Mackinac Bridge celebrates 50th anniversary

This post today is not about freaque waves. As much as this blog is more or less reactionary to news about freaque waves around the world, there hasn't been freaque waves in the news in recent days. That should be good news in itself, since it is usually "No news is good news!"

I came across this news item from the Cheboygan Daily Tribune about the maintenance of Mackinac bridge. Being a Michiganian (or Michigander) Cheboygan and Mackinac are not strange names I have to Google them up like I used to do with many of the foreign places I encounter. But what attracted my attention is this unusual picture:
as it is really not for or by tourists types. The article entitled "Mackinac's maintenance is top notch" detailed the Bridge's top notch maintenance efforts that make it the best maintained bridge in the world even after 50 years. As one who's afraid of height, just look at how those people are on their way to their maintenance works makes my knees shake! One sentence in the article is of particular interest to me:

Sometimes, during extreme wind conditions, locals will drive down to the shore to look at the waves and the bridge.

As non-locals, we have also enjoyed doing that -- looking at the waves and the bridge -- ourselves, even not necessarily during extreme wind conditions. That was in the good old days when my daughter was still very young, and we were eager to explore with her the beauties of the State we choose to call home.

Of course familiar pictures of Mackinac Bridge are like this one taken from the west side:
or this night view taken from the east side:The city of Cheboygan, Michigan is located to the east of Mackinaw City which is at the south end of the Mackinac Bridge. Here's another picture from the Cheboygan Daily Tribune showing the commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of Mackinac Bridge:
A good information source about Mackinac Bridge is from the Wikipedia.

Dungeons reef waves

As the saying goes "A picture is worth a thousand words." But I think this picture is for us just to marvel, it does not need any word at all!

It is from an article in the online Daily Mail of London entitled "Surfing on the crest of a 70ft tall monster wave" written by Victoria Moore. The article is a short one:

Surfers like to say waves aren't measured in feet and inches but in increments of fear.

And when you look at this heaving mountain of icy, dark water, its edge already curling over as it prepares to slam down and engulf all in its path, you can't help thinking that this must be close to registering a measurement of pure, lurching dread.

The man braving the beast to ride this colossal wave is the South African surfer Mike Schlebach and the picture was taken at Dungeons Reef, just to the south of Cape Town where a series of cold fronts has brought gale-force winds to lash the South African coast.

It is a notorious spot that, in the southern hemisphere's winter, is said to produce the biggest rideable waves in Africa.

Incoming waves hit the sea bottom at the rocky reef, and rear up into giant monsters 60-70ft tall - the height of five doubledecker buses.

Dungeons is notorious not just for the great white sharks that sometimes lurk in the waters, but also because the peak of the wave has a tendency to shift suddenly, sometimes catapulting the surfer into a 30ft freefall as up to 100 tons of collapsing water for each metre of the wave roar down after him.

I guess a sliding fall in front of roaring waves that carries up to 100 tons of collapsing water for each meter of the wave is something only surfers can understand and be thrilled. There is nothing freaque or abnormal about it. I was once asked by a young writer for a surfing magazine if freaque waves can be tracked for surf. Since by definition a freaque wave is a total unknown, we don't know where or when it will happen, it is unaccessible even for the most fearless, or reckless, surfers. Just go to Dungeons Reef, it's made for the reckless/fearless ones!

No one saw it coming but it is "expected"?

I reported in this blog the case of oil tanker FR8 Venture last November, in which they encountered freaque waves that killed two seamen and seriously injured another as they passing through Scotland's Pentland Firth. The seamen were working on deck struggling to secure one of the ships main anchors when the ship slipped into Pentland Firth during a winter gale. According to the Scotsman and MidLothian Advertiser this morning, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) just issued their investigate report yesterday that basically concluded that the decision by the captain to leave the harbor during the storm caused the unfortunate accident as:

"The Master should have delayed the sailing so that the ship could have been secured for sea in sheltered waters.

"Having decided to leave the shelter of Scapa Flow before the foredecks were secured for sea, the Master's assessment of the position by which the crew should have been clear of the foredeck of the ship allowed little margin for error."

As the accident happened when the vessel was struck by the two large waves, the MAIB report described the details:

"No-one saw the waves approaching. The ship's bow then pitched into the deep trough between the first and second wave. Able Seaman Ravindra and Able Seaman Kharva were swept off the winch platform and forced uncontrollably aft until they came to rest under the flying bridge - a raised walkway above the main deck."

That resulted in Mr Ravindra died from multiple injuries and Mr Kharva sustained a fatal neck injury. Clearly both should have been preventable. What I find interesting is that the report suggests:

"The height of these waves would have been at least 8.6 metres, which, although higher than the waves experienced up to that point, could not be considered abnormal and should have been expected in the prevailing weather condition."

