The Wreck of the Nornen

Thanks Richard, Amar, Maria, Cherlyn, Hans, Hans, Henri and Pnina. I am delighted you all like it especially as this one took more planning and efort than some others. I appreviate all your kind words.

Those natural leading lines in the sand & the clouds are perfect for the subject. The wealth of lines and textures lead me to believe a B&W conversion could be stunning too.

Kah, thanks for your kind words, I appreciate your visit.

Bring on the rest of them - this one is exceptional!! 7/7!!!!!

Thanks Lou Ann. I took about 150 shots of the wreck altogether so I probably won't upload all of them.:-) But I've got 4 or 5 that might do.

Well, I want to see any others that you're interested in sharing!! :-)

Amazing is the word!! Beautiful story behind the photograph and the excellent exhibition of your skills!! 7/7 from me..!! regards, Rajeev.

Wow! I love the sky and the sand patterns.

 

Excellent...

This is terrific, Colin: the light, send and rivulets convergin' to the center,

the sense of lost in space ( and time). A perfect shot.

This is a very dramatic photo, Colin. This kind of shot appeals to me, and I have to wonder how hard it was to get out there--and how fast the tide comes in there.

 

--Lannie

Thanks Rajeev, Sally, Paula and Lannie.

 

Paula, the funny thing about the rivulets was that they were only like this from one direction. The rest was just ripply, normal-looking sand.

 

Lannie, Once you get out of the car it is a fifteen minute walk across sand dunes to the beach. The tricky thing about the dunes is that there are a million rabbit holes so it is quite easy to break through into them and sink up to the knees in the sand.

 

The beach itself is huge and the tide goes out a long way. The wreck is about halfway to the lowtide mark. I knew the tide times but was still keeping a close eye on the water as the tide comes in fast. The tidal range there is about 10 metres due to the funnel topography of the Bristol Channel.

Excellent photo, great perspective. Bravo.

Grief! A tidal range of ten meters! And that is probably on regular tides, not spring tides. Colin, be careful!

 

--Lannie

Gaetan, thanks!

 

Lannie, the 10m range is at springs. I did not know where the wreck was in relation to the low water mark so had to make the trip during spring tides to make sure it wasn't under water when I got there.

 

Useful tide predictions for the trip :

 

http://easytide.ukho.gov.uk/easytide/EasyTide/ShowPrediction.aspx?PortID=0528&PredictionLength=7

 

But I was still watching the water line very carefully!

Colin, I came to look at this one again, it is so beautiful, It deserves a 7/7 ! , as I really want it in my collection, now I have to wait again...LOL, but I'm stubborn....

I'm flattered you want to keep it! regards - Colin

splendida !!!! complimenti bravo

Cavagna - thank you so much!

Excellent work.

Baldur, thank you!

Colin, is this the same wreck?

 

http://www.burnham-on-sea.com/burnham-18a.jpg

 

If so, you ought to send them yours, which is much, much better.

 

I looked at the map and couldn't help but wonder about the funneling effects of the tide as you go up the channel toward Gloucester, or about what happens when a very stiff southwester is blowing on top of a spring tide.

 

You guys have got some monster tides, Colin! I am in awe. At Savannah, the range is about 7.5 feet, and at Hatteras it is not much over 2 feet. Tides of over thirty feet are almost beyond my comprehension. I looked up "Bristol Channel" on Wikipedia and found that this is the second greatest tidal range in the world, behind the Bay of Fundy, I suppose. I would love to see the tidal bore.

 

Do you have any pictures of that?

 

--Lannie

Excellent view point & exposure. Regards.

Lannie, yes that is the one. I have a shot or two that are similar to that view which I am going to upload in a week or so. The Bristol Channel tides are quite something and the Severn Bore is a result. I have never seen it myself though. (Must do that one day.) The Bay of Fundy comes out top by some distance though!

