Rot – A Closer Look at the Scourge of Wooden Boats
Black Necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus)
Anne and I had a big surprise this year. Moments before taking Tully Mars to the launch ramp we discovered very serious problems with the boat's bottom. An inspection showed advanced rot through the plywood that could, with a lot of work and expense be fixed. We figured it was throwing good money after bad as Tully was designed and built to last 10 or 12 years as at the time money for boat building was scarce. Happy to say Tully Mars served us very well over the years and has now retired to the backyard as a "playship" for children.
This of course left us hi and dry just when the fever was strongest, moments from launch.
I had for years dreamed of a multihull and in particular, making a Windsprint into a trimaran. The thinking behind this was that the Windsprint, already a light, narrow hull with plenty of sail area would need little modification and could still be raced as a monohull at Mahone Bay. To this end, about eight years ago I had worked out the details and made a model. I sent pictures and figures to the designer, Phil Bolger, who kindly looked them over, made a few suggestions and concluded it should work fine.
My idea for this boat was not to add sail and make it faster, it already is quick. I invisioned a fast, beachable camp cruiser 16 foot LOA and 12 foot beam. A tent approximately 7 feet by 10 feet could be fitted with bunks out over the "wings", a real floating condo.
Work started mid June and Annie and I launched "Loon" (the windsprint we built last year) as a trimaran on June 28.
There is much to be worked out and finished as the sea trails continue but this is what we have found so far after just a few hours sailing time. The "Tri-sprint" is a real pleasure to sail. Fast, tacks well and for the most part handles like a windsprint, but with the stability of a raft with a 12 foot beam!
The akas (cross beams) are 12 foot 2x4s tapered slightly towards the ends and are lashed to the main hull. The amas are 6mm ply stitched together, about 12.5 feet loa and are one foot at their widest and deepest.
We will now spend a few weeks tweaking things, and if all stays together, after the Festival we will make the trampolines and start working out the tent. We won't use it this year for camp cruising, just too busy to finish those parts this year but they will make an excellent winter project.
May
24: Wet Ass
By Jose Gladwin
We planned to go paddling for the first time this season on Friday night. And
here it is today, Saturday, blue sky, slight breeze, great vibes!
Gerry put the kayaks on
the van while I cleaned up last night's mess. Very efficient and ready to depart
by 11:30.
On the way to the local lake, Lumsden's, I remembered that I didn't have a change
of pants in my emergency bag. I usually have my wool ski pants in it but hadn't
transferred them from ski season to paddle season. Oh well...chances are both
of us won't tip; I could use Gerry's if necessary.
On to the lake. I got Gerry to push me off the beach so that I'd know for sure if last summer's slight water accumulation in the cockpit was from getting in with wet feet or if indeed there was a small leak. So away I went... a big push and here I was afloat again for the first time in 2003. The water felt great, I remembered how to paddle and steer etc. (Kind of like the bicycle thing, I guess)
Paddling along the shore was wonderful. Spring is really at its height. Copious, vibrant shades of green in the background. There was quite a strong current coming from under the bridge, that tried to swing me around, but I kept ‘er in control.
"Let's go into Turtle Cove before we strike out up or down the lake. You never know there may be some turtles out sunning." So we headed over, but barely into the cove I noticed that my boot felt wet; probably just cold from the water. Then it felt wetter and I put my hand in the cockpit and felt about an inch of water in there. We figured this was not a good sign and should head back to the beach. The water in the cockpit was deeper by the time we turned around so we hurried.
It was a good thing that
we were only about a thousand feet away from the beach, since the water kept
getting deeper. I noticed a perceptible difference in its steerability as we
got closer to shore. By the time we got there it was about 4 or 5 inches deep.
needless to say by this time I had a wet ass. The thermarest seat had done its
job well in keeping me out
of the water for a while. Finally we made it.
We examined the cockpit and didn't see anything obvious right away. Gerry figured we'd just take it home, fill it full of water and find out where the leak is. I figured we may as well prop it up right there and have a look. On closer examination, however I noticed a crack in the bottom starboard panel. One edge had slightly come up and ahead of the other. It was about 18" long. s Little wonder so much water had entered so quickly.
