Kingston waterfront news: December 2007

The CFB KINGSTON DOLPHIN SCUBA CLUB remains very active with diving throughout the winter.

Yesterday, for example, members dove off the Kingston Yacht Club during the day and then practiced in the KMCSC pool in the evening.

The Dolphins regularly post accounts and photos on their blog, and they occasionally update their photo gallery on Flickr which has, among other things, a photoset of members ice diving in Kingston Harbour last February.

Incidentally, though it's a military club, it's membership is open to all Kingston residents. A yearly associate membership costs $65.00 for civilians, $45.00 if you're between 14 and 21.

The CFB Kingston Dolphin Scuba Club is one of the truly great things about the Kingston waterfront. Active year-round, its members always seem to be collaborating with others on the waterfront, and they have been systematically sharing what they do, see, and find.

Someone created a Google KITEBOARDING KINGSTON - RIDING MAP. Big Sandy Bay is mis-identified, but the rest is great.

For example:

PUC Dock

Kingston's most popular summer launch site, good from east through west on the south side of the compass, best in SW winds...but it really comes to life in a true west once the swell gets bigger and cleans up a bit. Best catagorized as "bump and jump" with a nice little carvatorium on the inside at the pipe.

Though this is a very accessible launch it is an intermediate level spot at least. There is a slight current, and limited landing spots downwind. Jump off the dock to launch, but make sure you make it in before the last little beach upwind of the hospital! If you miss that your best bet is to ride it out and come in WAAAAY downwind at the base of Fort Henry. Not a bad planned downwinder for those on the early stages of the learning curve. Bring a quarter and call a cab from the pay phone at the entrance to the fort to get back to the PUC docks.

Wild.

Related: Here's a Google Earth File of Lake Ontario Windsurf Spots compiled by Evan Wamsley.

APPROVAL OF 2008 CITY MARINA FEES is also on Council's agenda for Tuesday evening. It's on page 38 of the report if the link doesn't bring you directly there.

THE LICENSE AGREEMENT WITH AHOY RENTALS LTD. is on Council's agenda for Tuesday evening.

It appears that the timber frame exhibit shelter for the Phoebe is to be placed near where Ahoy Rentals is currently, so Ahoy will move southwest somewhat, with a new structure to be built there.

Ahoy will be licensed to rent out a maximum of twenty kayaks, six canoes, six sail boats (12'-16') and twelve bicycles, whereas under the former agreement eight kayaks, four canoes, eight sail boats, two windsurfers and an unspecified number of bicycles were rented from the site.

Here's the Phoebe restoration project home page and the Ahoy Rentals home page.

$220,000 FOR MARINA REPAIRS IN 2008 in a Whig story today. It's all about who should ultimately pay.

But the city's deputy mayor said Kingston has to accept the fact that it is not a waterfront city.

Deputy Mayor Bill Glover said the city has ignored waterfront development and a full range of services for citizens and boaters to enjoy.

Read the whole thing.

THE SNOWBIRDS AIRSHOW is coming back to Kingston on Wednesday June 18th 2008.

MetalCraft Marine's fireboats were FRONT-PAGE NEWS IN THE MIAMI-HERALD on Friday.

Also, MetalCraft Marine's news page is quite active, and you can subscribe to its RSS feed .

The latest GREAT LAKES ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY STUDY has just been released, and it's fascinating reading.

The 128-page PDF is full of interesting discussion and schematics on the economic importance of the Seaway, environmental considerations, infrastructure, and various aspects and challenges of keeping the Seaway in operation.

In Kingston it's easy to forget about the Seaway because its shipping channel passes South of Wolfe Island, so we don't see it on a daily basis. The Seaway is just 8 1/2 miles, as the crow files, from City Hall.

Yesterday CKWS-TV News reported this:

CLEAN RIDEAU

The Rideau waterway has scored high marks in a just-released survey on water quality.

Environment Canada compiled samples from rivers across the country. And it gives the Rideau a 75 out of 100.

Memo to CKWS-TV News: That's not what the report says.

You can find the 67-page report here: Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators -- released Dec 6 2007.

Assuming that CKWS-TV News is accurate about the rideau scoring "75 out of 100", then qualifying that as "high marks" is drastically overstating the findings of the report.

If you read the report, which CKWS-TV News evidently didn't do, here is how the Water Qualitry Index (WQI) is interpreted:

Therefore, the proper conclusion is that the Water Quality Index (WQI) for Rideau waterway is fair.

Here's the distribution of "scores" for the 359 waterways tested by Environment Canada in this report. The Rideau Waterway is close to average at best.

HMCS TERRA NOVA, a 366-foot Canadian Restigouche-class destroyer escort, is to be scuttled to create an artificial reef for diving near Gananoque.

The target-time for that is late 2009.

The claim that "the sunken ship will attract some 10,000 recreational scuba divers to the region in the first year" seems implausible.

Update A meeting account from Chris of the CFB Dolphins SCUBA Club. The scuttling is planned to be just off Browns Bay Provincial Park, near Mallorytown on the 1000 Islands Parkway. That's about 60 km from Kingston.

THE ADMIRAL'S WALK APPLICATION FOR DRAFT PLAN OF SUBDIVISION is included in the documents for this week's City of Kingston Planning Committee meeting.

Therein is a lousy-quality scan of a "concept site plan", shown below; click the image to go to the source document.

The new theme appears to be, "maximum marina". How such a facility might work in practice, given the extremely limited shoreside space, certainly isn't clear.

A notable oddity: the diagram appears dated July 2006, which is surprising since we've not been shown anything remotely resembling this before.

Related:

• September 3, 2007: No details whatsoever about a marina in the 62-page zoning bylaw ammendment document. Given that omission, you'd be forgiven the sentiment that the developer hasn't exactly being forthright with respect to our waterfront.
• May 16th 2007 in The Whig Standard: Buildings planned for waterfront; Developer proposes $160-million project for pier on Elevator Bay
• July 17th 2007 Planning Committee: The public hearing report (24-page.PDF) on the proposed towers on Elevator Bay.
• May 16, 2007 K7 news item about our Elevator Bay Development public information meeting photo set on Flickr.

Have you noticed how Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, dominates Google search result pages?

For example, consider these Google search results:

• Google " Kingston, Ontario", and Wikipedia ranks as the first entry after the City of Kingston's website, and ahead of all the websites belonging to Queen's, Fort Henry, CFB Kingston, KEDCO, all the hotels, all real-estate brokers, the Chamber of Commerce, all the other directories, everthing.
• Googling Queens University returns Wikipedia as the first Canadian non-Queen's entry.
• Googling Royal Military College: Wikipedia ranks second behind the RMC website.
• Wolfe Island returns Wikipedia in fifth spot, but still ahead of 312,995 others.

Like it or not, Google considers Wikipedia as authoritative. When someone wants a general overview of something notable, Wikipedia is as good a place as any to start.

It is therefore in our interest to ensure that Wikipedia articles about notable things in our midst exist, are rich and accurate, are properly categorized and linked, and thereafter are watched in perpetuity.

Our waterfront is woefully underrepresented in Wikipedia. That needs to change.

So pick a notable piece of your physical environment and see to documenting it in Wikipedia. It won't cost you a dime, and it will get viewed far more, and be trusted far more, than almost anything else you can do on the web, at any price.