Don't you just love smart ***s civil contractors!
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
UPDATE ON GOLD COAST DESALINATION ENGINEER'S Kayak Trip to Antarctica: By Craig Sampson
Kayaking Amongst Ice-Bergs
Kayaking in Antarctica for me will likely remain as one of the most enjoyable and memorable sporting adventure activities I have ever undertaken. Words cannot describe the beauty of Antarctica or its peacefulness, yet it holds awesome power when nature feels it needs to be unleashed. Whether it be ice bergs the size of city buildings, or a Glacier flowing over the top of a 1000m high mountain peak, one gets a sense of just how small us humans really are in the much bigger picture.
By now most of you have probably read my initial article describing my planned trip to Antarctica so I won’t repeat any of that. I have also just written a long article soon to be published in KanuCulture E-Zine which a lot of you will likely read, so I will try not to repeat too much of that also.
Our ship left from Ushuaia in Argentina, at the southern tip of South America, and headed south for 2 days until we reached Antarctica. The ship was an exploration ship with a large rear deck containing 6 inflatable boats (zodiacs), our kayaks, and several containers of equipment and supplies. Everything was securely tied down in case of bad weather and large seas. As it turned out the seas were flat and we made the crossing to Antarctica well ahead of schedule. Of the 43 passengers on board only 10 of us had signed up for the Kayaking and Cross Country Skiing options thus keeping the numbers to small manageable groups. We lived on the ship which only really stopped moving when we were off it. Other times, while we were eating, sleeping, or just enjoying the view, the ship would cruise to the next spectacular landing site. In the 6 full days we were in Antarctica we completed 18 excursions, a record for the ship. The weather was perfect with little wind and only some light snow on occasions. Daily activities starting as early at 6am and finished as late as Midnight, as the sun only set for a few hours each night thus it never really got totally dark. Of the 18 excursions I went Kayaking 6 times, cross country skiing twice, mountain trekking once, and camped over on the ice in a tent on one night.
Many of the excursions involved zodiac tours around ice berg fields containing thousands of ice bergs of every imaginable shape and shade of blue. There were of course the regular visits to penguin colonies where the fluffy penguin chicks would waddle up to us and start pecking at our clothing. There were thousands of penguins’, many seals and a few whales. By far the most fun was the kayaking through the ice bergs and brash ice. The water was consistently around zero degrees Celsius thus the dry suits came in really handy. Keeping water out of my gloves proved to be a challenge until I got the system right, thus had very cold fingers for the first few paddles. Most of the paddling occurred in sheltered bays where there was no wind thus for every glacier or ice berg we paddled past, there was a matching reflection in the water below it. On several occasions whales surfaced around our kayaks to have a look at the new yellow creatures invading their feeding grounds.
Some of the ice bergs had huge holes in them which invited you to paddle through them and out the other side. Our guide had given us strict instructions not to do this and to keep a distance away from the ice berg equal to at least the height of the ice berg. There was good reason for this as 80% of the ice berg is underwater and is often very close to tipping over. All it takes is for one piece of ice to break off the ice berg and the whole berg will roll over taking you with it. On one occasion we actually saw a small ice berg “blow up” before our eyes. Thousands of years of inbuilt pressure just decided to escape and bits of ice went flying in all directions. We kept our healthy respect of the ice bergs which was hard when they just seem to sit there so peacefully waiting to be explored.
I am attaching a few photos of the ice bergs and kayaking. Hope these inspire you to travel to Antarctica also. It is a place that everyone should visit at least once in their life, but I hope they don’t else it will not remain as pristine as it is now.
By now most of you have probably read my initial article describing my planned trip to Antarctica so I won’t repeat any of that. I have also just written a long article soon to be published in KanuCulture E-Zine which a lot of you will likely read, so I will try not to repeat too much of that also.
