S.S.Thistlegorm

The S.S. Thistlegorm, still under construction in 1939

While looking into the origins of some of the photos in my recent post "Underwater Motorcycles", several were found to come from a scuba diving site located in the Red Sea. The site is a shipwreck in fairly shallow (15m to the bow and 30m to the seabed)and clear water, which makes it popular and well photographed. The ship in question is the S.S. Thistlegorm, a Merchant Navy vessel that journeyed from Glasgow Scotland, all the way around the tip of South Africa to avoid conflicts in the Mediterranean, eventually making it's way into the Red Sea as it steamed toward northern Africa with plans to enter the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal.
Despite the long detour around the Cape Of Good Hope to avoid detection and danger, the fate of the Thistlegorm turned out to involve a bit of bad luck. A ships collision in the Suez Canal meant she had to wait in a 'safe anchorage site' until such time as the canal was cleared. German intelligence had suspected troop carriers were sailing near Egypt and had sent out bombers to destroy those ships. None were found but the bombers inadvertently came across the Thistlegorm, and accompanying Light Cruiser HMS Carlisle, in their anchorage site and dropped two bombs on the Thistlegorm. Nine crew members were killed and the shipment of Bedford trucks, Bren guns, rifles, two locomotives and a lot of BSA and Norton motorcycles ended up at the bottom of the sea.
As you'll see from the diagram below, the ship is relatively intact, with mostly the midsection having been destroyed by the bombs. Jacques Cousteau first explored the wreck after talks with local fishermen led him to its' location in 1956. It remained undisturbed until the 90's, when Sharm El Sheikh began to blossom as a diving destination. Unfortunately, the popularity of the wreck as a diving site has led to some deterioration of the slowly rotting ship, as dive boats moor directly to the ship and cause damage. The ship and cargo are still in fairly good condition however, as you can see by the many photos shown here.

3D detail of the wreck

I think the tread on that tire is still pretty good despite all this time underwater

The Bedford trucks are still intact, including windshields, even after 76 years

She was a fairly big boat, with a big prop

Hard to say what some of the cargo was after being covered in barnacles, but I believe this is the deck winch

There is a book about the ship and wreck, with a photo of one of the locomotives on its' cover.

The stern of the Thistlegorm

This eel is standing guard over a Wellington boot that was part of the cargo

The barnacles and sea life make this weapon of war a beautiful looking thing.

Calgary Reads

Calgary Reads is collecting for their upcoming Big Book Sale in May 2017.

Please support both children and adult literacy in Calgary by donating your 'gently used' books to this worthy cause.

To make it easy, you can bring your books right here to the BlueCircle office and we'll box them all up and transport them to bigger collection site.

And please remember, they cannot accept the following...

-Encylopaedias

-Textbooks

-Harlequin romance

-Audio books on cassette tapes (C.D. or MP3 are welcome)

-Readers Digest

-Magazines

The Big Book Sale will be coming up in May

 15 MINUTES of reading with your children each day can expose them to one million written words in a year.

Bill Ptacek is the C.E.O. of the Calgary Library and is an obvious promoter of reading! And takes a creative "shelfie" too!! 

I liked this informative tip sheet for searching for word meanings.

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Underwater Motorcycles

I wonder how long this bike has been underwater to accumulate these barnacles

Here's what happens when you go on an internet search engine and type in 'underwater scooters' and 'underwater motorcycles'.  I did this when looking for information on Diver Propelled Vehicles, part of my research for a couple of recent posts titled "Aqua Scooter" and "Aqua Scooter: Upgraded". Typical of any internet search, the collateral results are often odd or downright strange and certainly surprising in many ways. Who knew there were so many submerged motorcycles in the world, some accidental and some purposeful. 

I compiled a bunch of photos to show the results, though I didn't do much research on the where and why of the actual motorcycles themselves. Some were obviously put in place as a point of interest to a diving location, some may have been tossed in the ocean as a way of ridding 'garbage' and some look like they were the results of an accident at sea. The one set of photos on what are obviously military motorcycles was worthy of further research and will be featured in a future post titled "S.S. Thistlegorm", but suffice to say that the reason for the bikes being underwater is related to W.W. II military action. And, the site is a fairly well known and popular diving location which might actually be worth a visit in person if one ever gets to that part of the world in the near future.

This bike looks salvageable

Old Nortons and BSAs on the S.S. Thistlegorm

A popular dive site, so lots of cool photos taken of these bikes

A sculpture like quality to this machine

There were a lot of motorcycles lost in this sinking, amongst other things

Does the dive gear qualify as ATGATT

Going nowhere fast

At least one knows that there were far fewer pollutants entering the water when this bike was dumped

This guy is flying!! haha

Another bike that looks salvageable

Most motorcyclists give each other a wave!!

Lots of lady riders out there too!

Aqua Scooter: Upgraded

As promised in a recent post about Diver Propelled Vehicles titled "Aqua Scooter" , online March 22 2017, here's another on the same topic but with better quality, higher performance machines. The ones featured in that article were definitely simple, tourist orientated units and geared to be used by just about anyone, with speeds to match. that is to say....sloooooow!! haha!
This one's about what may be considered a higher classification of DPVs, a few having military applications and some for use by commercial divers, but some are basic tow-behind models for the public, perhaps geared to thsoe more physically fit and able. Many of the latter are readily available and fairly inexpensive but still requiring some physical strength and operating skills. I saw a few of the basic tow-behind models online for $300 or $400 and they look extremely user friendly, portable and a lot of fun. Even if you were just snorkeling, it would be a great way to see a lot of what you want to see without totally burning all your energy. One of the things I found about 'free diving' (in my strictly amateur way) is that you can sure use up a lot of energy, and subsequently a lot of air, just getting down to a depth where you can see all the cool stuff. Of course, if you'd be using one of these machines to explore depths that required SCUBA gear, you'd have to take into account your ascension rates and equalizing times.
One day I can see them building something that would be a combination of the DPVs featured in each of the posts...a true motorcycle style machine which you can ride underwater, complete with self contained air tanks for breathing.
And, for another teaser, keep an eye out for my future blog on a dual use, two wheeled machine that works on land and in the water!!

