Mid holiday season, with kids swimming in the lower harbour.  Local businesses are concerned at the level of water quality.  I ring OFWAT to get advice on having the harbour water tested.  They only do drinking water.  Sewage in rivers? That's Environment Agency's job.  Ring your regional office.

I did and was treated in a most brusque, ignorant and unhelpful fashion.  The lady said yes, they had a lab that could test the water quality on behalf of concerned local businesses, but 'it cost a fortune' and 'mostly did work for big businesses.' (The EA was taxpayer funded last time I looked.)

Anyway, she couldn't see what the problem was.  I replied that kids swim in the harbour (left), boat owners handle ropes and ingesting fecal bacteria or getting it into cuts is a possible source of health problems. And Whitby being a holiday resort really does not need a outbreak of septacaemia. Or a harbour and waterside reeking of shit, which on recent still days it has.

No, the EA could not help, and could not suggest anyone who might be able to perform a water test on our behalf, except she grudgingly suggested after I became rather stern and showed some knowledge of the field (my microbiology is last century, but still there), your local council's Environmental Health Department.

Scarborough Borough Council had no-one immediately available as there is some departmental re-organization going on, but they offered to get back to me.

Update 1: thanks to Pepijn in comments, the local university was going to be my next port of call.

Update 2: Hot chili email of complaint sent to the Environment Agency, local university marine biol department asked if they will test harbour water for bacteria of shitogenic origin.

Sunday July 27, 2008

From the Navigator

Unfortunately your cruise is ending. Fortunately it is in the wonderful city of Rotterdam, Holland. The navigating officers hope you have enjoyed your cruise and hope to see you back soon on the elegant flagship of Holland America Line, the ms Rotterdam.

As we exited the fjords of Norway our navigator set a course on a south-southwest heading that would take the ms Rotterdam into the North Sea along the west coast of Denmark, to our final destination. We are scheduled to arrive at the port of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in the early morning hours of Monday the 28^th of February and will begin our disembarkation around 9 am.

"The United Nations" of the ms Rotterdam

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This part of Germany is referred to as East Frisia . It is not very industrialized so that it depends on agriculture and tourism. Lots of Germans like to go there on vacation and visit some of the little islands in the north sea. (Click on image to enlarge it.)

Apart from going into the tideland, surfing on or swimming in the north sea, there are a bunch of small little towns that can be visited. In these towns you will find small markets, East Frisian choirs, fish restaurants or special souvenirs, etc.

I personally have been going to the north sea for many years now. It's always been a good place for a family vacation and being with the grandparents is so much fun. We laugh a lot! Oh, I was just reminded of two more cultural things:

Now for those of you interested in taking a DFDS mini city break cruise to Amsterdam here is the story.

A and I set off from an average Midlands market town on the Sunday morning and travelled with a couple of overnight bags of basic weekender provisions (including 130 Euros and a travel kettle complete with little sachets lifted from various hotels over the years). We travelled up to Newcastle Central Station by Cross Country train arriving in good time for our shuttle bus to North Shields. The shuttle buses leave 2.5 and 1.5 hours before the planned departure time of the ferry at 5:30. I like to leave a margin for error when travelling and so we arrived in time for the first shuttle bus (costing £3 for a one-way ticket so keep some quids for the way home). The bus took us out of Newcastle and the journey lasted about 25 - 30 mins.

At check-in we handed over our passports and the computer print out of our booking confirmation and received our boarding-passes-cum-cabin-keys. 

On board the boat our first stop was the cabin to settle in, make a cup of tea and fight over who got the top bunk. Our cabin was a Seaways Class cabin which is the bare essentials including bunk-beds a sofa, desk, stool, mirror and en-suit. The air conditioning and the hilarious Dutch radio were easy to control and made the stay that much more comfortable because we were in for a stormy ride! Gale Force 6 was being hesitantly mentioned by my parents (seasoned sailors of yachts, dinghys and ferry boats reminding me of miserable holidays as a girl). 

I would highly reccomend taking a Stugeron at least two hours before departure to the high seas, then one when the boat starts to move if anything more than Mill Pond looks to upset your journey. The side effects are basically antisocial sleepiness but that is ALWAYS preferable to vomitting.

After arranging our bed things out (so as to make a very quick and easy transformation from being vertical to horizontal should it come to it), we went for an explore to check out the sights. The Princess of Norway is an average sized ferry with the usual conveniences including two cinema lounges and several bars, cafes and restaurants. We had pre-booked our meals at the Explorer's Steakhouse on the first night and The 7 Seas Buffet for the second night as well as buffet breakfast for both mornings.