So the waves that FR8 Venture encountered were not freaque waves, but something to be expected according to MAIB. While this is not really a far fetched reckoning, it does pointing out that this is a rather fuzzy area that different inferences can be drawn with similar uncertainty. Freaque waves can happen in calm conditions. Freaque waves can also happen in storm conditions. There is not even a universal definition of what constitutes freaque or abnormal. But the report noticed that "no one saw the waves approaching" which is somehow hard to mesh with the contention that it is "expected" in my mind. Perhaps because of the uncertainties confront the case, the report has issued no safety recommendations.

One year anniversary!

As this is not really a daily blog, I only post whenever there is something worthwhile to post or something that tickles my fancy. But I would like to make a special note about today, because it was this day, July 17, a year ago that I posted my first entry to start this blog. So today is the one year anniversary of this Freaque Waves Blog. It really does not feel that a whole year has gone by already. I guess as the cliche says time flies when you are having fun!

I would like to take this opportunity to express my personal thanks to my daughter Tina. It was her persuasion that got me started this blog after she started hers. I really did not know how long this will last or how far it can go when I confined it to just freaque waves. By human standard, one year old is still very much in infancy. It is still crawling. But I am having fun doing this blog. It turns out that this blog is literally of me, by me, and for me. For now, at least, I would like just to keep it going!

Freaque waves in the Great Lakes

I tend to be on the reluctant side to answer an infrequently asked question: Are there freaque waves in the Great Lakes? Because there is no reason to say anything other than an affirmative "Yes!" But the reason I have been reluctant is that I have yet to see reported cases per se other than the speculations that the 1975 sinking of SS Edmund Fitzgerald was caused by one and our former Director, Dr. Al Beeton, told me that he had actually encountered one in Lake Michigan off Ludington, Michigan in 1956.

Well, two recent news items may have served to change that perception now.

The first one is a July 13, 2007 Chicago Tribune article entitle "Survivors searching for missing friend in lake." It tells the story of a boating event by two brothers and a friend that was disrupted by an unexpected "giant wave" written by Alexa Aguilar. Here's the main part of the story:

The men had met at the auto shop where the brothers worked at about 5 a.m. Wednesday to take out the 16-foot Mark Twain outboard. They launched from Diversey Harbor around 6 a.m. The weather was pleasant, but they noticed a chop on the water.

"We thought it would get better, but the waves got really, really bad," said Art Lemus, 39.

The National Weather Service issued a small craft advisory at 7 a.m. Wednesday after reports of 6-foot waves and winds gusting at 25 knots.Art Lemus said they never learned of the advisory.

About a mile from shore, Ramirez took the wheel and Aris checked the bilge pump to see if it was working properly because the boat kept filling with water.

Suddenly, a giant wave crashed over the boat, the brothers said, and the craft quickly began to sink. The men weren't wearing life preservers so they grabbed onto whatever they could find. Aris Lemus clutched a seat cushion, Art Lemus grabbed a life preserver, and Ramirez held onto a loose fuel tank.

Panicking, they shouted at one another to "hold on" and "keep swimming," Art Lemus said.

Within minutes, they were separated. Both brothers describe a terrifying two hours of treading water and swimming alone with nothing but the vast expanse of Lake Michigan around them. Both were convinced they were going to die, they said, and thought of the families they would leave behind.

"I was ready to give up," Art Lemus said, "but that gave me strength."

He swam with the waves and ended up on the breakwater in front of the Navy Pier light tower, where he flagged down a passing sailboat. Police arrived, and he frantically told them his companions were still in the water. Police found Aris Lemus swimming a few hundred yards from shore.

But their friend Ramirez was not found. The essence of this story for me is the sentence:
"Suddenly, a giant wave crashed over the boat" which clearly signifies the occurrence of a freaque wave!

The other one took place ten days earlier in Saginaw Bay off Lake Huron reported by Steve Griffin in July 3, 2007 issue of Midland Daily News entitled "Saginaw Bay teaches safety lessons" that told a couple's Saturday fishing trip:

Saturday afternoon, the Schleckers, from Alden in northwest Lower Michigan, were four miles out on Saginaw Bay south of Au Gres, headed out for some walleye fishing, trying to duplicate the success Kirk had enjoyed the previous weekend.

The marine weather forecast called for waves of 1-2 feet, fine fishing weather. But the waves seemed a little rougher, said Kirk Schlecker.

"A sailboat guy came on the radio and said, 'I've just experienced a microburst,'" a small but violent wind event, "registering winds of 60 miles per hour plus on a gauge at the top of his mast. He said, 'I'm not in trouble, just advising people.'"

The waves already were building, and Julie Schlecker was feeling a bit nauseous. "I said, let's go in," said Kirk. The pair pulled on life jackets, and headed in.

"On the way in," said Julie, "the waves turned to 3-footers."

Said Kirk, "We quartered into the waves, like they say you should, and all of a sudden a huge wave came over the top of the windshield. A second one came just seconds later, and pushed us under."

The boat had "submarined," its nose buried in the wave.

"It was like a rogue wave on (the television show) 'The Deadliest Catch,'" said Julie.

Quickly, the big boat was full of water and settling deeper. "We were standing crotch deep in water," said Kirk.

"I got on the radio, called mayday, and stayed on as long as the radio worked. Then we got on the cell phones, until they quit working."