If you think this looks 'military grade', you're right

Room for two divers

A somewhat typical tow-behind type scooter

This one's called a "Bladefish'

Some of the better and more expensive style scooters are straddled, which allows hands free

Another sled style, good for hauling gear and other such cargo

These little tow-behinds are relatively inexpensive ($300) and are great for snorkelling 

Not sure how this one would work but included it as something different

Bigger units give higher speeds

To see this unit in action, check out the GIF below

Aqua Scooter

I was looking at some websites recently, when thinking about taking a vacation to an exotic location. On one of the sites there happened to be an advert for a 'sightseeing' company that featured tours around a local reef on an 'underwater motorcycle'. Though it seemed pretty hokey, the underwater motorcycle idea appealed to me enough to further investigate what turned out to be a low grade Diver Propulsion System (DPV). Obviously, a DPV is a machine designed to mechanically assist a person using SCUBA to move about underwater. And, as mentioned, the tourist grade version is pretty much suspect for a few reasons, though the positive is that it does allow just about anyone accessibility to certain underwater areas and opens the door to explore for those who may not be physically able, or psychologically, prepared for the traditional diving routine, even if not using a DPV.
There are a multitude of manufacturers and models of these low grade machines, low grade referring mostly to slow speed, awkwardness, and the low depth to which they can operate. All of these reasons are not necessarily a bad thing in regard to who the target audience would be and their imminent safety. Of course, my immediate thought was about what kind of irreparable damage could occur to delicate and sensitive coral reefs, or underwater structures and sculptures, when a bunch of untrained and inept tourists with poor operating skills got messing around on these devices, banging and crashing into things. Yikes!
However,  the lowdown on these particular rigs are that they're usually a battery powered propulsion system of some sort (typically an impeller) , with a seat for one or two passengers, complete with an attached dome that enables the 'rider' to see without a mask and breath without the use of a regulator mouthpiece. Here's some photos so you can see what I'm talking about, with a promise that there will be a future post on some of the more complex and higher classified DPVs that don't fit into this particular post.

Most aqua scooters follow this type of design

Seems pretty straightforward

A lot of the photos showed divers accompanying the scooters, so perhaps a safety concern or for damage control

A slightly different style of scooter

An underwater motorcycle gang!! haha

Again, a different manufacturer's model, but showing the propulsion system a bit better

Watch out for the underwater sculpture!

The Vernal Equinox a.k.a. the First Day Of Spring

Do you know why Spring occurs when it does and that the reason for the season is actually scientific, since the Earth rotates on an axis that is tilted in it's orbit. 

The 23.5° tilt causes the different hemispheres to be at different angles to the sun at different times of the year. In our northern hemisphere on March 20 (sometimes the 19th or 21st) the Vernal Equinox, also referred to as the Spring or March Equinox, is when the sun sits on the plane of the earth's equator.

In the southern hemisphere at this time of year, they would be experiencing the Autumnal (Fall) Equinox. Conversely, we would experience the Autumnal Equinox in September, and the southern hemisphere would experience the Vernal Equinox of course.

In both cases, the Equinox occurs when the Earth's orbit takes it to the point where the sun crosses the Celestial Equator, an imaginary line that runs above the Earth's equator. At this juncture, there are an equal number of hours in the day and night (12 hours), so the Latin word Equinox literally means equal (equi) night (nox).

From here on in, we begin to see longer and longer daylight hours until we reach the Summer Solstice, which is the peak amount of sunlight in our northern hemisphere. 

Of course, we all know that long stretch of darkness at the Winter Solstice, where it gets dark around 4:00 in the afternoon and the sun doesn't arise until 8:30, and that's just around Calgary. Worse as you get into the far north where it stays dark all day. Naturally, the opposite is true wen they get 24 hours of sunlight on the occasion of the Summer Solstice, hence the term "Land Of The Midnight Sun".

Climbing The Walls

Happy together:)

Just spent a really nice evening with my daughter and her her guy, out at The Calgary Climbing Centre (Chinook) doing a bit of indoor climbing and bouldering. It's a great way to spend some family time together while giving oneself a bit of a mental and physical challenge.  I haven't climbed for several years now and there was a lot to remember, plus my hand and finger strength has definitely faded over the years. Glad to see my family out doing something that we can enjoy together and it makes me want to have some more fun and practice my technique and work on hand strength development.

It was also a pleasant reminder of how much fun I had climbing all those many years ago with some special friends and what a great bunch of people there are in the climbing community. Maybe that's one of the best things about climbers, as they are challenging themselves and wanting to help others get better, offering ideas and tips on particular routes and sharing the camaraderie of those challenges. Awesome!

Ready to climb

This is one strong gal and made it up with no issues!

Us lads had more trouble on the same 5.10+ route

Over the crux

Here's goes the old guy!

Good technique...hip to the wall, arm straight, use your legs....

Bad technique...arm muscling up the wall!! haha

There's my girl, up the wall like Spiderwoman