Deck was far too windy so we went down to the Columbus Club and chilled out for a good hour before the boat started to move. All was going well until we drifted past the breakwater and the foam wall of wave that hit us was violent. I have travelled by ferry a lot, my parents disliking traveling by air, and I have never encountered such an uncomfortable sea before. I sat through the silly performances by the cruise-manager and the Dutch entertainment before feeling really peaky and having to get up to honour our dinner reservations!

Dinner was excruciating. The service was wonderful and the staff were really kind as they knew it was rocky - the Steakhouse was empty as most intelligent people had taken to bed early but being a tight Scott, I saw out my dinner but had only half of my delicious fillet steak. Now that steak was truly the most delicious I ever did see but I just couldn't bring myself to eat it. A had to eat my chips. 

After a swift exit to the cabin, A grabbing a good handful of sick bags from the reception desk I was violently ill once inside the door of the en-suite and saw my beautiful 30 euro dinner in reverse. Needless to say, bed followed.

Breakfast was much easier as it had calmed down and I had quite a lot of fruit and bread from the buffet, remembering my mother's skill of grabbing rolls, apples and bananas for the day ahead for snacks. 

After arriving into Imujden (the Amsterdam equivalent of North Shields) we trundled through passport control and a free 20 minute bus journey in to Amsterdam itself we emptied out of the coach in front of the Victoria Hotel near to the Amsterdam Central Station. The buses would leave that meeting point between 3 and 4 o'clock, the very last one leaving at 4 so arriving in at 10:30 we had quite a lot of time to play with.

Our first stop was the Sex Museum, entry costing 3 euros. The museum was cheeky and made fun of blushing visitors with exhibitions that break wind and laugh at you or jump out as you pass but also gives a graphic insight into pornography of the centuries past and the cultures of the world. A fun hour or so for any couple!

A then took me on a nostalgia tour having been there on a Lad's Weekend in his late teens past a very cheeky alley way full of windows exhibiting very naked ladies. I gave them a wave and shoveled A along in earnest.

We then made our way down to the Blooemenmarket - the floating flower market on the canal selling the worlds largest selection of tulip and crocus bulbs - lots of pretty things to see and to photograph but I think it bored A a little bit. Nevertheless, the Blooemenmarket is one of the best places to buy cheap-ish souvenirs for friends and family and worth a browse of all the pretty plants.

Lunch was a simple affair, a canal-side pancake house was our choice. Two cheesy pancakes and a coke each came to 18 euros. The waitresses all spoke perfect English so we resigned ourselves to the British tourism stereotype of speaking English slowly like it suffices for the local tongue. I try so hard not to do this but it always happens!

We popped into the Amsterdam Historisch Museum at 8 euros apiece for a bit of culture and then out into the rain! I was so glad of my waterproof but it did make my Euro-hopper image in my photos lose its credibility. Some more sightseeing followed and then finally a little canal tour on a Lovers Canal Cruise - 1 hour of spoon-fed tourism at 9 euros each bough earlier on board the Princess of Norway as it was cheaper. I always recommend canal cruises as they are a great way of seeing a lot of a town and the commentary is always good at highlighting things you may have missed.

Back on the bus using our Boarding Cards as identification and then back on board ship for a cup of tea and change of clothes in the cabin and a Bloody Mary at the Columbus Club. This evening I managed dinner and a show and ate my fill of seafood, chips, noodles and cake at the buffet (A embarassingly having one plate devoted entirely to the Children's Buffet "Look, little breaded ships!"). 

That evening we took in some more of the shows on offer which were quite funny as all the songs were sung in English but with very strong Dutch accents. A spot of shopping and spritzing liberally of perfume and then bed.

The last morning, the Tuesday, we had breakfast as we entered the Tyne and the seas had calmed right down. Laden with cheap booze and chocolates for our families and friends we took the train home and I still have 40 euros for next time!

I would highly recommend a good guidebook with a map included as Amsterdam can get a bit confusing as there are so many canals, bridges and tiny alleys that it can be easy to get lost. Lonely Planet do a good one. Also a good waterproof is essential as the Netherlands are not famed for the weather. A wore a moneybelt but I made do with a zippable handbag as we were warned of deft pickpockets as with any tourist city. I needed no more than 100 euros but a couple of extra are always good if you want to get some really prezzies for people back home. We booked our dinner online when we booked our crossing as it was cheaper than buying on board the ship.