This one has a happy ending as the couple were successfully rescued by the Coast Guard. Kirk's description of "all of a sudden a huge wave came over the top of the windshield. A second one came just seconds later, and pushed us under" accurately accounted the nature of freaque wave they encountered. It is interesting that Julie recognized their freaque wave encountering from watching the TV show "The deadliest catch." And she was right!

So I'll say "yes" to the question regarding the existence of Great Lakes freaque waves a little more affirmatively now than before. There are freaque waves in the Great Lakes as well as the Oceans. In case anyone would ask about the size of these waves, please remember that it's not the size that makes a freaque wave, it's the unexpectedness. Put yourself in those occurrences, any waves comes all of a sudden, out of nowhere that submerges you will be a monstrous one regardless what the real size might be. Just beware!

Another dreadful swept off case

This is the depressing headline one would not like to see on a bright Monday morning: “Rock climber swept off cliffs to his death.” It is from The Times. It's another dreadful swept off case.

He is the world’s leading free solo rock climber from California. According to The Times, free solo rock climbing is a sport where ropes and other safety equipment are not used. He had traveled the world seeking to climbe some of the most demanding cliff faces ever known. In his website he described himself as “Michael Reardon, Life Without Limits.” Last Friday he probably encountered the limit as he was in Ireland climbing on Atlantic sea cliffs on Valentia Island.

Her's the picture that's reporting and previewing the stage of his adventure:

Here’s what happened according to his friend, the photographer, Damon Corso, who was there at the time as reported in Climbing magazine:

"We had arrived on Valentia Island in a slight fog and drizzle. Mike took me around the bottom of Wireless Point to an inlet merely 15 feet above the roaring Atlantic, a situation we were now used to. We arrived at a spot he had climbed at alone two weeks prior. Mike up and downed two different climbs while I shot photos trying to combine him and the raw force of the waves crashing all around us. He finished the two climbs and was waiting, on an-algae covered platform, for the big swells to pass by so that he could walk back over to me on the opposite side of the inlet. A rouge wave came into the inlet and curved rightwards as it crashed into Mike. He tried to stabilize himself on the platform but the water was too powerful and sucked him in. The current pulled Mike out 150-plus meters in mere seconds. I ran up the hill to the Valentia Coast Guard station a mile away. Mike was still conscious in the water when I left him. The Coast Guard arrived on the scene no more than 15 minutes after the incident. Mike was nowhere to be seen at this point. Twelve volunteer rescue boats, the Coast Guard Lifeboat and Chopper were on the scene that evening."

Here’s the picture in Climbing magazine showing him celebrating after his successful climb probably right before the freaque wave swept him
Here's the word of another photographer with them, Valerie O'Sullivan, according to The Times:

"He was standing below a climb he had just completed and the photographer, Damon Corso, was about 30ft away taking pictures of him.

"Michael was on a real high after the climb. He was about 10ft above the sea and he let go and had his hands out, celebrating, to say he had completed the climb of his life. But then a rogue wave just came in.

The wave hit him on the knees and he lost his balance and slipped on the algae. He was shouting for help but there was nothing Damon could do.”

According to the Irish independent.ie:

Although described as a rogue wave, such waves are not infrequent against the high cliffs along the north face of Valentia island, particularly in winter. A number of people, including anglers, have lost their lives having been been swept out to sea from high ledges.

So it's no need to warn anyone about the danger of the place. Suffice to say that freaque waves are everywhere! Of all the expertise and daring courages of rock climbing Mr. Reardon demonstrated times and times again, freaque waves are probably the furtherest from his mind. That's when it happened!

Up to early Monday the rescue efforts have not been called off. The Times may have already drawn the conclusion. But his wife and 13 years old daughter are clinging to hope that he is still alive. Let’s all pray for a miracle!

Swells tracking across Indian Ocean

My internet friend and fellow blogspot blogger Rob Storm send me this news this morning that says "Satellite image radar captures giant 36 ft wave that hit Reunion Island." I blogged about the giant/freaque waves at the Reunion Island in mid May. But the EU scientists are really making the best use of the satellite technology. In particular Bertrand Chapron of IFREMER, the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea, and Fabrice Collard of France's BOOST Technologies in Brest located and tracked the swells using standard processed Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) ESA products. Their results of tracking swells propagating across the Indian Ocean is just fantastic! Please see their super cool annimation at the ESA site. (I might add Bertrand Chapron is a friend, I met him when he was a care-free, brilliant young Post Doc at NASA while I was participating on the ONR SWEDE program and visited NASA's Wallops Island facitity a few times. In fact many of my wavelet analysis studies were based on a MATLAB program written by Bertrand.)

There is still no indication of where or when freaque waves have occurred if ever. But this is certainly a major step forward toward further advances. Whereever giant swells go, freaque waves may or may not be just around the corner. Nevertheless, beware!

The Deadliest Catch, et al.