I suppose the first thing I thought was relief that the leak had showed itself so quickly rather than waiting for a shift of position to open the crack up while further up the lake.
Well it wasn't a great paddle but I did get some of the lawn mowed. We also learned that a spring check means to check every part of both boat and paddle ( and emergency bag). Check the scratches, they might be cracks! We still have no idea why it cracked there — it's a first. We can fix it though; after all it is wood.
Most of my woodworking is done in the winter and early spring. I get restless if I don't have a project during the non-boating season. A look at all the snow covered mounds in the driveway and backyard confirmed that I had enough boats. Straight lines and right angles can get tedious, so I decided to try out something with curves and eyeball symmetry, Windsor chairs.
I did some research and found two references for home-built projects, "Make a Windsor Chair" by Michael Dunbar, and "The Chairmaker's Workshop" by Drew Langster. I followed Dunbar's instructions, he puts in more detail, but Langster's is also a good reference with a second opinion on some aspects. There are several web sites as well. I couldn't have gotten anywhere without a useable reference. I was ignorant of many of the techniques, but I liked the aspect that most of the work is with hand tools. The techniques called for specialized tools – travisher, scorp, tapered reamer, and gutter adze – none of which I had. But it looked like everything could be done without them, only slower. Much of the chair-building "mystique" was around steam bending, no fear there. The bending form is simple. The chairs themselves are complex, at least as complex as a kayak, but all of the individual steps are straightforward. No metal fastenings, just geometry, tension, pressure, friction and glue.
I found that making Windsor chairs is as much fun as I have ever had woodworking. I started off to build a pair, and built 6. Each chair is slightly different, not always by accident. They all look good and sit well. They are more comfortable than I thought they'd be. The family likes them, and I can't say that about most of my projects. The chairs are around the dinner table, where food tastes better, is eaten more slowly, and we are not in such a hurry to get on with other things.
Aside from a lathe for turning the undercarriage almost everything else was done with hand tools, drawknife, gouge, and spokeshaves. Total time per chair is 30 to 40 hours. Materials are inexpensive, about $12 per for pine, firewood and paint. I used pine for the seat, and ash for everything else, except for some birch and maple legs. Oak would be a substitute for ash. All of the ash for all 6 chairs was riven from a 5ft log, about 10 in diameter, and I could get at least one more chair out of it.
I can emphasize that
the cutting edges must be sharp, and straight-grained stock makes the work quicker.
For the hardwood, get a straight log with no visible knots or branches. You
can find a suitable log where someone is selling firewood. The straight stock
allows you to split closer to the finished dimensions. The green wood is easy
to work, and it hardens as it dries. Start carving or turning as soon as you
can after splitting out the rough pieces. I could carve, whittle and turn fast
enough to keep the small woodstove in the boatshed barely fed.
Turning the legs and stretchers from green wood was a blast. I had never turned
before, and made some pretty crude pieces. The waste comes off like boiled spaghetti,
and the sap spray will made your hair stand up. When I came into the house to
show off my first set of similar legs, my hair was standing up like Don King's.
I carved the concave seat contours with a gouge and convex spokeshave. The spindles
and back were split to rough size, then carved and somewhat smoothed. The chairs
are painted with milk paint and covered in boiled linseed oil.
"Sorry, buddy,
but there's rot in your boat."
There it is. The sentence no wooden boat owner ever wants to hear, coming out
of the sad countenance of The Boat Guy as he wipes the grime off his hands with
an equally grimy cloth. It's like being told your best friend has cancer. How
could this happen? She was fine last season. Will she be all right? Can it be
cured? And just like the doctor, The Boat Guy exudes sympathy and tells you
that she can be cured, but implies that it will take money. Lots of money.
Is this true? Is a wee patch of rot in some out-of-the-way dark spot of your boat really the death-knell of your wallet, or boat, or both? What exactly is rot, and how can it be combated or better yet, prevented? Can the old girl and the kids' college fund be kept intact enough for a few more years of use?
