Ship Fixed. Spire Cove. Convective Fog.
Jun. 18th, 2024 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerAlaska Travelog #11
Asea in Kenai Fjords NP - Sun, 16 Jun 2024, 11am
I've got to hand it to him— our cruise captain MacGyvered a fix for the engine problem that was hobbling the ship. It turned out seaweed had gotten into the coolant intake pipe and made it past the filter. The ship's engines use sea water as coolant. Seaweed got wrapped around the impeller, which is like a rapidly spinning gear cog that pulls water through the pipe, causing it to overheat and start to break down. This further caused too little cool water to reach the engines, causing them to start to overheat. There were replacement impeller wheels aboard the ship— the f
The captain pushed on ahead to Spire Cove to help make up for lost time. Normally he might have gone slower looking for aquatic wildlife, but we'd already seen a lot. There was a bald eagle right at the marina and playful otters just outside that. Then we saw humpback whales, too. The video I tried capturing of them didn't turn out well. But hey, I was talking about Spire Cove....
Link: watch video on YouTube
Spire Cove is interesting for the tall, rocky spires jutting up from the sea. This is a situation where the morning's foggy weather was both good and bad. It was bad because it foiled long-distance views and muted out the colors around us. Those colors would've been striking in the sun, especially with all those wildflowers and trees improbably growing atop the spires. The good side of the fog was that it created a certain aura of mystery around the spires.
Will the fog lift by the time we get to the glaciers? I certainly hope so, because that's a place where long-distance views absolutely will count, and I want to see the glaciers. For me that's the number-one reason to spend the time and money on this cruise.
The crew says that this fog is a convective fog. It's caused by warm air over cold water. Yesterday was an extremely warm day for Alaska— we enjoyed 74° highs up in Anchorage! So now this is like our punishment for having such a nice day yesterday. 😧
Asea in Kenai Fjords NP - Sun, 16 Jun 2024, 11am
I've got to hand it to him— our cruise captain MacGyvered a fix for the engine problem that was hobbling the ship. It turned out seaweed had gotten into the coolant intake pipe and made it past the filter. The ship's engines use sea water as coolant. Seaweed got wrapped around the impeller, which is like a rapidly spinning gear cog that pulls water through the pipe, causing it to overheat and start to break down. This further caused too little cool water to reach the engines, causing them to start to overheat. There were replacement impeller wheels aboard the ship— the f
The captain pushed on ahead to Spire Cove to help make up for lost time. Normally he might have gone slower looking for aquatic wildlife, but we'd already seen a lot. There was a bald eagle right at the marina and playful otters just outside that. Then we saw humpback whales, too. The video I tried capturing of them didn't turn out well. But hey, I was talking about Spire Cove....
Link: watch video on YouTube
Spire Cove is interesting for the tall, rocky spires jutting up from the sea. This is a situation where the morning's foggy weather was both good and bad. It was bad because it foiled long-distance views and muted out the colors around us. Those colors would've been striking in the sun, especially with all those wildflowers and trees improbably growing atop the spires. The good side of the fog was that it created a certain aura of mystery around the spires.
Will the fog lift by the time we get to the glaciers? I certainly hope so, because that's a place where long-distance views absolutely will count, and I want to see the glaciers. For me that's the number-one reason to spend the time and money on this cruise.
The crew says that this fog is a convective fog. It's caused by warm air over cold water. Yesterday was an extremely warm day for Alaska— we enjoyed 74° highs up in Anchorage! So now this is like our punishment for having such a nice day yesterday. 😧