Unlike rumors that get around faster than light, real news usually does not. For instance this U. S. Coast Guard press release did not make it as a worldwide news or even the attention of Google Search with this real life human tragedy that happened south of Bearing Sea last October:

JUNEAU, Alaska - The Coast Guard has responded to the fishing vessel Ocean Challenger, 60 miles south of Sand Point in the Aleutian Island Chain after receiving a mayday call relayed by the car carrier Overseas Joyce at 9:39 a.m. today.

Three of the Ocean Challenger's four crewmembers were recovered after falling overboard during the capsizing.

The three recovered crewmembers were hoisted by a Coast Guard rescue helicopter and flown to a medical facility in Cold Bay.

Two of the recovered Ocean Challenger crewmembers have been pronounced dead by a Coast Guard flight surgeon.

Names of crewmembers will not be released until next of kin have been notified.

The search continues for the remaining crewmember.

It was not exactly a case of freaque waves, so I was not aware of the case until today. But waves were deeply involved in this case nevertheless. A couple of bloggers reported the case. Peter Stinson of Tidewater Musings reported it a couple of days after the occurrence:

Two men died and a third was missing after a commercial fishing boat capsized south of the Alaska Peninsula. A fourth crewman from Lynchburg was plucked from the North Pacific and was in critical condition.

The 49-foot, 50-ton Ocean Challenger, whose home port is Adak in the Aleutian Islands, disappeared about 60 miles south of Sand Point, a community on Popof Island off the tip of the Alaska Peninsula.

But Stinson is from Portmouth, Virginia. It was really the Safety Engineer Kenneth Lawrenson of Ken-and-Julie-in-Alaska, who actually was part of the Coast Guard rescue effort provided hands-on report in his blog here and here. And of course Anchorage Daily News reported the case completely with relevant picture and map.
I came across to this case belatedly this morning from reading a commentary by Carey Roberts entitled: "The Deadliest Catch: A Tale of Exceptional Men" which he starts his article by recount this Ocean Challenger case last October. "The Deadliest Catch" is of course the Discovery Channel's on-going TV series. Not having cable TV at home, I was glued to the Discovery Channel in the late evening watching this Deadliest Catch show when attending a meeting in San Diego recently. So I find myself reasonably familiar with his description as:

The mind-numbing routine is repeated dozens of times each day: bait the pot, plunge the 800-pound cage into the frigid water, and let it soak on the muddy bottom.

A day later the captain retraces his path. As the boat approaches, the deckhand snags the buoy line with a 4-pronged hook and the winch yanks the careening pot over the rail. The men extract the squirming snow crabs and shuttle them to a holding tank.

If Lady Luck is smiling that day, the pots are brimming with four or five hundred opies, what they call “red gold.” At times like this the deckhands don’t worry about the 18-hour work shifts, towering waves, or aching hands.

And certainly this:

A fisherman’s biggest fear is being hit with a rogue wave, a 50-foot high wall of water that comes barreling out of nowhere and hits the boat broadside. If you’re lucky, the boat rights itself within a heart-stopping minute. But if your crab pots are coated in three inches of ice and stacked high on the foredeck, your only hope is a rubberized survival suit.

Clearly no one could disagree with Roberts' comment:

The tragedy calls to mind the words of Sir Walter Scott: “Those aren’t fish you’re buying; it’s men’s lives.”

And no one should complain why the crabs in the supermarket are so expansive. I agree those crab fishermen are truly exceptional. They put their life on the line in their daily work -- and three of them in Ocean Challenger paid with theirs. I can not last more than a few minutes out there even when I was young and healthy. At any rate "The Deadliest Catch" is an exceptional TV series with real life ventures. It may be worthwhile to get the cable just to watch this one show. But I'll wait for the DVD!

Mad dog wave

Freaque wave is a term that combined the commonly used terms of "freak" wave and "rogue" wave. But they are not the only terms that describe a physical phenomenon occurs in the oceans. For instance, in the west coast of U.S., notably in California or Oregon, they are frequently known as the "sleeper" or "sneaker" waves. In mainland China, under the Communist regime, they were called "killer" wave (殺人浪). On the other hand, in Taiwan, Republic of China, the phenomenon is well known among fishermen as the "mad dog" wave (瘋狗浪). I think, however, the terms of sleeper, or sneaker, or killer, or mad dog, are all pertaining to nearshore freaque waves. Therefore a reasonable simplification of these variety of terms, is to simply call them the deep sea freaque waves and nearshore freaque waves. Indeed Didenkulova et al. (2006) classified the cases as "freak waves in the open sea" and "freak wave events on shore."

From what I can sense, anglers in Taiwan seem to have more awareness regarding "mad dog" wave (瘋狗浪). Still reports show that there are dozens of fishermen yearly in Taiwan being victimized by the mad dog waves. Here's a picture of a Taiwan angler:
And here's a warning picture that shows what can happen to some one if and when an unexpected nearshore freaque wave sweeps over:
Whatever it is called, the danger is the same. Beware!

They call it a fishing accident

This news from Ireland is very brief, entitled "Man dies in Clare fishing accident" and it consisted just 4 sentences:

A 24-year-old Lativan man has died in a fishing accident off the coast of Co Clare.