Wood has been used for a mind-boggling variety of uses for millennia. It has been used for weapons, tools, art, religious objects, toys, clothing, and of course, boats. It has enjoyed such wide application because it is so versatile – it shapes easily, is strong, flexible, pleasant to touch and smell and look at, renewable, and durable. Boy, is it durable! Wooden objects have been excavated from Egyptian tombs that are still useable after four thousand years. Timber roofs centuries old are still keeping the elements out of grand buildings in Europe. Boats a hundred years old or more are still being actively sailed in many parts of the world. In fact, there may be no other natural material that has the unique mechanical and aesthetic qualities that wood possesses. Wood does, however, unfortunately have an Achilles heel in the form of fungal decay, or rot.
Fungal decay can destroy wood at an alarming rate. A vessel can go from perfectly sound to utterly rotted out in as little as a year or two if conditions are right. Even when decay is not extensive, if in the proper place it can create such fundamental problems with the vessel structure that there is no option but to condemn the boat.
What causes this catastrophic loss of integrity in wooden structures? Most people believe it is because the wood is wet, but it is not so simple as that. Rather, it is literally disintegrated by the action of one or several species of fungi growing on, and in, the wood tissue. In order to prevent decay it is necessary to know the nature of the fungi that attacks wood and the conditions necessary for their growth.
Nature of Fungi
Fungi are generally regarded as a highly specialized class of plants that are exceedingly numerous in both numbers and species, and have the means for incredibly rapid multiplication. They do not contain chlorophyll and therefore are unable to create sugar and starch from carbon dioxide and sunlight, as green plants are able to. They feed on and decompose a wide variety of other organic matter, including wood. They reproduce by spores, which are roughly equivalent to seeds in more complex plants except that spores are very much smaller and usually produced in astronomically higher numbers.
When the spores of fungi fall on a suitable medium in the right conditions of temperature and moisture, the germinate much like seeds. The spore wall bursts and a microscopically small tube called a hypha grows out of the spore. The hypha branches out and the tiny tubes begin to permeate the wood medium on which the hyphae are growing. As the hyphae spread out through the wood tissues, they disintegrate the cell walls of the wood and reduce the strength of the wood fibres.
When fungus has been growing for some time and has achieved adequate mass (called a mycelial body), it usually then forms "fruiting bodies" on the surface of the wood in the form of toadstools, fleshy or woody shelves, or encrusting sheets. These are the parts of the fungus that produce the next generation of spores to spread the fungus. The appearance of fruiting bodies usually indicates a fairly advanced state of wood decay.
The reproductive power of fungi is fantastic. A single square-foot-area of dry-rot fungus fruiting body can produce five million spores per minute over a period of several days. The spores are like microscopic dust motes and shed in clouds by the mature fruiting body of the parent fungus. Due to their tiny size and extreme lightness they are able to stay suspended in the air and drift for long distances. Therefore, it is very likely that if a fruiting body is found anywhere on a boat, the entire boat is at risk of rot beginning at any time.
Some types of wood-rotting fungi can send out mycelial strands many feet long that can penetrate or go around non-wood structures to find new sources of wood to feed on. These strands can transport water from the damp place that the fungus began in to the new source of food, thereby providing the conditions to start new fungus growth.
Conditions for Fungal Growth
Whether or not wood will decay is dependant on the environmental conditions it is exposed to and whether or not these conditions are favourable for fungal growth. There are five essential conditions required for fungi to germinate and grow; if any one of these conditions is missing, the fungi will die. These five conditions are:
A source of infection.
This can be fungi spores in the atmosphere or from another piece of infected
wood. If infected wood is in contact with sound wood, the fungus will spread
to the sound wood by normal growth of the fungal hyphae from the decayed wood,
even without the production of spores.
A suitable medium to grow in. Wood provides a suitable substrate for fungal
growth, and the cellulose, lignin, and other components of the cell walls and
tissues provide suitable food. It is possible to eliminate the food supply by
treating the wood with substances toxic to the fungus, but the trick is to find
a treatment that is not toxic to humans as well.