 

I think the Bristol Chanel tides are a result of the geography of the British Isles. The tidal wave comes in from the Atlantic and swirls round the top and bottom of Ireland. The southern part then heads straight up the Bristol Channel giving the big tidal range and the bore effect. One result of that swirling is that there are some parts of the sea around the UK which have no tidal range at all - amphidromic points is the technical word. (great exprssion that - had to get it in!)

 

This photo :

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2032773

 

was taken on a stretch of the North Sea coast where the tidal range is a couple of feet on a good day.

 

Thinh - thanks!

Then there are some places that have one high tide per day because of similar peculiarities (in various parts of the world), or because of competing tidal currents in and around islands.

 

In the Gulf of Mexico, the water sloshes back and forth twice a day, just like it does in the North Atlantic (and most places), but that means that, while Texas and Florida get a bit over two-foot-high tides twice a day, the mouth of the Mississippi (in the middle of all that sloshing) gets almost nothing--but not for the same reason that you mention in the British Isles.

 

Derek Hutchinson, the great Scottish kayaker, tells about the variations in tides around Scotland, a must for the sea kayaker who plans to survive out there. (Here is a picture of him: http://www.paddling.net/store/showProduct.html?product=214 )

 

At the entrance to St. Simon's Sound near Brunswick, Georgia, I have been in one current coming in (after high tide!) while a current right next to it was rushing out--and the boundary between them was boiling. The momentum of that much water is something to be reckoned with.

 

I was in the outer bands of Hurricane Camille in 1969, which had no lunar or solar tides to mention, but which did have a 22- to 24-foot storm surge from Pass Christian to Biloxi due the force of the winds. Hurricane Katrina, which hit the same area last year, had lower wind speeds but over a much greater area. After the center passed, the water kept piling up (in some of the barrier islands to heights of forty-five feet) because of the momentum of the water that had been set in motion. It just kept flowing in with its momentum and had no place to go on the concave coast but on top of the water that was already there.

 

Imagine a surge like that on top of one of your high tides. Surely some of your gales must blow at minimal hurricane force at times, which will raise the height of both low and high tide marks by several feet even on regular shorelines and with minimal hurricane force winds. I guess that it is good that you are not in Hurricane Alley, lest you get a seventy-five-foot surge (spring tide plus massive storm surge) some day.

 

I presume that the Thames basin has much, much lower tidal ranges in general, but a good nor'easter is bound to have some effects on water levels. One of your other shots shows a nice looking stream with a mill and frost on the grass. It looked like tidal waters in some ways, but might not have been. I know many places on the Carolina and Georgia coasts where streams rise and fall, but the water is not the least bit brackish, due to the volume of flow of fresh water into the salt water tidal waters.

 

Fascinating stuff, Colin. I'll leave it alone now.

 

--Lannie

Fascinating stuff indeed! The storm surges from hurricanes like Katrina are truly fearsome. I was shocked by the utter devastation caused by Katrina over such a huge area. I have been involved for a couple of decades now in the design, construction and operation of London's flood defences so took a close interest in what had gone wrong.

 

We don't get surges of that size around the UK because the area of shallow water is not big enough and because the winds cannot pick up enough energy from the seas. We get occasional hurricane force winds (last one in 1987 which did a lot of damage) but they are from Atlantic anticyclones. Storm surges result when the winds from these storms cross over the shallow water of our part of the continental shelf.

 

The direction of the storm surge is usually to the north of Scotland then turning south into the North Sea driven by the clockwise rotation of the winds. The North Sea shallows and narrows as it goes south so the surge deepens towards the Thames Estuary. Here the tidal range is about 7.5m at springs and a storm surge can be a couple of metres. The last major storm surge disaster was in 1953 when 300 people died in UK, about 2000 in Holland and another 250 at sea.

 

Hence the need for the Thames Barrier which is closed when a storm surge threatens. Across the other side of the North Sea the Dutch have worse problems as half of Holland is below mean sea level. Their flood defences are amazing - the new Rotterdam barrier is built to defend against a 10000 year return period flood.

 

As you say, Lannie - fascinating stuff!