He was part of a group of four men that went fishing in the Blue Pool area of Doonbeg early this morning.

It is thought that a wave swept the man off the rocks.

The coastguard in Valentia has said weather conditions in the area at the time were poor and say the area is notorious for freak waves.

But there is no longer any surprise to this blog on this kind of news anymore. It has happened before and it will happen again at another time and another place. This time it's Co Clare Ireland. The key point is the third sentence: "It is thought that a wave swept the man off the rocks." I guess there is no way as yet to predict where or when a wave will come sweeping the rocks. There is no one, as far as we know, is even attempt to do this kind of research or measurement -- both are utmost needed. So, for now, the only safe way to prevent being swept off the rocks is not to get on those rocks!

Update

On July 2, 2007, another report of the same case appeared in Independent.ie wriiten by Pat Flynn entitled "Angler swept off rocks drowns in sea blackspot." This new report identified the victim angler as of "Moldovan" national rather than "Lativan" as it was identified in the earlier article. This new article, however, also listed two other recent victims from within the same general Co Clare area to justify the area be called a "sea blackspot."

Last November, while he was fishing at the Blue Pool, a 27-year-old Latvian man was swept into the sea, in front of his wife and child. The Latvian man had been living in Athlone.

On October 29th, a Polish man drowned when he was swept out to sea while fishing at Tullig Point, also in Co Clare. Rescuers recovered his body after several days.

I said "It has happened before and it will happen again at another time and another place." But it is downright depressing to see such frequent occurrences in this same "blackspot." It is also of interest to note that all victims are foreigners. May be this is really a matter of the locals knew better!

Memory of a nearshore freaque wave encounter in 1963

I was privileged to talk on the phone this morning to a retired gentleman, Michael Varvel. He told me a fascinating encounter with nearshore freaque waves in Pt. Conception, CA in 1963 when he was 14 years old. Not able to quickly jot down down what he was telling me, I asked him to write it up and email me the whole story which he kindly and promptly accommodated. I sincerely appreciate his willingness to share his memory with us. Here is his story:

As you know the scientific community and the world at large are now more accepting of the old sailor's tales of waves reaching 30-40 m in height. It's almost asking too much to believe that water could be piled up that high given its nature, but yet, I personally experienced a freak wave of this magnitude in 1963.

At the age of 14, we were living in the Lompoc, California, a small seaside community 5 miles from the Pacific Ocean. Fishing ,surfing, and other general contact with the ocean, where, and almost daily occurrences due to our proximity to the ocean. Of particular interest to my father and me, was collection of abalone at Point Conception, California. Since we are not scuba divers, these were collected off the rocks at low tide and the lower the tide, the bigger the abalone it seemed. This was quite an adventure for a 14-year-old teenager, have to scale cliffs climb down rickety ladders that shouldn't have held us at all. Then spend the day collecting abalone in 50 pound potato sacks and have to bring them back up the same dangerous cliffs and rickety ladders.

On this particular spring day in 1963, we are doing what I've already mentioned when my father who is a sailor noticed on the horizon what appeared to him to be a rather large wave. My father instantly warn me to hightail it to higher ground as he felt this way it was uncommon in size and that we were in grave danger. Me being a kid, I ducked into a hole thinking that I'd be protected. My father, thank God for his wisdom, reached and grab me by the hair and pulled me out of the hole. With no emergency in his voice. He pushed me and prodded me up the cliffside till we were as high as we could possibly get, in an effort to get out of harm's way.

Please remember that this was occurring at low tide, meaning that the water was probably 15 to 20 feet lower than normal at this point in time. We had a fishing partner with us, who was on the other side of the cliff when my father yelled to him to get out of harm's way. Instead of going to higher ground, he opted to go down to the beach and scrambled to the highest point of the beach, where beach meets Cliff. Just as we reached what my father felt was a safe area, we turned to look and watch the wave as it broke.

The point upon which we are standing at its lowest is approximately 80 to 90 feet above sea level, at slack tide. So by dead reckoning, we were actually somewhere between 90 and 100 feet above the sea level. I actually witnessed with my own eyes, this wave break over the surface of the cliff, and watched with amazement and fear as the Tower of water crashed down upon our fishing buddy on the beach. For what seemed an eternity, we lost sight of him. Then, as the wave ebbed, we saw him some 20 to 30 yards further down the beach lying in the sand completely drenched. His tackle box and fishing gear gone, his string of fish gone, but his life spared.

I've kept this memory with me for all of these years without sharing, because I didn't feel that this was something that was of interest. But then the current wave of interest that's generated on the Discovery Channel and science Channel have brought the recollection of this incident to the fore - front of my mind. I doubt I shall ever see another freak wave occurrence such as the one I have described, and quite honestly hope never to again. After everything is settled back to normal, and we resumed our abalone harvesting and fishing, my father pointed out the hole to me that I had climbed into and noted that it was now full of water 8 feet deep. Thank goodness I hadn't stayed in there I would most likely have been washed out to sea.