Moisture. All fungi require a moderate amount of water for growth. A moisture
content in wood of between 35 and 50 percent (depending on the species of fungi
and wood) is required for fungal growth. Fungal spores will germinate in as
little moisture content as 25 to 30 percent, and once established fungi can
produce a certain amount of moisture by chemical decomposition of the wood,
thereby increasing the moisture content of the wood it is feeding on, if the
rate of evaporation from the wood surface is low.
Oxygen. All wood-rotting fungi require some air for growth; if there is no interchange
of air, the fungus will die of suffocation by carbon dioxide. This is why wood
that has been submerged in water, such as logs reclaimed from river bottoms,
is undecayed – the air supply to the fungus has been cut off and fungal
growth has stopped.
Suitable ambient temperature. Fungi are affected by ambient temperature in much
the same way as ordinary green plants are. The Canadian Forest Products Laboratories
and others have found that optimum fungi growing temperature is between 65 and
95 degrees Fahrenheit, and that little or no growth occurs at or near freezing
or above 100 degrees F. Freezing does not kill fungi, however; it merely goes
dormant and will recommence growth when it gets warmer and other conditions
are right. Prolonged exposure to temperatures higher that 100 degrees F., or
short exposure to temperature much above this results in the complete death
of the fungus.
There are other factors that affect the growth of fungi, as well. Light usually has a detrimental effect on fungus growth. Exposure to intense light such as bright sunlight can kill some fungi species. On the other hand, nitrogen-rich substances promote rapid growth of wood-rotting fungi. On board, the usual suspect for nitrogen-rich material is urine, so it is best to urge male guests to aim well or sit.
Effects of Decay
The decay of wood by fungi is of two main types, often referred to as brown rot and white rot. In brown rot the cellulose and its related materials are attacked while the lignin is more or less unaffected. This causes the wood to darken in colour as well as shrink and cross-crack into cubical or oblong pieces that can be easily crumbled between the fingers into a fine brown powder. In white rot, all the components of the wood – including the lignin – are attacked by the growing fungus. White rot does not produce cross-cracking, but the wood becomes paler in colour, sometimes in pockets or streaks of various sizes with firm wood in between.
Decayed wood is less dense than sound wood and suffers from significant loss of strength. The loss of mass in brown rot is upwards of 70 percent, since the lignin still remains, but in white rot total destruction of the wood is possible. Even slight decay can reduce the toughness or shock resistance of wood and allow it to break easily under impact even though it may still appear hard and firm to the touch. Fungi that cause brown rot usually bring about a more rapid drop in most strength properties than those that cause white rot, but both types soon reduce the strength of the wood they are attacking. In contrast to the fresh resinous smell of sound wood, decaying wood smells of mushrooms or occasionally a sweet smell.
Preventing Rot
The easiest way to keep rot at bay is to make sure that the conditions necessary for fungal growth are not present on your boat. As was stated above, there are five requisites for fungal growth and the removal of any one of them eliminates the possibility of rot beginning. Some are not reasonable to consider, though. It is unlikely that we will ever be able to keep our boats from contact with fungus spores, so removal of the source of infection is not a likely defense. As we aren't likely to use our boats in freezing or extremely hot temperatures and, in fact, we like the same temperatures that are conducive to fungal growth, we aren't able to remove the condition of suitable growing temperatures. We can spoil the fungi food supply by treating the wood with toxins, but it is becoming increasingly unpopular to do this for environmental and health reasons, so this is usually only done in non-habitable spaces such as forepeaks and lazarettes, or in areas of extreme risk such as bilges. Copper napthanates such as Cuprinol used to be popular for this, but health concerns about out-gassing of toxins has reduced its usage and nowadays various formulations of red lead paint are the coating of choice. This leaves controlling moisture and oxygen content as our primary weapons against fungal growth.