Highly recommended, it wasn't smooth sailing but we'll never forget it. Now I'm preparing myself for a week in Denmark in our log cabin and our night in Copenhagen in a fortnight!

Going to the beach today AND tomorrow. and Gregory still needs to take me to see the sand sculptures because we go every year. its our thing. my thing. i make him go.

this year's theme is fairy tales. HELLO! i really have to see them. today and tomorrow is all about getting my sun, sand, and salt water on.

*picture taken in 2006. North Sea. Blankenberge, Belgium.

This great tale of a mountain biking adventure is brought to you by Rob Penn from The Guardian - it sounds like the kind of journey that you have to do to be able to call yourself a 'mountain biker'. Pictured below is Rob at the head of Glen Cairn.

'I have found a new place for my ashes to be scattered. It's in heart of the Highlands, on the north-south watershed in the Cairngorms, at a glacial T-junction looking up towards the central massif. Such places may abound in the Australian Outback and Alaska, but on our busy little island they are rare. And this one's a gem. The grid reference is NJ193026. Go there as soon as you can.

It's not easy to get to, of course. Antony, Dave, Spencer and I arrived there under a lowering sky after two hard days in the saddle. We were a third of the way into a 200-mile, off-road, mountain biking ride from the North Sea to the Atlantic, across the broad waist of Scotland, an adventure billed by the influential American magazine Outside as one of its '10 trips of a lifetime'.

The Scottish coast-to-coast is an epic and deserves respect. We had assiduously planned our four-day ride from Aberdeen to Fort William following disused railway lines, Land Rover tracks, medieval drovers' routes, forest footpaths, 18th-century military roads, canal towpaths and, inevitably, sections of road. We had carefully chosen the time of year (mid-May), plotted the route on a stack of OS maps, booked accommodation, serviced our bikes, bought the right kit and trained.

On the first morning, we sped out of Aberdeen along the old Deeside railway, lined with electric yellow broom. At Banchory, we crossed the tan-brown river Dee in sunshine. Climbing beside the Water of Feugh, we caught the first glimpses of the dark, heather-clad hills, burnt-back with rectangular shapes like a Rothko painting. The world seemed right; our progress was good.

But climbing into the Birse forest, there was a metallic crunch and Spencer's bike stopped dead. The damage - a mangled chain and a shorn mech hanger - was beyond our limited tool kit. Salvation, however, came in the form of Moira Gray, a shepherd's wife, who drove home to pick up the very tool we lacked. 'Ah remember be-ann stuck ah Glenshee un a snowstorm wi'oot a chain tool,' she said in her delightful brogue. 'An ah heed ta help ya oot.'

But we were papering over cracks, and limping over the Hill of Duchery on the 'Fungle Road', an ancient drovers' thoroughfare connecting Deeside with Glen Esk in Aberdeenshire, the bike seized again.

Next morning, the chef at the Loch Kinord Hotel drove Spencer into Ballater with the crippled bike. At Cyclehighlands, the excellent shop on the town square, Richard did his best, without success. He was, however, so keen for us continue on our adventure, he agreed to rent us a bike and drive to Fort William to collect it.

Call Housemaster Home Inspection for a home inspection Suffolk/Nassau County 800-805-1122.

In the 30 years I have lived here, the marine ecosystem has changed enormously, much to do with overfishing, some to do with the warming North Sea. The fishing boats I watched as a teenager would offload 4 foot cod. Those are a rare sight now and the scientific evidence (wilfully ignored by ministers under pressure for fishermen) have refused to implement a trawling ban to allow cod stocks to recover.

Then lobsters became the catch of choice: lobstermen told me the stocks had never been so healthy. The lobster catch is now in rapid decline and prawns (langoustines) are the catch du jour.

Trawlermen are today looking for relief on the increasing price of diesel, a local fisherman who led the protests complained that his fuel bill was up more than 100%. Tough. Maybe this is one case (or two) where the market will have a desirable outcome, giving our all important seas the chance to recover its benthic flora and fauna (smashed by trawls) and the pelagic fish stocks (currently trawled and killed as bycatch) chance to recover.

Fish is a luxury in Britain, a healthy marine ecosystem is a necessity for much of the world. Maybe its time trawling went the way of boiling rocks in piss.

