Shipwrecks: Doty found. Asian Carp, too.

At 291' long, the cargo ship Doty was a formidable lake vessel carrying a load of corn when it went down in a storm in October of 1898.  Waves were reported cresting at 30 feet.

That's less than half the length of the Edmund Fitzgerald, but still a lot of boat.

Seems appropriate that the announcement of its discovery yesterday was capped by ferocious storms that whipped through the area, snapping trees, knocking out power, and flooding expressways out of service.  The Doty was found in over 300' of water.

At 3' long, the asian carp is not too shabby in size as far as fish go.  Unfortunately for life forms in the Great Lakes, it isn't shipwrecked.  The fact that it was just found on Chicago's south side, in Lake Calumet, means it has moved beyond the electric barriers meant to contain it and keep it from moving into the Great Lakes.

So, it seems that 30' of waves can swallow nearly 300' of ship.  And a 3' fish is ominously approaching the source of 84% of North America's surface water supply.

Last night, the sky turned pea green, and winds topped 80 miles an hour.

This morning, it's beautiful fishing weather.

Not sure which feels more ominous at the moment.

Wonder if I could persuade Christopher Brosius to create a "Great Lakes accord"?  Wonder if it would be a momento mori?


further reading:
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article on discovering the Doty
a thorough account of the wreck at a fantastic site for shipwreck fans 
Yahoo news article on discovery of asian carp in Lake Calumet
So much for dumping poison (rotenone) in the Little Calumet River
If it were only this simple:  Eat 'em


images:
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
Illinois DNR

Shipwrecks and Wood (and some Bois Naufrage)

I come from a land where you are never more than 6 miles from freshwater, where coastline is never more than two hours away, where it takes more than a day to drive the coast of just one peninsula.

Sandy beaches and shipwrecks abound, and yes, Virginia, the lakes are really that large.  I mean, think about it; the Edmund Fitzgerald was 729 feet long, and weighed 13, 632 tons.  That, as we were taught in school, is a foot short of two (American) football fields.  Not very shy of two soccer pitches.  You can get to center field in a MLB park and add a Little League park besides.  In terms of weight, that's 4,993 Cadillac Escalades (5467lb=2.73US short tons).  Five thousand Escalades, lost; two football fields, consumed.

The Edmund Fitzgerald is but one of close to 5,000 documented shipwrecks in the Great Lakes.  In fact, the United States maintains an underwater sanctuary in Thunder Bay, just off Alpena, Michigan in Lake Huron.  NOAA maintains fourteen of these sanctuaries in the U.S. and its territories; the Thunder Bay site is entirely underwater, protects over 200 shipwrecks, and is the only sanctuary to be found between the coasts.  You can bring your scuba gear and check it out.

Yes, Virginia, the lakes are that big.

***

I bring this up today because Parfumerie Generale's Bois Naufrage is reported to be inspired by a Lucien Clergue photograph, "The Nude on Flotsam."  B&W, emphasis on graphic lines, texture, you know the drill.  It's the naked skin on driftwood that is supposed to be the thing.

Bare skin?  Driftwood?  Water?  Sun?  Um, yup, this I know something about.

If you do, too, you can skip the rest if you hear me say "a surprisingly dry day at the beach, and somebody in the vicinity is testing coconut on their s'mores."

No?  Okay, here's where Bois Naufrage situates itself for me.

First, it goes on dry.  This wood has been in the sun a long time, but has not yet warmed up much today. I might be inclined to say it opens dry-alde-figgy, hint o' sugar.  The aldehyde-like-ness comes from being high up in the nose and rather airy, but no bubbles.  Something holds it aloft.  It then pretty quickly goes through its paces--the dry dries off (oooh, now THAT's a drydown!), passes through a kind of recognizable semi-sweet PG skin scentness.  Which is where I am both happy and disappointed, because I can't help but be pleased by that cozy thing Guillame does so well, yet I'd rather be played with and taken to a stage three, given the odd but interesting opening.  But nothing for me.  Lee over at the Perfume Posse got something sea salty right around this point, which intellectually sounds like a good thing to happen.  By then, my skin seems to have eaten it.  I'm afraid to spray too much in an effort to get there, because that opening threatens to trigger an alde-style induced headache if I'm not careful.