Controlling Moisture
We can control moisture in our boat in two ways – preventing moisture ingress, and assisting moisture egress. Not letting moisture in through the hull is pretty fundamental in boats – if you let water in, you sink, and that is definitely not good. So we are pretty good at keeping water out by caulking the hull, gasketting portholes, making sliding hatches and doors that keep the water out. What we often don't do well is let the water out. We build cubbyholes and close off parts of the boat with no thought to ventilating the space. We seem to think that if it is small, it is not important, so we happily close off the forepeak with a solid bulkhead, button up the bilges with tight fitting cabin soles, and seal off frames and inwales with tight-fitting ceilings. Condensation forms in the closed-up spaces, raising the moisture content in the wood to ideal fungal growth levels, and the downward spiral to rotten-boat status begins. Another bad habit we have is when we build a boat we fit pieces of wood together but we don't keep moisture from getting between them by bedding the faying surfaces properly before fastening.
We can prevent rot by making sure all spaces in the boat get adequate ventilation. Put ventilation holes in locker doors, top & bottom – air has to flow, and to do this it needs a way in and a way out. When not in use, lift out the hatches of the cabin sole to let some air down into the bilge – do this every time, not just in the spring when your getting the boat ready for the water. Put ventilators into the lazarette and forepeak – they are cheap and relatively easy to install. A solar-powered forced-air ventilator is probably the second best thing ever invented for a boat, the first being the compass. Install one and route a hose down into the deepest recesses of the bilge to keep it dry and sweet – it will work better than any goops or sloshes that you can pour down there.
Controlling Oxygen
When we build or repair our boats, we should always be thinking of where rot can begin, and guard against the occurrence. If we can seal the wood surface to keep air out, we are removing oxygen from the surface of the wood where fungus growth will begin. Don't leave gaps in faying surfaces; make it fit better and bed it in red lead or some other bedding compound before final assembly. Masterful joinery is for a higher purpose than merely showing off one's woodworking skills; a half-lap joint that one can't pass a cigarette paper through is also one on which it is very easy to maintain an unbroken seal with paint so that air can't get in the seam and let rot begin. Don't build structures that are impossible to paint behind. Try to avoid bare wood to bare wood joints – bed it, paint it, make sure that there is no exposed wood surface available for fungus to grow on. This is the fundamental principle behind epoxy encapsulated wood construction – if there is an unbroken impermeable skin of epoxy over the entire surface of the wood, no oxygen can reach the wood surface and therefore rot cannot begin. The same goes for traditional boat construction – the paint and varnish may look good, but their primary purpose is to keep oxygen from reaching the surface of the wood.
Repairing Decay in Boats
By now you are probably pretty paranoid about rot in your boat. If you discover a patch of rot, don't panic; it usually is repairable. The idea is to attack the rot on three fronts: first, stop the fungus from continuing to grow; second, replace wood that has been structurally compromised by the fungus; and third, ensure that nearby wood is, and will remain, unaffected by the rot that has been removed.
Stopping the fungus growth can be accomplished in several ways, all based on removing one of the fundamental conditions for fungal life. Application of heat (a heat gun applied to a small spot of rot will kill the fungus – just don't burn the boat!), toxic substances (Git Rot, Cuprinol or other such nasty chemicals that will destroy fungi), removing moisture (heat gun again), and removing oxygen (sealing with penetrating epoxy such as CPES is effective) all will upset the environment required for continued fungal growth. These are only effective on small areas of infection in the very early stages of fungal growth, though, as well-established growth will have invaded the internal tissues of the wood where they will be unreachable to most of these methods. When fungus is well established, the infected wood must be removed with a generous margin of seemingly good wood to ensure that all fungus has been removed.
When the infected wood has been structurally compromised by fungal growth, it must be removed, both to regain the strength lost to fungal decay, and to ensure removal of all traces of the fungus to prevent continued growth. How much material needs to be removed is dependant on how extensive the fungal growth has become. Determining this is unfortunately a skill acquired by experience – this is where The Boat Guy comes into prominence. Rely heavily on your surveyor or friendly local boatwright for advice in this matter, and don't try to second-guess him if you think he is suggesting a too-large excavation. Usually, if you ignore his advice, you will get to do the repair twice – once over a smaller area than he suggested, the second time over a much larger area to capture the fungus that was not eliminated the first time.
