Two Posts in 1 Day!

Ok well, for my second post I will put up some video I took today. There are two, and each cover the same subject: movement. In the first you will see the grey deck next door move around. The second will have some lovely commentary of what you should be viewing...

Enjoy!

We Sleet Under Water, sometimes

Right now the water temperature of the San Francisco Bay is 54 degrees. Not the temperature that you want to go swimming in. Yet, that is the temperature that our house sits/floats on. In fact it acts as the opposite of a heated floor that covers our downstairs.

The bedrooms are downstairs, we do have windows but they are not really at "normal" window height. They are a bit higher. On the outside of the house under the windows is a ledge, and then the water moves up and down below that ledge. During the night and day as you walk downstairs you do notice that change in temperature from the upstairs to downstairs. I attribute this to the fact that part of the downstairs is submerged in water. Probably similar to when you walk into a basement in the summer.

Last night as I was trying to fall asleep I started thinking about the water level outside. It was a full moon, and it was close to low tide when we went to sleep. Then I was thinking about the water rising and figured that at times we may be sleeping under water. Which is a tough thought to get around when you look around you and everything looks like a normal house. Now I haven't done anything completely scientific like, um, measure the water levels. Right now we are in the "hypothesis" phase. Who knows if we will move into the next phase.

Since we are still in "fall" like weather I feel strange turning the heat on, but that will change as we get closer to winter and the air and water temperature move a little closer together. wonder what winter will be like here?

Our first Tsunami, a little bit of a let down.

There is something about the weather service and their list of warnings, watches, bulletins and special reports that send people into a huge downward spiral. Last evening, I moved my car and instructed Ben to do the same. Then I went outside and secured Haddie and Old Yeller (our boats). Granted Old Yeller is now actually tied up to the house because I did not know what else to do for him. Then we sat and waited.

I felt like we had a lot of warning time. Growing up with tornadoes you get at least 30-60 mins of warning time. Earthquakes you get nothing. Yesterday was a bit strange because we had over 4 hours to get "prepared." And the content of the warnings seemed a bit dire. I get it that they need to prepare people for the worst, but still it sends people into a tailspin.

At 9:35 last night there was a huge gust of wind out of nowhere. Ben and I looked at each other, and of course did what all humans should do when faced with strange natural occurrence. We went outside and stood on the deck. It should be noted that if things were really bad we would have heard the warning sirens, and trust me they are loud here. The tide was not as high as the high tide picture I posted on Sept 18th. The waves were more defined and maybe 7 inches tall, which stood out to us because it is usually flat in our canal. Then that was it.

This morning all people and property are fine! The Chronicle doesn't even have any coverage of the Great San Francisco Tsunami of 2009. Their main focus is of course the beginning of it all in Somoa, which is no joke. The tsunami wasn't the 60 foot wall of waves that I had envisioned! I guess after traveling thousands of miles, like any traveler it was a bit too tired to rage on another town.

Tsunami, We're Ready! Um, Sort of . . .

It is that time in the afternoon when I log into the Chronicle for the Daily Dish, which is the gossip column. Today I was greeted with a headline of "Tsunami Advisory Issued for West Coast". Ok. Alright. Should I freak out now? So I click.

And begin to read. Apparently waves will hit between this evening at about 9pm to tomorrow morning. The waves sizes are going to be between 12 and 26 inches. Wait, so that is it? We should look out for waves between the size of 1 and 3 feet. By definition a tsunami is a giant wave produced by an earthquake. I am not sure if I would classifly 1-3 feet giant. MMmmmm.

Usually when I think about tsunamis I think about a huge 60 foot wave coming toward us, not an extra three feet. Does an extra three feet concern me, well no not really. I am lying. Yes I have a concern. It revolves around the parking lot and if it is going to flood. I will now head outside and move my car. That is about it. High tide is at 9:16pm and is at 5.1, ok so let's do some math. If the tsunami hits, the new tide line will be 8.1 feet. Doable, wont be the highest high tide we've seen, nor the lowest.

How about this, if anything amazing happens I will let you know, but I have a feeling it is going to be an normal evening around here. (I hope!) Ok time to go and move my car!

Do you have $40 and live in the Bay Area?

And you have no plans today?

Come and check out the Floating Home Tour. You get to see about 20 homes, but not ours. We are not opening it to the public! Also who wants to come and look at all of our stuff?

I am volunteering today as a docent. I will pass along helpful information and make sure no one steals anything from the house I am stationed at.

It should be a beautiful day up here in Marin, no fog here.