Here's the GoogleEarth image he sent along to show where the encounter took place:I don't think anyone would ever have any doubt about what had happened to Mike, his father, and their friend on that spring day in 1963. Thank God everyone survived so that Mike can now recall it vividly and tell us the story 44 years later. Probably because it is a happy ending case, it did not become a news item and life goes on. As the old tree-fall riddle goes: "If a tree falls in a forest with no one to hear it, then does it make a sound?" The answer is most certainly a yes! But it still needs someone around to tell the story. We can reasonably surmise that it is likely this kind of nearshore freaque wave event happens more frequently than we expect. When it happens while there are people around, results could be hazardous imperilment that needs rescue efforts or even tragic and gets into news. Or it can be just a frightening, nightmarish encounter so only those who were there during the encounter know and remember. What we'll never know, however, is how often it happens when there is no one around. At any rate when a tree falls in the forest, there will always be sound whether or not there's any one around to hear it. The moral of this story is still to let everyone beware, whereever or whenever around the edge of the ocean, watch out for the freaque waves!

Update:

For those of us who are not familiar with Pt. Conception, I found this satellite image of a section of the California coast. Pt. Conception is located around 34-34-38N and 120-39-06W where the primary direction of the coastline abruptly shifts from north-south to east-west. The image shows clearly the upwelling of cool, presumably nutrient-rich waters around the point – where abalone will be plentiful there.

And the following are two scenic views of the light house of Pt. Conception from this site that tells us all about Pt. Conception:

Pasha Bulker

Nearly two weeks ago, a wild storm lashed the southeast coast of Australia. Seven people have confirmed dead, a section of coastal highway collapsed, a 225m coal carrier, the Pasha Bulker, got wedged on a sandbar off Newcastle's Nobbys Beach being battered by huge waves as this article reported.

The bulk carrier is still stranded there while detailed rescue efforts are being planned. Fears of possible disasters abound, fortunately there's no fuel leak from the ship so far.

The case has not quite become major worldwide headline news, but it certainly becomes major news locally as this YouTube segment and this one show. Throughout it, freaque wave has not been blamed. But, of course, it will not be far behind. This morning this headline of "Fear of rogue waves" appeared.

Freak storm lashed Penang

Penang is the name of a small island located on the north-west coast of peninsular Malaysia in the Straits of Malacca. According to the Wikipedia, this island was referred to as 檳榔嶼 (Bīnláng Yù) in the navigational drawings used by Admiral Cheng Ho of Ming-dynasty China in his expeditions to the South Seas in the 15th century. I think I have heard about the 檳榔嶼 a long time ago when I was still in elementary school. I have never been there, but it seems always carrying much romantic fantasy for me whenever I heard it.

Penang is in the news today because they were lashed by an unusually strong storm yesterday of damaging wind and waves were "toppling trees, blowing off roofs, capsizing boats and forcing four flights to be diverted . . ." as this news article reported:

"Giant waves of up to 2m high hit the sea wall at the Esplanade in George Town before pounding onto cars parked along the road.

"Some tiles and a metal railing along the sea wall were dislodged by the might of the waves.

"A 10m stretch of the concrete path near the Astaka Medan Renong food court there was broken by the pounding waves.

"At Pantai Bersih in Butterworth, fishermen said 3m-high waves caused more destruction than the 2004 tsunami, with 14 boats damaged compared to one during the tsunami.

"Restaurant owner Tan Beng Gee, 45, said at least four of the five restaurants along the beach were damaged by the waves."

These damaging waves are certainly not of the freaque type. But they were devastating nevertheless. Here are tow pictures:

The above shows the fishing boats are at the mercy of the on coming giant wave. And the following shows what happened to a once smooth concrete walkway after the waves lashing.

We don't have to go all the way to southeast Asia to realize the kinds of damages wind waves can cause -- it's not even a freaque wave. Our vulnerability to hazard and perils just can not be over emphasized!

Rogue wave traps 4 hikers

When I first saw this title, I was a little puzzled. How does freaque wave got to do with hikers? Well, this article in the Seattle Times by Maureen O'Hagan tells what had happened to a group of hikers:

The group had set out Sunday for a weeklong hike on the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island. The trail, about 47 miles long, is as beautiful as it is rugged. There is no road access. And with parts of the trail hugging the ocean, hikers must time their forays to avoid the dangers of high tide. No matter the time of day, the waves crash explosively. The area is known as the Graveyard of the Pacific because of the ships that have sunk there.

So with parts of the trail hugging the ocean, they carefully tried to avoid high tide, can freaque waves to be far behind? It almost sounds like an action movie script, but it's beyond most of the Hollywood script writers imagination:

Monday morning, they set out at 4:30 a.m., carefully timing the tides. By 7, they had reached what they considered the easy part of the hike, where the tide was low and the ocean seemingly less dangerous. There, they could hike a safe distance from the water on a sandstone shore.

They soon came upon a surge channel, a gully about 50 yards long flanked by slick sandstone walls. Larger waves rush in and out of the channel, their force magnified as they push through the narrow entrance. Through the gully, massive trees are tossed like twigs.

