It's the Water

Many years ago, several beer companies (Olympia and Coors as I recall), started promoting their products highlighting the water they used.  Coors: Rocky Mountain spring water - pure, crystal clear, cold,…the perfect water for the perfect beer – something like that.  Olympia, brewed in Turnwater, Washington promoted its use of artesian water.  At the time, both beers were regional successes trying to go national.  We were living in the Mideast going to seminary in Pittsburgh at the time and I thought it was great to be able to purchase beers other than (too watery) Rolling Rock, or Iron City and its annual Old Frothingslosh (the beer with the foam on the bottom).  At least some Pittsburghers had a sense of humor.

It’s the water.

Sir Francis Drake Channel in the morning sun

One of the best gifts of this season is to be surrounded by the waters of the Caribbean.  They are so clear.  From the surface, you can see the bottom easily at 12 feet, and I’ve seen the rocks on the floor at 30 feet   The light and wind rippling across the surface makes for some wonderful imagery.

photos taken at Deadman's Bay, Peter Island

The water here sparkles against the sunlight.  Changes colors as they day progresses.  Even when the winds pick up and the waves build, the water can seem friendlier than compared with other waters along muddy shores. 

The water here lets you see the ever changing/emerging shoreline.  You can see the development and decline of the reefs even from the surface.  The dull drab tan/grey of a dying section where the coral looks like an old skeleton (which it is).  And the brighter more colorful sections where the various coral plants are growing and attracting all those wonderful fish.

The water is so clear and clean here that when we make water with our filtering watermaker, the result if just over half the EPA’s recommended standard.  Acceptable water for the Environmental Protection Agency contains 550 ppm - parts per million (minerals).  The water we’ve been making this year so far is averaging 240 ppm.  In truth, you can’t make water in less than 18 feet if you want it that good, so we only do this in the deeper anchorages.

I grew up in Ohio, near the Ohio River.  I watched the barges go by, the occasional speed boat race on the river.  I saw people fish on the lakes and it was a lake where I was introduced to sailing, Indian Lake in northwest Ohio.  Those were occasional moments.  Most of the time my life centered on the land, on bicycles and cars not boats for travel, on land-based games like basketball and not water-based sports.  Just didn’t think much about the water.  It was there and there was enough of it whenever I needed it.

Thinking about the water has been one of those wonderful gifts of this season.  Here’s a few statistics:  Over 70% of the earth’s surface is covered with water.  Over 97% of all the water on our planet is salt water.  Of the freshwater available to us, 68% of that is locked up in ice and glaciers.  Another 30% is in the ground.  Rivers are the source of most of the fresh surface water that people use, but constitutes about 1/10,000^th of one percent of all water on the earth.  (source: USGS Water Science School).  And, as global warming, like a glacier, makes its slow advances and occasional retreats, water will become like oil – a source of geopolitical engagement (in some places it already has).

The water is beautiful in these Caribbean seas.  We are fortunate to become acquainted with it.  And to spend a bit of time living on it and not the land, seeing life and the shoreline from a different perspective.  Good old  H2O.  Gotta love it.

Fair Winds and Calm Seas

Dave

PS.   Speaking of calm seas… so we were motoring across the Drake Channel on Saturday.  No, you can’t see the bottom in 168 feet of water – the depth in the middle of the channel  But the winds and wave action were so slight, that my lovely wife decided to do a little paddleboarding.  Kinda crazy.  Kinda cool!