You have to put up with an advert at the start of the clip! <http://video.stv.tv/bc/news-070610-n1-ferry> -- Bruce Fletcher Stronsay, Orkney <http://claremont.islandblogging.co.uk>

Interesting Bruce. Certainly seems to make sense to use the smaller faster boats, especially when there are no vehicles or freight items involved. I have been watching the news recently, about the devastating oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. The Yanks seemed very slow on the uptake to stop the leak. Today they have finally conceded that the actual daily gush, is about 60,000 barrels or 2.4 million gallons per day. It is approaching 60 days, or more than a quarter of a billion gallons. The Orkney interest herein is that the Gulf Stream is pointed your way, and the toxic dispersants they seem to use without much knowledge or indeed consent, may well produce a situation where the residues from this spill could make it to Orkney. Hard to imagine, but when you stop to consider that this could go on for another six months or so before the interceptor wells are in place, and the hurricane season in the Gulf is over, that we are talking billions of gallons of oil here. I saw south american driftwood in Orkney, so this American oil is a distinct possibility. Too, people elsewhere in the world, including Canada's east coast, where wells are drilled at sea, are doing the "what if" evaluation. In light of Orkney's exposure to deep wells adjacent on a sometimes ferocious sea, one might ask how well prepared Orkney is for the same type of oil bath that the Gulf is experiencing from a NOrth Sea blowout. The Cubans have identified slicks off their coast in the Gulf Stream, so the first of it has already rounded the bend to turn north in the Gulf Stream. I don't know what the stream's flow rate is, but the numbers are available to produce some projections. One thing for sure, this scenario is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better, and the environmental damage will be evident into the next century. It is time the bigger economies in the world stopped using the oceans as if they were their exclusive dumps. I can't in my wildest nightmares, envision what a billion gallons of oil will look like on the blue Gulf and Cuban waters. We have already seen what it has done to the beaches. There are submerged globs of this toxic grease, which have been measured at over 30 kms in length. Will it make it to Orkney? Well, if that is where the Gulf Stream goes, for sure that is where this oil will in part be headed. I imagine scientists are tugging their beards over this one. So, what are people in Orkney saying? Thanks for the ferry clip. Lots of those zodiac boats here. The coast guard and police love them. Yachties all have the smaller versions for tenders. cheers... Steve On Jun 16, 2010, at 2:57 PM, Bruce Fletcher wrote: > You have to put up with an advert at the start of the clip! > <http://video.stv.tv/bc/news-070610-n1-ferry> > -- > Bruce Fletcher > Stronsay, Orkney > <http://claremont.islandblogging.co.uk> > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ORCADIA- > request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message >