When the fungus has been killed, and the structural integrity of the affected area restored, you must take measures to ensure that it does not return, either by external infection or the reappearance of fungi that was missed in the eradication and removal stages of the repair. This is usually accomplished by application of several preventative measures. Presumably, any structural repairs will be of high quality, will have addressed any structural defects that may have created suitable conditions for fungal growth, and will have been properly bedded and fastened. Then, a substance toxic to fungi such as Cuprinol or Git Rot should be applied not only to the new structure, but to the surrounding original structure as well to ensure that all fungi present is eliminated. Finally, suitable coverings to protect the entire structure should be applied to exclude oxygen from the wood surface. This can be in the form of epoxy, paint, or varnish.
The final step in any repair to an area of rot on a boat is repeated close inspection of the repaired area to make sure that there is not a recurrence of the infection.
Conclusion
Rot in a boat can be an insidious problem, one that can reoccur and grow with alarming speed unless proper steps are taken to eliminate it. The key to effective elimination of rot is early detection and thorough eradication. With better understanding of how fungi grow on and in wood, the average boat owner can successfully combat it without breaking the bank or condemning the boat. The worst he can do is ignore the problem, the next worse is to do an inadequate repair. Early detection, aggressive treatment, and attentive maintenance will ensure that the boat will give many years of enjoyment to her owner, and put paid to the comments of the old salts at the boatyard who said, "She's got rot in her, son; she's only good for firewood now!"
Pshaw!
With the birth of our daughter, moving from Nova Scotia to Calgary, two new jobs it has taken over two years to finish my first Kayak. I call it the Banana (for its paint job) it is a Volkskayak. Prior to this last weekend I had only had it out on the Glenmore reservoir in Calgary twice. Once with a Canoe paddle! I was looking forward to this trip, a three-day paddle down the North Saskatchewan River from the base of the Rocky Mountains to just outside Edmonton.
We arrived on the Rocky Mountain House and planned to paddle for 4 hours to our first campsite. The river is running a little high this year and we estimated our speed at 3-miles/hr just floating down stream. I was pleased with the way the Banana handled in the river, so that by the end of the first day I was already trying out some small swells.
The second day was a great paddle with great scenery and good friends. Just as the day before, near the end of that paddle I was tempted into foot high swells from rapids. That night we experienced an invasion of moths. When we set the tent up there was the odd moth flying around but nothing to get upset about. About an hour later there was tens of thousands of them. They where flying up peoples pants, in your shirt, when you went to sleep they flew around in your sleeping bag! I almost slept in the Banana in the middle of the river, just to save going bananas!
On the last day of the paddle we started to see other boats. I saw two Chesapeake 17 kayaks, several canoes and plenty of river jet boats. The jet boats should of given me a hint that there were bigger and better things to come in the form of rapids. We passed another river that fed into the North Saskatchewan. This river is about the same volume of water as the North Saskatchewan up to that point. This caused the river to speed up and the rapids to grow a little larger. Being the last day of the paddle (a six hour paddle), I decided to put the Banana through her paces. My thought was if two guys in a plastic canoe could handle it so can I. After all I have to hold up the honour of all VK owners everywhere! Well the Banana held her own. I could have used a spray skirt because when we stopped for lunch I had the cockpit half full of water. After lunch we continued on with renewed enthusiasm. About an hour into the trip we noticed a larger section of big rapids, 2 feet high. As had been the tradition that day I went first. I found the best way, and the most fun, was to get up to full speed and ram the waves head on. I found keeping your bow into the wave there was little trouble of upsetting the mighty Banana. These rapids where close to shore (I realized too late) this caused the waves to come at me from two or three directions (Bad) after the third rapid, waves crashing over the cockpit and filling it full of cold river water I almost did my fist capsizing! I think my only saving grace was the amount of water and gear that I had in the boat. Once I regained my composure and realized I was not about to go down the river upside down, I quickly paddled out of the remaining rapids. It was then I realized that none of the canoes traveling with me had gone into those rapids. While we rafted together I bailed out the cockpit and proceeded down river almost as bold as before.
