We awoke this morning to extremely low water in the harbour. It's been up and down, but mostly down for the last week or so. It is hard to believe that Lake Winnipeg is affected by tides. Not as the ocean is affected by the
gravitational pull of the moon, but here it is affected by the North and South
winds. This huge lake is divided into two
parts, being the north and south basins separated by the narrows. Strong north winds can really hold back the
movement of water through the narrows and make a lot of water build up in the
south basin and raise the water level tremendously. Of course a strong south wind can have the opposite affect pushing the water out of the south basin, faster than it can be replaced by the flow in from the Red river. This is commonly known as wind
tides and can affect water levels as far up river as Selkirk. Therefore this morning, after very strong south winds overnight, the water levels are exceptionally low.
Some boats have been left high and dry.
Our dock mates will not be going anywhere with out a change in circumstances.
And our neighbour the "Alexandria Anne" is sitting with rudders and possibly props in the mud.
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Without a little more water in the harbour I don't think these Sea-doos will get much use and John and Annette's "Gator" has quite of list to it. They are obviously sitting in the mud.
We are still floating free, but just barely. Our keel touched the rock bottom, one time when we went up the Manigotagan River to see the falls. We had 2ft showing on our depth sounder at that point. This morning we are sitting with 2.5 ft under us. So I guess we still have 6 inches of water between our keel and the mud.
The ramp to our dock is so steep it's actually feeling dangerous. And once down the ramp our first dock is sitting in the mud and very crocked.
It's raining now. Not that a little rain is going to do any good, but with the change in weather, maybe we will get a shift in the winds. We are going to need some good strong north winds to fill this harbour back up.
IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING.
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