Arizona

Lots of beach with no sea., that's pretty much what I was expecting, and I've been very pleasantly surprised. Yes Arizona is dry, yes it has deserts, but what I didn't know until I got here is that it also has mountains, lots of them and they're decent sized ones too. Mount Lemmon, just north of Tucson, is over nine thousand feet high. They have ski runs up there in winter. That makes it the most southerly ski destination in the United States. When you consider that Tucson is only about a hundred and twenty miles from the Mexican border, that's quite surprising. Unlike our snowy mountains, these are rocky, peaks with little vegetation on them, very steep with extremely erroded pinacles and interesting shaped rock formations. This is a place that's worth seeing.

Unfortunately, despite getting a unit on the banks of the Rillito River, there is not going to be much kayaking here, unless I want to try something equivalent to the Henley on Todd regatta. The river at least is living up to my preconceptions.

The temperature is living up to my expectations too. It's been a little warm here, with local temperatures sitting around the mid forties.  Local radio stations are talking about it being record breaking weather but since Tucson is a town that usually gets around three hundred and fifty days of sunshine each year, the locals aren't ones to make a fuss when it gets a bit warm. In fact I consider myself very lucky to have experienced one of the other fifteen cloudy days where electrical storms and heavy rain arrived to mix the weather mix up a bit. Didn't seem to cool it down much though.

Yesterday was spent at the Morenci Copper Mine, operated by Freeport McMoran. Having visited the "SuperPit" in Kalgoorlie, I can honestly say that Morenci is far more spectacular. For a start it's surrounded by mountains and secondly they've mined up a river valley so they have created a gigantic hole, with a bit less digging required. On the way back, the electrical storms were spectacular and unfortunately I could see that Arizonans aren't very used to wet roads. We passed three crashes in an hour, one of which was multivehicle with people trapped.

The Scientific Method

Something that really pisses me off in the current climate debate is the use of the term, "Climate Sceptic".
As if climate scientists are proposing some faith based religion of doom and the climate sceptics are the only people able to look critically at the evidence and make rational judgements on it.

Fact:

All scientists are trained to be sceptical, it's a fundamental part of the scientific method. We are all trained to evaluate evidence and make rational decisions based on the quality of the data and it's statistical significance. Do we all agree on everything ? No, we're human beings, of course we don't. So we have a system of assessing scientific work and it's value. It's called "Peer Review". (This doesn't mean that Lord Monckton is the ideal man for the job though, even if he is a Peer of the Realm, he's a journalist not a scientist).

As far as I can see, most of the very genuine and well meaning people objecting to climate scientists findings are doing so on emotional or faith based criteria rather than evidence based ones. ie they are not truly sceptical at all. They just don't understand the science or don't want to believe it so cherry pick arguments to support their position. That's a very normal human behaviour, but it doesn't make for good policy decisions.

Peer Review:

Scientists do their research, make their measurements and then publish their results in journals where it can be assessed by all their colleagues. The work is criticised and if it is deemed to be worthwhile, other scientists will then try to duplicate the results. After a period of time, often years, a consensus is reached between researchers.

If you can't get your paper published, that does not mean that there is a conspiracy theory, it means that there are fundamental errors in your work. The important thing with peer review is that it is done by your peers. Particle physicists have their work reviewed by other particle physicists. If a critical comment comes from a biologist, it probably isn't going to carry much weight among particle physicists and that's exactly how it should be. If I write a letter to Nature saying that CERN are wrong and the Higgs Boson is bullshit because I've been around nearly fifty years and I've never seen one, it will get screwed up and thrown in the bin where it belongs. The same is true of climate science, many of the people criticising the science are simply not qualified in that field, but expect their comments to be treated with equal import as those of people who have made climate research their life's work.

One of the very common complaints among so called sceptics is urban heat islands interfering with the accuracy of data. These clowns make the assumption that professional scientists working in the field for decades have somehow completely overlooked this idea. In fact it's old hat, professional climate scientists have been aware of this effect for years and correct for it in their work. Reviews of data by sceptics in recent years have confirmed the published work. Funny that.

In other words, the process for scepticism is already in place and it works.

It's all a conspiracy to get millions in research funding.