One second they were on dry land and the next they were struggling to keep their heads above water.

"Five people and we never saw it," Peterson said of the wave that swept them in.

Never saw it coming! Yea, that's how a freaque wave made itself known. It happens all the time. No one knows how, why, what, where, and when. This group was just unfortunately encountered it unexpectedly. But fortunately one of the five was not getting dragged into the channel and set out to bring rescue. After nine hours they were all rescued by the U.S. and Canadian coast guards. A wonderful happy ending indeed!

Wave of the day!

This may not be exactly an once-in-a-life-time event. But it has to be for some one at the right place and at the right time to be able to catch a sequence of unexpected spectacular pictures like these as reported by the Gold Coast Bulletin this morning. Here's the story:

Surfer Matt Brockie headed to South Stradbroke Island with a small army of other boardriders to make the most of ideal waves pumping along the Gold Coast since Friday.

But he didn't expect to see this.

A 4m boat had pulled in close to shore to pick up a surfer when a rogue wave reared in front of them.

"They'd been going for a couple of hours and all of a sudden the set of the day has come in and almost cleaned them up," said Mr Brockie, who took these amazing photos.

"I don't think the boatie saw it coming -- he certainly wasn't trying to hit the wave, but he's just looked up and saw this wave looming in his vision.

"It was big from where I was standing so I can only imagine what it looked like from the driver's seat."

As the wave began to crest, the surfer in the back of the boat, who had just been picked up, grabbed his surfboard and bailed out.

"He went man overboard because, as far as I can tell, he must have thought the boat was going to capsize," said Mr Brockie.

"And it came bloody close. The wave was about 2m in surfer-speak and what happened with the boat could have been a lot worse.

"All hell could have broken loose."

Yes, things could be a lot worse. But it wasn't, thank God! The Editor of the Gold Coast Bulletin called this the "wave of the day." I think that could be another understatement. It is hard to describe something like this. Nevertheless that has to be a real life freaque wave, although the current academic definition of freaque waves -- i.e. greater than twice the significant wave height -- may or may not be applicable here. Our conventional freaque wave researches are way behind the real world. Of course the surfers live in a world still totally different from the researchers' world yet. At any rate, everyone is entitled to appreciate this kind of rare spectacular occurrence some time!

Beautiful but Treacherous

The title of this article "Schoodic Point: Beautiful But Treacherous" could be an under statement. In today's edition of The Ellsworth American, the article, along with a beautiful local scenery there, told a tragic story that should not have happen . Here's the beginning of the case as reported by Latitia Baldwin:

WINTER HARBOR — Tuesday’s combers and hurtling sea spray sharply contrasted with the favorable conditions last Friday at Acadia National Park’s Schoodic Point. Under sunny skies, with the wind blowing less than 5 mph, Faith Wise and her two daughters made their way out over the granite slabs close to the water’s edge. Wise, who hailed from Trufant, Mich., and was eager to share the wild Maine scenery, held her cell phone out so a friend could hear the waves. Holding a black toy poodle under one arm and her phone in the other, the 56-year-old Michigan woman suddenly lost her footing, fell down, spun and slid into the frigid ocean.

This is not a case of freaque waves, but it again strongly underlines the danger at the ocean's edge, no matter how beautiful and enticing it might be. Late on in the article the writer asserts:

At Schoodic Point, where the surf and storm surges draw thousands of spectators year-round, drownings are rare. The last occurred in the late 1990s when a rogue wave swept two people clear off the rocks and into the ocean. At the time, the surf was extremely high and the rain-suit-clad pair were close to the edge and were letting the sea spray shower down on them.

I can not help to feel a little personal with this case because my wife Teresa and I were there on vacation a few years ago, we toured Acadia National Park and we were at one of the beach points watching breaking waves and taking pictures. We were lucky that was a calm spring day, we enjoyed the trip tremendously and did not even realize those potential treacherous dangers lurking out there. May God replenish ever more guardian angels along the world beaches all around!

Hughie, the weather god!

I learned about Madame Pele, the goddess of fire, many years ago when we visited Mauna Loa on the big island of Hawaii. This morning I just learned another one, Hughie, the weather god!

It is clearly an Australian mythology as it is not even included in the Wikipedia yet. According to Australian National Dictionary Centre of the Australian National University, "Hughie is the rain god, and this appeal (first recorded in 1912) comes from farmers when rain arrives after a long drought. Recently surfers have used it, imploring the weather god for good waves. Theories about the origin of the word Hughie range from alterations of the names Jupiter, Zeus, or Yahweh, to the classical Greek huei ‘it is raining’."

I wonder what do the surfers consider as "good" waves. I would certainly prefer to see Hughie keeping the ocean all calm and smooth for us all the time when I go cruising! If I knew about Hughie before going to Lorne to attend the WISE meeting in April, I might have tried to work it into my presentation to mention Hughie over the inability of science. Anyway I came across about Hughie from reading this interesting article entitled "The Vengeance of the Weather God" by the cruise editor Nancy Knudsen of the Sail-World.com. Knudsen is currently on a Southern Cross between the Galapagos and the Marquesas where she filed all kinds of interesting articles about her trip including this one about Hughie.