OK, a modest proposal: most of the quota is in the hands of the 10 metre-plus trawlers. It should be allocated to the smaller, more sustainable inshore boats. No way should diesel be subsidized for trawlers here or frankly in an any EU country.

Pepijn Koster writes about this with more knowledge and less spleen.

I had great time (1 throw up incident though), but when moved to a calmer setting, I was a die-hard-fan of the sea already!

2 cods, and another 2 fish named only in the Norwegian language which I don't remember. The boat was luxurious, and fully equipped, and I had a go at driving it too!

Felt truly lucky being here when the weather's at its best - more activities, and more things to see of course!

Thank you, Boss, for such a lovely time out on your boat! :)

Lunch, for me, consisted of salmon on a ciabatta-like bread with a lemon juice and ricotta cheese mixture with a side salad. Now - I love salmon! I love it so much in fact, I could eat it for every dinner. But, you can imagine my surprise when the waitress brought a sandwhich that consisted of the above mentioned items - minus a cooked slab of fish. It was raw! Now, I truly didn't mind this because I have had raw salmon in the form of sushi before, so I dug on in. I was expecting it to taste like the fish department of any given grocery store smells, however, it was rather tasty. I will attribute this to the copious amounts of lemon and the generous helping of spices rubbed on the fish.

When we went to pay, I saw a sign that made me crack up. I realized the name of the restaurant, Sissy-Boy Noord, and couldn't help myself.  Now, to an English speaker, this name is hilarious. I couldn't imagine a restaurant being called 'sissy-boy', as that is one of the biggest insults that a man can receive - at least here in the USA. Example: "You're such a sissy boy, you play ball like a girl!" (No offense to girls, this is strictly used for an example).  I was so tickled by the name, the cashier gave me a big brochure with the logo on it.

We decided to go for a walk into the town, though it truly wasn't a long walk. But, it was good to get some exercise to work off lunch and to stay warm, since it was pretty much freezing by my standards. We walked past some houses that faced the beach and I longed to be a billionaire so that I might have a home in such a place. I almost lost the Sissy-Boy brochure due to a wind gust...and that would've been a real tragedy. But, I chased it down and a crisis was averted.

Walking back to the car, my friend and I saw this cute, old Citroen car parked behind us. Of course, the photographer in me could not resist the urge to snap a photo. Afterall, when was the last time you saw one of these cars randomly driving around the USA? I can't say that's ever happened to me. I think whomever owns this car is a lucky person to have such a piece of history. While, yes, it is only a car...it's a pretty cool looking car that reminds of driving through the South of France on a sunny, Sunday afternoon with a scarf around my hair and a basket of flowers on the seat next to me. No, I have never done so - but, one day I hope to.

The natural gas produced at Sleipner contains unusually high levels (about 9%) of carbon dioxide (CO2), but the customers buying the gas from Statoil need less than 2.5%.

A special platform, Sleipner-T, has been built to support a 20-m-high (65-ft), 8,000-ton treatment plant that separates CO2 from the natural gas. The Sleipner-T plant produces about 1 million tons of CO2 per year.

To encourage companies to reduce their carbon emissions, the Norwegian government imposes a carbon tax equivalent to about $50 per ton of CO2 released into the atmosphere. To avoid paying this tax, and as a test of alternative technology, all of the CO2 extracted since 1996, when gas production started at Sleipner, has been pumped back deep underground.

 It is not put back where it came from, because that would further contaminate the natural gas. Instead, it is put into a 200-m-thick (650-ft) sandstone layer called the Utsira formation, about 800 m (2,600 ft) beneath the bottom of the North Sea. The Utsira formation contains no commercial oil or gas; like most rocks deep underground, it is filled with salt water. The Utsira formation has high porosity and permeability, so the CO2 moves rapidly sideways and upward through the rock layer, replacing the water between the sand grains.

It is estimated that it would take about 600 billion tons of CO2 to fill all the pore space of the Utsira sandstone. That is equivalent to all the human-made CO2 production for over 20 years, at current rates. It is likely that CO2 sequestration will continue at Sleipner long after the abandonment of the field as a hydrocarbon producer. The Utsira formation is just one of many similar deep saline aquifers around the world that could be used to help slow down or reverse the rate at which CO2 and other greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere.

The Sleipner project is the first commercial example of CO2 storage in a deep saline aquifer, so there is a lot of interest from around the world in its success. In particular, scientists want to know how the CO2 moves inside the aquifer and if there is a risk that it could escape back to the surface.