Look around you and you won't find very many rich scientists. We generally aren't in it for money.
Is there a conspiracy ? Well, the first ingredient in a good conspiracy is motive. So which is the stronger motive, a few million bucks of research funding or many billions of dollars of fossil fuel derived income at stake.

Lets go back to peer review. There is a very limited pool of research dollars available. It gets allocated to fund the projects deemed most important and most likely to succeed. If you publish research that is found to be fundamentally wrong by your peers or is found to be fraudulent, you will probably lose your job and never work as a scientist again. All your research is tainted. Your accumulated life's work rendered valueless. No sane scientist will consider publishing fraudulent research, it is very, very rare.

All research institutions are competing for a small slice of the funding available, so nobody has a motive for covering up other people's  fraudulent or incompetent work. Quite the opposite. If your work is wrong, your own colleagues will shout it from the roof tops, because they would all like to get the funding that paid for your flawed research. A conspiracy among scientists to fabricate climate science ?
Two words, "Horse Shit".  Enough said.

So back to motive, is it coincidence that a fair amount of the material pumped out to discredit climate science and to confuse the public is funded by organisations who in turn receive most of their funding from huge corporations with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo ? Huge corporations, with very deep pockets, who can afford the best publicists and the best lobbyists ? I'm not saying that there is a conspiracy, but if there is, then lets look in the right place. You be the judge.

One classic example for me was a recent TV show where Senator Nick Minchin a prominent climate sceptic, and a young environmental activist tried to change each others minds on climate change. The young lady introduced evidence from professional scientists around the world with decades of study and research under their belts.  Senator Minchin with one exception introduced a bunch of unqualified bloggers and political staffers turned lobbyists. Is Senator Minchin dumb enough not to see that glaring deficiency ? Well lets be kind and say, perhaps he's blinded by his own world view. People usually believe what they want to believe and rationalise their position until they feel good about it.

Is all the science clear cut ?

No of course not. These are immensely complex systems with extremely long term feed back loops. There are disagreements about the rate of change and magnitude of change. There is in other words uncertainty of the measurements and predictions. That's normal, even a measurement as simple as checking your height with a tape measure has some level of error and a corresponding level of uncertainty.

What is clear cut is that there is  consensus among climate scientists that climate change is happening, it's happening faster than the IPCC's conservative estimates predicted and the very best explanation available is human activity. The implications of this for our society are very serious, and the chances are that it will take a long time to adapt to the effects of climate change. It seems prudent to start planning for them and doing whatever we can to minimise the changes and mitigate the effects.

If you are confused about this issue, that's fine, in fact it's good because it means that you're actually thinking about it. So where is the best place to find out about it ? Well probably by doing a science degree and reading the peer reviewed journals.  These are complex issues and there is a wealth of crap out there, the internet is not peer reviewed, any crank and crackpot can write whatever they want, and I often do. :)

Before you believe all of the climate change denial arguments though, you can find material to balance it here. The Skeptical Science site founder won a Eureka Prize for his efforts to communicate climate science.
Is it perfect ? No, but it's a more balanced and scientifically credible site than most, with clear explanations of some of the better known myths.

Sunday Morning Pulbah Island Paddle.

With plenty on this weekend, I had only a few hours to fit in a paddle on Sunday morning. I was paddling with fellow Klanner Ben, who had responded to my last minute Friday night call for a paddling buddy. I hadn't paddled with Ben before and we opted for a paddle on Lake Macquarie.

We met up near Swansea caravan park at 8am and were on the water by 8:15. It was a beautiful morning with a light Northeasterly breeeze at Force 2-3 initially with the wind speed increasing to 3-4 as the morning got on. The southern end of the lake provides some shelter from Northerly winds so the conditions on the water were pretty well flat calm with small wavelets up to a foot high.

We headed across to Wangi Point and then went across to the eastern end of Pulbah Island. Happily on such a beautiful morning there were lots of boats out, and while this means that you can't really relax completely, the upside is that there are some nice little wakes to try and catch. It may be my imagination but I have the feeling that I'm starting to get a little better at catching them.

