A Matter of Days

It is only a matter of a few days before the first 

windmill will be completely up on Wolfe Island.  

Yesterday, I observed one third of the first turbine 

between Third and Fourth Line Roads on Baseline. 

Today another section was added. Unless it is 

smote by a higher power or hit by lightning, it looks 

like it's finally happening. I feel helpless that I can't 

do anything about it, and I feel angry that it things are

going as planned. Well, more or less anyway.

The Island is at the mercy of a bunch of overpaid 

wind experts. They have monitored the winds in test 

zones,they have carefully calculated the placement of 

each and every turbine so that it works at its maximum

potential (okay, maybe just a couple of them), and they

have hired the best experts in the field of wind energy.

Here I could make a bunch of jokes and comments

about wind experts, but I won't. You have to supply your own.

So. Wind experts. Experts on wind. They know wind.  

They get paid big bucks--big government bucks--to harness

the wind. So I wish one of them would tell me, who forgot

to factor in the velocity of the wind on the river. That

very same river that Gordon Lightfoot sings about in

"The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald"! The barge

on which the wind experts are bringing their trucks,

their cranes, their apprentice wind experts, cannot

cross the water to the Island when the winds exceed

20 kilometres per hour! Actually, they have modified

this so that it the barge may actually take on 25kph. The

forecast for tomorrow has winds gusting at 55 kph!

This little bit of irony pleases me. Obviously, ignoring

the power of the wind on the water is an expensive 

mistake on their part, and that pleases me too. And

they don't realize that November brings gales that can

make even the saltiest sailor lose his breakfast. And

lunch for that matter. But what displeases me and the

other people who ride the ferry each day twice a day

to get back and forth to work is that when the winds are

too much for the wimpy barge, the trucks, transports and

traffic from the turbine project take the ferry.

It concerns me that such monstrous vehicles will 

hasten the normal wear and tear on the Wolfe Islander,

and create a potentially dangerous situation for those

who rely on the ferry for their livelihood.