Retention for this Bois Naufrage?  Lake Huron, in the shallows. Develops, abandons ship.  I almost put it in Lake Ontario, but a generous spritzing keeps it around for almost two hours.

go ahead, imagine your Hawaiian Tropic oiled body was here...or spray on that Bois Naufrage...

this is driftwood somewhere on Lake Huron's shore

More on the Edmund Fitzgerald and other Great Lakes Shipwrecks:
Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society
The Great Lakes Shipwreck File: 1679-1998
Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary


Or, try these books:
Great Lakes Shipwrecks and Survivals
The Living Great Lakes


Image available from and available for purchase at istockphoto.

Whoops...perfume disclosure...I have a small decant from a perfume fiend, er, friend's bottle.  

Toes, or all in?

For those of you who have only swum in oceans or swimming pools, a few notes on lake swimming:

"Inland" lakes (aren't they all? but no, trust me, there are the big lakes, the Great Lakes, which I have come to realize need emphasized are really, really big--those of you who think of the middle as "flyover" would do well to think about a body of water that takes much time to cross on a boat, and remember it takes even your jet some time to cross over) are smaller lakes of various sizes, which generally fall within state boundaries, and can be seen across and traversed easily by boat, sometimes even rowboat.

Point being, the swimming is different. Not only do you float differently, but there can be ginormous temperature differentials on the inland lakes: water temperature varies according to season, according to depth, and even sometimes according to weather conditions. On the big lakes, the water is, generally, cold. The question for any lake is: do you go carefully, trying to discover and/or acclimate yourself to the temperature, or do you just charge?

No matter what your approach, your experience in the same pocket of water may be different one day to the next, one visit to the next, one year to the next.

And so it is with Kingdom. What I am about to say is not "I was wrong." My experience has been, almost every time, panties. But today I was decanting a generous sample for a friend--a friend who has enjoyed this, and so I was happy to share--and a generous splot of McQueen's controversial juice ended up on my hand.

Surprise! Today the cumin was nearly woodsy, and clearly just a layer among the package. I was getting a quick impression of something that was interesting both as quoting some vintage references, and also quite of the times. Cumin, woody spice, something floral...it was all there, and it was interesting. Not "beautiful," as some receive it, but really, really interesting, in a pleasant way. Meanwhile, I had just decanted DK Gold (following a tasting principle of increasing intensities), and THAT was also different than any of my previous experiences. In this cool/cold weather, Gold edp was almost creamy, with jasmine clearly coming through as much as the lily, and much less sharp green. (That green is sharper, and more metallic, in the EDP.)

So, today, I liked Kingdom. No promises for tomorrow. And honestly, I'll probably be more likely to reach for the Gold on an overall percentage basis. But I had to come clean about the experience, considering how adamant I am about the nasty element I usually get.

BTW, you already not to trust when somebody says "come on in, the water's fine," right? One swimmer's tepid is another's chilled. In the lake, or out of the bottle, your mileage may vary.

*****

UPDATE 11/23/08:  Kingdom is back in the chatterstream.  See the gents over at PeredePierre for their take on it, and hear Denyse at Grain de Musc place it according to her sensibilities within the comments section of her lovely review of Schiaparelli Shocking.  Yup, that's me, asking her opinion--I love to learn from better noses than mine.  But despite my bowing to Denyse's more experienced nose, I have to say that, for now, for me, Kingdom's "gousset" is still sewn into panties and not a blouse.  Never a better example of Your Mileage May Vary than an individual's experience of cumin in Kingdom.

Retention Game: Great Lakes as Measure of Lasting Power

Ever heard of a lake's retention period?  Basically, it's how long it takes Mother Nature to perform a complete water change.  Being a fan of our tremendous fresh water resource AND fresh to perfumista-dom, I thought I'd explore categorizing the lasting power of a given scent according to our Great Lakes' retention periods.

Here's a spare model, which clearly could use some developing:

• Lake Erie*, retention period 2.6 years  =  Flower waters (rose, jasmine)
• Lake Ontario*, 6 years = Guerlain Eau de Cologne
• Lake Huron**, 22 years  =  Liz Zorn Sunset Rider, Chanel Bois des Iles
• Lake Michigan**, 99 years  =  Givency Amarige, Lanvin Arpege
• Lake Superior*, 191 years  =  Guerlain Shalimar

Feel free to help me out here!  Which perfumes are you still wearing the next morning (=Lake Superior); which are gone before the cocktail hour--which we know is 3 hours--is over?

retention periods gathered from *The Great Lakes Atlas, www.epa.gov/ginpo/atlas/, or the Wikipedia entry on "lake retention," www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_retention_time