epic boat journeys... I was crewing in a boat called a Wanderer (sail symbol is a blue circle inscribed with a white W....visible to the far left of the first photo), 14 ft long and very cleverly designed in many ways, so that it can easily be sailed alone but it’s also fun with two people (and yesterday was a day when two people were preferable because the wind was sufficiently strong). But it turns out that the Wanderer has an interesting history, which starts with a boat called a Wayfarer (sail symbol is a red script W - see photo above). The Wayfarer is slightly larger (16 ft.) than a Wanderer and is popular as cruising boat, a family boat, and a teaching boat as well as a racing dinghy. The Baltic Wharf Sailing Club has a couple of Wayfarers for teaching - I did my sailing classes in a Wayfarer. Well it turns out that there is a folk hero named Frank Dye, who, in the 1960s, made some epic small boat journeys in his Wayfarer class boat named Wanderer. The first was a 650 mile journey across the North Atlantic from Scotland to Iceland (!!!)... it took him 11 days. Another involved crossing the Norwegian Sea from Scotland to Norway, during which he and his crew survived four capsizes during a Force 9 storm (and broke the mast). Interestingly, these two journeys spawned a book with the rather mundane title of Ocean Crossing Wayfarer: To Iceland and Norway in a 16ft Boat, while his six-year (!) trip along the eastern seaboard of the US and into the Great Lakes inspired a book with the much more graphic title Sailing to the Edge of Fear.  A quotation from Frank Dye that I found on-line: 

Offshore cruising in an open boat can be hard, cold, wet, lonely and occasionally miserable, but it is exhilarating too. To take an open dinghy across a hundred miles of sea, taking weather as it comes; to know that you have only yourself and your mate to rely on in an emergency; to see the beauty of dawn creep across the ever restless and dangerous ocean; to make a safe landfall - is wonderful and all of these things develop a self-reliance that is missing from the modern, mechanical, safety-conscious civilised world.

Back to the Wanderer. According to Richard, for whom I was crewing, Frank’s wife Margaret went with him on part of the North American adventure, but felt that she was slowing him down. So she decided that she needed her own boat, which eventually became the Wanderer class boat that I sailed in yesterday. And who would have thought that I could get such a great story for my blog simply by volunteering to crew in the Icicle Pursuit?

Signs of Spring

As we approach the equinox, the days are lengthening rapidly (almost 30 minutes/week) ... the mornings are finally starting to lighten and the evenings are noticeably longer. Makes me wonder why the equinox was not more important in ancient cultures than the solstice!  [or maybe it was?] And as the winter fades, the weather here continues to be best described as changeable. So I choose my time for jogs around the harbor, or weekend errands, based on periods of sunshine that usually punctuate the clouds, wind and rain. Therefore when Sunday dawned clear and sunny, I decided that it was an expedition/exploration day. Alison agreed to join me on a visit to Prior Park Landscape Garden in Bath. So what, you might well ask, is a landscape garden? According to Wikipedia “The term landscape garden is often used to describe the English garden design style characteristic of the eighteenth century, that swept the Continent... The work of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown is particularly influential.” Capability Brown? I had to keep digging. Capability Brown was apparently “England’s greatest gardner [with a name like that would you expect anything less?]... His style of smooth undulating grass, which would run straight to the house, clumps, belts and scattering of trees and his serpentine lakes formed by invisibly damming small rivers, were a new style within the English landscape, a "gardenless" form of landscape gardening, which swept away almost all the remnants of previous formally patterned styles”. That does seem an apt description of Prior Park, which sits just outside of Bath (~ 1 mile south of the train station) and is sculpted on an impressive hill, with the mansion (of golden Bath stone) commanding an imposing overview of the grassy slope and “Palladian” bridge over the lake below. OK, so I had to resort to Wikipedia again. “Palladian” refers to “a European style of architecture derived from the designs of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580),” who was strongly influenced by classical (Greek and Roman) influences (which is pretty obvious when you see it).

The garden and surrounding, surprisingly rural, Bath environs were showing the first tentative signs of spring. Prior Park prides itself on February displays of snowdrops, which were certainly in evidence, carpeting much of the woodland floor. But there were also more subtle signs, including the smell of young wild garlic leaves crushed underfoot and the angle of sunlight on the moss of stone walls, signs of seasonal change. In Bristol, spring signs include small clusters of crocus in Brandon Park (my daily hill walk and fitness workout en route to the department) and also in the small planter that comprises the brick wall of my tiny (asphalt) garden.

Alison and I then bumbled our way onto part of the Bath Skyline walk... pretty descriptive, reflecting the fact that Bath itself is surprisingly hilly: the town hugs the Avon valley, with enclaves of classic Bath stone houses drifting up the steep protecting hills. We didn’t have time to walk along much of the path - will save that for future expeditions, as it does seem worth some time, especially when the skies are clear and the days are long.
On Sunday, gravity won as we slid down the hill through the spring mud; we stopped at a well placed bench for a (late) picnic lunch before descending toward the Avon-Kennett canal. And there we encountered a complex system of locks that gently and gradually lower sthroughgoing narrow boats around the city center. In the late afternoon the canal was calm and glowing in the low level light. A contrast to my harbor water, which always seems to be shimmering in the breezes funneled through the Avon Gorge.

And so as the evenings lengthen, I realize that I haven’t yet described the ways in which the harbor comes alive at night. Even during these winter months, the early evening hours are times of activity on and around the floating harbor: the footpaths are crowded with a combination of walking and biking commuters, as well as swarms of runners, all providing a sweeping sense of movement through the chilly dark. At the same time, rowing gigs and shells emerge from the docks to take possession of the water. Marked by the cold blue of their LED lights mounted at the bow and stern, they form moving points of light as they move along the harbor, which constrains boat traffic to up and down, back and forth, to and fro, the rhythm of the tides for which the harbor was constructed. When the gigs finish, they moor along side Baltic Wharf, bow and stern LEDs barely illuminating the silhouettes of crews clustered on the harbor walls, mingling with the other colored lights reflecting off the water - the orange of sodium street lamps, full spectrum yellow from the windows of the Baltic Wharf condos, the flashing red warning lights at the underfall (the overflow connection between the harbor and the Avon River diversion through “The Cut”), the blue of the boatyard lights... each color a shimmering band of color accented by the midnight blue of the harbor water under a cold starry sky, Orion and Sirius overhead, the winter guardians of the sky.