Stuff in the Water

Off of our floating dock there is a thing in the water. After heavy investigation I have discovered that this is probably part of an old dock, but it is just the plastic floatation part. Several days ago, I found that it is still tied to a rope that is connected somewhere on the rocks on the other side of our yard. This thing is covered in plant life! Since I do not know a ton about marine plant life, I am unsure how long it has in fact been there. All I want to do at low tide is poke and play at this thing, knowing that I would need a couple more set of hands to deal with it.

Ben and I had a conversation about it while I was poking it and lifting it halfway out of the water with a boat hook. He has no real interest in this old dock which is stuck in the ground. He would really like me to stop messing with it. Then he went inside, and then my trials began. I was on the not so floating dock at low tide, because then it becomes a sitting dock. The house was up to my shoulders. Needless to say it took a couple of tries, but I was able to lift myself onto our house off of our dock. I am glad that no one was watching this go down.

The mix of only seeing this old dock and the fact that our floating dock is sitting on the bottom during low tide make it really hard to mess with this thing with any real commitment. Well I guess I could mess with it until the tide comes back up.

Noises

For a long time, we have slept with a fan on. It drowns out the noise of the city, which during our stay there included a frat house across the street, buses, trains, firetrucks, and everything else that comes with living in a city. The fan is still here, but the noises have changed.

Granted, life around here is usually really quiet, besides the lovely call of the seagull (sarcasm is hard to write, seagulls do NOT have a pretty bird call). And as it has been stated the homes in our neighborhood move. We go up and down, albeit slowly with the tide. Therefore our house moves against everything it is attached to, and so do the other houses. This makes really eerie creeks. The kind that wakes you up in the night and you second guess yourself what you just heard. Last night was particularly loud in the neighborhood. Many creeks, cracks, pops, and squeaks. I would imagine we hear it more at night because our bedroom is very close to the dock, and our windows open up to that side.

Remember if you stay here, keep your ears open, and remember it is just the glory of the fact that yes, we are in motion!

Barges

Our actually living space is smaller than the size of our home. Our home is built on a barge, which in our case is made out of cement. Yes, cement does float. Hopefully you just learned about this from the word barge above (click on it), or you have some sort of background in science.

The bedrooms are located on the first floor, but in fact that floor is really built about 4 feet above the bottom of the barge. On the front and back there are some large storage spaces that are outside of our home, but inside our barge. There is also a smaller space which runs the side of the house in between the wall of the barge and the wall of the home. Trust me the extra storage is super, but you have to come to terms with the fact that the items you put are there are that much closer to the elements. The main element we are talking about here is salt water.

Since we have only lived through one storm we are pretty sure that water does not collect down in our barge. Just in case we have not put anything on the ground. As this moment we have not had to find a way to get water out of our barge storage area. I am hoping it does not come to that. If it does, trust me our landlord will be getting a phone call. Considering he also uses the storage area, I am thinking that water does not come pouring in. We do have pump on board, but it is used for getting sewage out of our home and into the city sewers, which will be another topic for another time.

Just ask, and we will show you the storage space which gives some insight into how our home was built. Sorry, I have no idea when it was built!

We Float

This past weekend was a bit like the winter here in the Bay Area. Friday night brought thunderstorms, rain, and high winds. It was a very high tide on Saturday and Sunday night. For those who are curious yes, we do keep a tide book upstairs so we are able to track what is going on in our backyard. Now I sort of know how to read it, but alas not really. Looks like Ben will be able to explain this to me this evening. Saturday and Sunday were more dramatic in the tides due to the fact that Friday was a Last Quarter of the moon so the tide goes way up and then way down. (see science, pull from the moon) The combination of the the high tide and the weather gave us a new experience with our new home.

I was on the phone with my sister and sitting the front part of our house (the bow if you will). I could feel a small rolling movement, nothing substantial, but just soft and gentle. It was raining and blowing out. I looked out the window and could see that all of the houses were moving. Up and down, and side to side. The homes are not being tossed around, but it looks like a group of gentle giants moving within their confinded space. Since it was a high tide all of the homes were truly floating and not just sitting the mud.

The feeling that swept over me was sort of like the first time I was in an earthquake. A new experience for your body and mind. (sounds way more hippy than it was, but i have no idea how to talk about it). You look outside and watch the house next to you move up about 1/2" from where it should be then go gracefully back to its original position. The movement happens so peacefully that you are unsure if it really just happened. It is as if you are imagining things. Then you begin to really study the outside world and yes, you can tell that are you moving and that the homes around you are as well.

We could not feel it that much in the back part of the house. Last night it did the same thing. I am not sure if you think you feel that you are moving because you can see that your house and your surroundings are moving. And it doesn't move in a "sea-sick" sort of way. Even with the rain and the wind, it just moves.

This weekend was good exposure for what the winter months in January and Febuary will feel like at our place.