Our ship left from Ushuaia in Argentina, at the southern tip of South America, and headed south for 2 days until we reached Antarctica. The ship was an exploration ship with a large rear deck containing 6 inflatable boats (zodiacs), our kayaks, and several containers of equipment and supplies. Everything was securely tied down in case of bad weather and large seas. As it turned out the seas were flat and we made the crossing to Antarctica well ahead of schedule. Of the 43 passengers on board only 10 of us had signed up for the Kayaking and Cross Country Skiing options thus keeping the numbers to small manageable groups. We lived on the ship which only really stopped moving when we were off it. Other times, while we were eating, sleeping, or just enjoying the view, the ship would cruise to the next spectacular landing site. In the 6 full days we were in Antarctica we completed 18 excursions, a record for the ship. The weather was perfect with little wind and only some light snow on occasions. Daily activities starting as early at 6am and finished as late as Midnight, as the sun only set for a few hours each night thus it never really got totally dark. Of the 18 excursions I went Kayaking 6 times, cross country skiing twice, mountain trekking once, and camped over on the ice in a tent on one night.
Many of the excursions involved zodiac tours around ice berg fields containing thousands of ice bergs of every imaginable shape and shade of blue. There were of course the regular visits to penguin colonies where the fluffy penguin chicks would waddle up to us and start pecking at our clothing. There were thousands of penguins’, many seals and a few whales. By far the most fun was the kayaking through the ice bergs and brash ice. The water was consistently around zero degrees Celsius thus the dry suits came in really handy. Keeping water out of my gloves proved to be a challenge until I got the system right, thus had very cold fingers for the first few paddles. Most of the paddling occurred in sheltered bays where there was no wind thus for every glacier or ice berg we paddled past, there was a matching reflection in the water below it. On several occasions whales surfaced around our kayaks to have a look at the new yellow creatures invading their feeding grounds.
Some of the ice bergs had huge holes in them which invited you to paddle through them and out the other side. Our guide had given us strict instructions not to do this and to keep a distance away from the ice berg equal to at least the height of the ice berg. There was good reason for this as 80% of the ice berg is underwater and is often very close to tipping over. All it takes is for one piece of ice to break off the ice berg and the whole berg will roll over taking you with it. On one occasion we actually saw a small ice berg “blow up” before our eyes. Thousands of years of inbuilt pressure just decided to escape and bits of ice went flying in all directions. We kept our healthy respect of the ice bergs which was hard when they just seem to sit there so peacefully waiting to be explored.
I am attaching a few photos of the ice bergs and kayaking. Hope these inspire you to travel to Antarctica also. It is a place that everyone should visit at least once in their life, but I hope they don’t else it will not remain as pristine as it is now.
Monday, March 12, 2007
SOUTH AFRICA GEARS UP FOR 2010 WITH ANOTHER NEW STADIUM
The story doing the rounds is that the civil contractor who was awarded this contract wont be getting anymore.Thursday, March 01, 2007
DEWATERING A CONSTRUCTION SITE - Part 1
This case study is typical of a construction company not taking advice from ground water control experts.
As can be observed from the attached photo, the contractor has made some fundamental mistakes
- After installing I-beam and concrete segmented shoring, they proceded to excavate, without taking into account possible pre-existing ground water control requirements.
- After excavating to the initial RL seen here, there was no ground water concerns, and the site was dry.
- After a lengthy period of no further site activity, or mobilisation of the dewatering contractor's scope of works, water inflows started, possibly as a result of dewatering operations being concluded and switched off from surrounding sites.
- There is no suitably dry platform for the piling contractors to work from, or for the dewatering contractors's drill rig, to install deepwells.
- The shoring, as can be seen, is not suitable for the conditions, as it cannot provide a sufficiently watertight cutoff from transverse water flow.
- A dry working platform for the piling contractor and dewatering contractor is unobtainable at this stage
- The point of discharge is around 2 kilometers away into a stormwater drain.
Observe the mound of backfill material in the left of photo. This is how the contractor has decided on his own methods to retrieve the situation, by trying to backfill the excavation, in defiance of the expert advice provided.
We'll follow this example to its logical conclusion, as a case study on how NOT to excavate a site.
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