Letzte Woche hatten wir schulfrei und Gäste hier: Christine (Stine, zakkablog) und ihre Zwillinge kamen aus Berlin. Ich war ziemlich neugierig, denn wir hatten uns im echten Leben noch nie getroffen, nur per e-mail und Telefon Kontakt, aber sie ist in echt genauso nett und liebenswert wie erwartet, und unsere Kinder haben sich auch schnell angefreundet. Wir haben einen langen Tag an der Nordsee verbracht, erst das Wattleben im multimar-wattforum erforscht, dann Sonne und Sand am Strand genossen. 

The next day we Mums made a short trip to some fabric-shops while the kids were digging a hole in the garden like they'd try to get through to New Zealand ;-)), afterwards we had a BBQ and a bath for the kids (and lots of laundry). 

Because Christine considers moving to Lübeck, the town where my husband Jens comes from and which I like best here in the north of Germany, we went there, too. 

Am nächsten Tag waren wir Mütter kurz in ein paar Stoffläden, während die Kinder im Garten ein Loch bis fast nach Neuseeland buddelten ;-)), danach haben wir gegrillt und für die Kinder ging's ab in die Wanne (und für die Wäsche ab in die Maschine). 

Weil Christine vielleicht nach Lübeck ziehen möchte, die Stadt, aus der mein Mann Jens kommt und die ich am liebsten hier im Norden mag, sind wir auch dahin gefahren. 

Oh, I really, really like Lübeck! And thank you for coming, Christine!

Oh, ich mag Lübeck wirklich sehr, sehr gerne! Und schön, dass ihr da ward, Christine!

We travelled to the Cliffs of Moher in northwestern Ireland, the tallest in Europe. Rugged and impressive, they remained formidable to drive up and to look down. The sheer audacity of Kinbane castle in Northern Ireland built down a very steep hill right on the promontory of the North Sea kept it impenetrable for years. Out near Kinvara and in the Burren were the Ailwee Caves, great underground caverns carved millennia ago by a subterranean river, fossils and minerals sparkling like the realm of Hades. Cool, pitch black except when they turned on the lights, and a den for extinct European brown bears, their might was in their endurance and solidity.

The Burren was as impressive in its way as the Giants Causeway. At some point in the ancient past a mountain or volcano erupted, spewing tons of flowing mud down mountain and hill. Eventually it solidified into grey rock but still has that look of a mud flow. Smooth in spots, rippled in others, there are dips that are treacherous to walk over but where wind and rain have blown deposits of soil over the centuries. There in those protected trenches are a myriad of plant life, some uniqe to that area.

The Burren butts up to a rugged shoreline near Kinvara, but on the higher hills it is barren stone, short shrubs and the tiny plants that grow in their coves. Everywhere through this area are stone walls and hill forts that were stacked by hand centuries ago. In fact the stone walls are abundant throughout Ireland but rule supreme in the Burren. The stones might be stacked on their edges, resting against each other, placed flat on top of each other, or made with their widest sides facing out. Some are mortared, and they are ageless. They could have been built a week ago or a thousand years ago. They were used as natural boundaries, pens for cattle and sheep and as fortifications. I’ve been told that they now work at protecting species of flora and fauna throughout the emerald isle, working as borders where invasive species don’t encroach.

Upon the Burren with its hard, alien looking surface, unable to really support any crop, somehow people eked out a life, for centuries. And topping it was Poulnabrone Dolmen, a passage tomb made of four giant slabs of stone with a fifth resting atop them like a table. You can look through beneath the table stone, from one world perhaps to the next. It has stood for over 5,000 years, a part of every person’s life who lived upon the Burren.

All lands have stone in one form or another. Rock is the foundation of our world from its magma core to the volcanic eruptions and tectonic shifts that show our planet is alive. From sand and pebble to rock and boulder, stones have always been there to support and shelter. The Irish reuse the stones from any old building torn down, reworking it into something new.

The strong sense of the history of the stones, from the monasteries and castles to the cemetery tombs and headstones, to the walls and hill forts, they all spoke of a true Irish intimacy with stone. There is history, life and death. There is art, utilitarian purpose and mystery. And most of all, there is community; thousand of years of life with each person using what had come before, the ruins or the dead not forgotten but integrated into continuing family rituals. Ireland truly taught me the endurance of time and of stories shown in its stone, its very foundation.

The picture at the top of my blog is taken from the top of Blarney castle. All pictures are copyrighted.