We made it to the pull out point after 6 long hours of paddling. As I opened the front hatch I expected some water (I cut the front hatch cover too small). Surprisingly there was very little water in the front hatch. When I opened my back hatch that had not leaked once on this trip it was completely full of water! I guess those larger waves had made it into more than my cockpit.
It was great fun to do on the Canada Daylong weekend for 2003. We are already making plans for next year's trip. I may even have a couple of people who want to try to build a kayak of their own this winter. Does this mean we have to open a SWBAA?
As my first Kayak trip I was pleased that I could carry all of my own gear, as well as the group's axe and dry food. For next years paddle I think that a rudder is a necessity as well as a spray skirt. I may also try to build a new boat. I have the plans for a Chesapeake 17 and I have built Sherry a 16' version of this boat. One question I have for the rest of the members, how do you not get pins and needles in your legs when you paddle for long periods of time?
Down the sloping beach
at the Guzzle, across from Boot Island, we trundled our kayaks to meet the muddy
water of the Minas Basin at low tide. Rinsing the goo off our feet and getting
ourselves comfortably afloat, the sensation of water covering the sun-warmed
mud was soothing. Paddling north-west into the wind and the incoming tidal current,
we struggled
around the last bit of exposed rock and sand until we were far to the north
of Evangeline Beach when the incoming tide began to push us inland towards the
mouth of the Cornwallis River and Mud Creek.
Bird life was sparse
out on the mud flats; a few Black-Backed Gulls, a couple of Ring Bills and a
number of Cormorants. In the distance we could hear the distinctive calls of
Willets but it was on the mud banks near where Mud Creek meets the Cornwallis
before we saw a half dozen of them congregating at the edge of the salt grasses,
showing off their
characteristic ‘W' wing markings.
Out of the corner of the
eye we caught a glimpse of a willet-sized shorebird taking off from the mud
bank, trailing long, red legs and displaying black and white markings on its'
neck and back. Ulli tentatively identified it as a Black Necked Stilt but before
we could get turned around to confirm it the bird was gone, flying west up the
Cornwallis towards Port
Williams.
We entered Mud Creek to check out the possibility of going ashore but the tide was not yet even covering the mud bank in the middle of the tiny harbour. Landing too soon would involve a slippery climb up the mud slope so we turned back and headed out into the river for a couple of more hours.
Drifting along the southern shore, pushed by the now decreasing tide flow, we then crossed to the north shore and drifted on a back eddy down to the end of the salt marsh off Starr's Point from where we re-crossed the river and rode the incoming tide back up towards Mud Creek; a free ride in both directions.
Near the entrance we caught a glimpse of a long legged bird browsing at the tide line. At a distance, its' movements were very unlike the willets - more spastic and gawky. Drifting closer, we confirmed the identification, a Black Necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus), a bird that usually breeds on the Atlantic coast only as far north as Delaware. Red legs, black back and head, with white under the belly and in front of the throat, and having distinctive white ‘eyebrows'. Perhaps this stilt was an unsuccessful breeder who, in the absence of a mate, continued further north to Nova Scotia as a solitary tourist. A rare visitor in these parts and one which would not likely have been observed - except from the water.
By that time the water was a couple of meters higher so we re-entered Mud Creek, lamenting the fact that there was no longer the sloped ramp next to the railway track where we would have been able to land easily. Instead we landed near the storm sewer outfall and scrambled up over the nasty, jagged rocks, barking ankles and banging boat hulls as we emerged from the water.
Ulli remarked that it was unfortunate that the Wolfville waterfront was so birder/boater unfriendly. And, looking at our mud stained boat hulls, he said, "What a mud hole."
Nevertheless, we were both well satisfied that for having taken the effort to be out there we were rewarded by such a rare bird sighting.