It was a warm morning and paddling in the shade on the weather shore (or in the lee) of the Island was quite welcome. The island has a rocky shoreline and there were some opportunities to weave among the rocks and play a little. Ben was paddling a Sea Bird Designs Expedition. A Norwegian designed, chinese built, plastic boat. He normally paddles an Assateague and this is usually his teenage son's boat. So it was a good opportunity for him to try out something a little different and I could see that he was liking it.

The Norwegians do a bit of Fjord paddling, where the swell and waves are less of an issue than wind funneled down the mountain valleys. The Expedition is pretty typical of their design philosophy, hard tracking with no rocker in the keel line (it actually looks as if the keel has negative rocker) and low decks with little windage. It's a swede form boat with the widest part of the boat aft of the centreline. Like my old Gecko, it has a very flat, wide back deck. I'm speculating here, but I suspect that this might make it a bit harder to roll than some other designs. It certainly weaved happily among the rocks though.

The wind picked up a little as we came out of the lee of the island and while we relished the cool of the breeze, we gritted our teeth for an upwind run back to Swansea, but the weather gods smiled on us and the wind dropped again. So instead of slogging along saving our breath for paddling we were able to relax and enjoy the simple pleasure of being on the water.

Pulbah Island is one of my favourite parts of the lake. It's in the deepest part and the water is usually quite clean. The name Pulbah (or Bulba) is a local aboriginal word meaning "island". It always amuses me that we have felt the need to tack on our own word for Island as well, but there we go Island Island is still one of my favourite spots for a lake paddle.

Thanks Ben for your company.

Saturday paddle: The Entrance to Bateau Bay Beach.

Saturday morning and Julie had the girls at dance practice  A few hours of freedom beckoned, the gentle rhythm of the ocean was calling and it would have taken a stronger man than I to resist.  Marty and I launched at the Entrance Channel and went out on the end of the rising tide.  It was a beautiful morning and the fishos were out in force.  There were lots of lines in the water for us to avoid; not an easy task with the rising sun in our eyes.  The channel is very shallow where it feeds into the sea and it dumps water out at an angle to the beach.  When it flows strongly this and the diffraction patterns of the waves reflecting and interfering with each other make for some quite confused water, particularly on the ebb.  As the swell was fairly small and the channel was flooding, we got out with no problems at all and turned south.

I used my euro paddle today, mainly because I don’t paddle enough anyway and I want to stay familiar with both my paddles. Being lucky enough to own two beautiful paddles, this is no hardship.  After using the wing on my last few paddles, I really noticed the difference in the catch and it took a few minutes to get back into the swing of things with the euro.

We got down to Toowoon Bay and decided to keep going past it and Blue Bay, past Shelleys Beach and have a break and a swim at Bateau Bay beach.  This is a beautiful sheltered beach tucked in on the Northern side of Crackneck and protected from Southerly swells.  The beach isn’t visible from the road and there are a few steps for people to negotiate so it seems to be a very quiet beach and while we didn’t have it all to ourselves, we certainly didn’t have to fight for space.

After a swim and a drink we headed back to the north, hugging the coast. We stopped in at Toowoon Bay where a host of stand up paddle boarders had congregated just off the shallows near the rocks.  They were there to catch the same wave that I would have had my eye on.  Looking in at the forest of human skittles, I thought better of it and went in to the beach to do a few rolls.  As luck would have it the strap on my mask snapped so my sinuses got a pretty good flushing out.  Just the thing to get rid of all the paint fumes from the last few nights.

After a few rolls, we headed north again and made our way back into the channel.  The ebb was flowing quite strongly now and although the waves weren’t big they were standing up and seemed to have a bit of punch.  We frolicked there for a while and both had a wet exit.  Clearly more practice is needed to get that roll in the surf completely bomb proof.  The paddle back up the channel was pretty hard going, I decided to cheat and walk up the bank towing the boat on the tow line.  As the bank was quite steep and sandy this turned out to be harder work than paddling.  If the other bank hadn’t been chock full of anglers, I would have had an easier time of it there, but that would have meant disrupting about twenty people with lines in the water.