What intrigued me about this article is her rather humorous way of describing encounters with freaque waves -- attribute to Hughie:

Hughie, as you probably know, is the weather god, and this is a warning to those who go sailing: Beware of Hughie. Several days ago, I cast aspersions on the perfection of the weather where we are sailing, between the Galapagos and the Marquesas, and Hughie has been wreaking his vengeance ever since. My mistake was intimating that the perfect weather we had was – dare I say it? ... b – o – r – i – n – g.

The first thing that happened was that I thought I saw a ship on the horizon, dipped my head to get a better look at the same time as Hughie sent a roguish wave slapping the boat, crashed my chin into a winch putting my tooth through my bottom lip. This gave me a somewhat lopsided look and a bit of a lisp.

The next thing was that the wind piped up to something more than pleasant, and another freak wave slapped against the boat, lurching me across the saloon to break a middle toe on a piece of the furniture. Now I have three big toes, only seven small toes, and a bit of a limp – not to mention the gritted smile.

So those waves was sent by Hughie to slap agqainst her boat as a vengeance. May be freaque wave research should also be looking to Hughie for real understanding of the nature of freaque waves. Since whatever god or goddess of science have done were not very helpful so far! At least in this article Nancy tried to communicate with Hughie, :-), in her continued adventure:

So after a day or two of this the seas rose to amazing heights behind the boat, threatening our equanimity and our still-dry decks. When the boom started a love affair with the higher waves, and worse, my cup of coffee took off airborne across the cockpit depriving me of its contents and colliding with the coaming, it was time to let off the boom vang and, for good measure, put a double reef in the main.

In the meantime I had started apologising continually and profusely to Weather god Hughie, promising I would never never complain about perfect weather again.

I am glad to say that this strategy worked, and we are now back in 15-20 knot winds, the sun is shining, we are drifting along at a pleasant six knots.

I have stopped lisping, my toe is happily secured in a very protective sailing sandal, our decks are dry, the coffee is remaining in its coffee holder, and the boom is riding high and dry. So are we. Am I complaining? No way!

Yes indeed, Nancy, keep Hughie happy, God speed, and smooth sailing!

Again, another.

This latest AFP news reporting freak weather hit the French Mediterranean island of Corsica. The occurrence of freaque waves does not always resulting from bad weather or storms. But one can certainly always expect giant or large waves to happen whenever bad weather or storms occur. In this news, the same dreadful thing happened again:

Rescuers found the body of a 19-year-old Swiss tourist who was carried away by a powerful wave while walking on a storm-lashed beach in the north of the island on Monday.

The weather condition as reported by this article indicates "Violent winds, freezing fog and rain were expected to continue lashing the normally-sunny island until at least Wednesday." It's always dangerous to walk on a beach even during seemingly nice weather. Why would anyone risk it to walk on the "storm-lashed" beach?

As this news has just happened. Don't be surprised when reporters from this side of Atlantic Ocean get a hold of this case, all will be naturally blamed on, what else? The human-induced global warming, of course!

Another walking on the beach, another tragedy.

This news reported from Ireland about a tragic event happened in the east coast of Spain:

A QUIET holiday in Spain ended in tragedy for a local couple when they were swallowed up by a freak wave, sucked out to sea and one of them drowned.

Nigel Kehoe from Grangecon, Baltinglass, was holidaying in Alicante, Spain, with his long-term girlfriend, Lisa Keogh, when the tragic accident happened.

It was before lunchtime on Friday when they were walking from the water after a swim in the sea at Cala Estaca beach when a freak wave sucked them under the water and pulled them both out to sea. Lisa was able to free herself from the water, however, 21-year-old carpenter Nigel was unable to extricate himself and tragically drowned. . .

Here's a scenery from the nearby beach:

And here's a comment from a hometown priest:

“Everybody is shocked and stunned here. He is from a lovely family and they are very well known. Nigel played soccer with Grangecon AFC and gaelic football with Baltinglass GAA. There is a nice, beautiful community where the family live and our prayers are with them right now.”

No further words needed here.

Abel Prize of 2007

Abel Prize is the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for mathematics, established by the Norway government since 2002 to mark the 200th birthday of the great Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel. In March of this year the Norwegian Academy of Science awarded the 2007 Abel Prize to the NYU Professor S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan “for his fundamental contributions to probability theory and in particular for creating a unified theory of large deviation”.

A good down to earth explanation of the theory of large deviation is given by the Plus Magazine as the following:

In many real-life situations rare events — like 1000 lorries rolling over a bridge in one day causing it to fail, or a freak wave causing a dam to burst — are simply too serious to be taken lightly. Striking the balance between feasibility and safety involves subtle and complex mathematics that is not covered by the classical theorems of probability theory. This is what the theory of large deviation, for which Varadhan is being honoured, is all about.

So the real excitement for me is that the theory of large deviation and the significance of Prof. Varadham's contribution may just be the throughway that can leading to further understandings on freaque waves!