We managed to run the fishing line gauntlet back to the car park with only one muttered comment about “people trying to fish here”.  Considering that the guy didn’t even have a line in the water at the time, I thought that was a pretty good laugh.  I always try to give fishermen a wide berth but as a few of them seem to own the entire width of any waterway that they drop a line in, you can’t please all of them all the time.  All up a great way to spend a sunny morning and thanks Marty for posting the event.

HKK paddle - Swansea to the Caves

Steve, Werner (visiting from Noosa), Robin and myself put in at Swansea Channel at 9am. Conditions were pretty damn good. Blue skies, light breeze, sea below a metre and 1-1.5 m of swell. Steve, Werner and I launched at the boat sheds and met up with Robin at Swansea Head Beach. Then we headed south, going inside Moon Island and heading direct for Spoon Rocks.

Steve is the proud owner of a beautiful carbon fibre greenland paddle and he was kind enough to lend it to me for a play. I'm not very comfortable with the forward stroke with a greenland paddle but I can never resist having a roll if someone hands me one. This one did that job very well. After a few minutes of forward paddling I started to feel as if I was getting the hang of it, but there was something wrong with my technique as I was starting to get quite sore in the shoulder. Discretion being the better part of valour, I handed it back.

We stopped and had a bite to eat and caught up with Phil and Deb who had been to the caves and were heading back. Back on the water, we got down to the Caves, we stayed out of the northernmost cave,  it looked a bit messy. The bigger swells were coming into the cave at an angle and breaking inside, thumping into the walls, reflecting and interfering with each other. The next cave south was fine and we got in for a pleasant speleological interlude.

Then we ducked around the corner and into the Shark Hole. The entrance was nice and messy going in with waves and rebound. I ploughed straight through and arrived inside with a few piles of foam still sitting on the deck. Once inside it was tranquil and we all got to explore the slot. A new experience paddling backwards in a narrow slot with the wing. It worked well enough. We then had a choice of heading further south to Catherine Hill Bay or going back to Swansea. As I had some time restrictions we decided to head back north and stop again at Spoon Rocks as Steve needed to change his camera battery. A muesli bar and a drink and we got back on the water again.

We headed back keeping closer inshore than on the way down. There were some bigger sets coming through and we all seemed to feel it prudent to stay a little bit clear of the rocks though. It wasn't a congee squeezing day. Once we reached Swansea, Steve, Werner and Robin went to do a loop round Moon Island, I had to get back to painting duties, so I made sure that Werner knew I was peeling off and headed in. The timing was about right for me, the antiinflammatory was wearing off and I was starting to get sore. Still clearly a long way to go to get my fitness back up to where it should be.

Another beautiful day of paddle therapy and best of all, a day on the water and water with some rebound and a little swell and I didn't barf on a single boat.

Paddle in Peace Eric Soares

I was saddened today to hear that one of the true paddling legends, Eric Soares, has passed on. He had been tapped on the shoulder by the man with scythe before and bore the zipper like scar of open heart surgery but while he took more care, he never let it stop him from living his life. His positive outlook and drive to live life to the fullest were truly inspirational. Sadly another aortic aneurism has taken him away to paddle the big break where the ether surges and foams around the rocks of the spirit.

I didn't know Eric personally but we had traded comments on our blogs and I had hoped to get the opportunity to meet him in person. I will be raising a glass to his memory tonight and toasting his exploits with Gage Roads Purest Atomic Pale Ale. Somewhere out there Eric is showing Neptune just what a Tsunami X15 can do.

My deepest condolences to the Soares family, Eric's many freinds and to Jim Kakuk and the Tsunami Rangers.

An alternative River Grading System

I've had a hankering to do some white water paddling as cross training for sea paddling for a while now. Here on the Central Coast there isn't a great deal of close and convenient white water, surf is alot easier to get to, but I keep thinking about going down to the Penrith white water stadium to play or even over to UNZUD, AKA The Land of the Long White Rivers where some excellent courses are available on real rivers.

Not really being au fait with the terminology, I've been checking out grading systems on the UK Rivers Guide Book site, where I  found Dave Petterson's alternative river grading system...........................written from a swimmer's perspective.

If you haven't seen it before then do check it out, you'll like it.

http://www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/reports/general/alternative-grading