A Foggy Day At Tseng-wen Reservoir

Last Sunday morning, I took the dogs out at six and drove off to meet Gary and Howie, two graduates of Cheng Kung University's chemical engineering department. They are learning their trade in the design, development, manufacturing and marketing of various kinds of panels and to that end they currently meet me once a week to help them prepare for a move to the U.S. later this year. This morning however, the plan was to take them to Tseng-wen reservoir for a laugh to let them see and appreciate a part of Taiwan they had never experienced before.

We met just outside Xinhua at a little after seven and we drove straight out to the reservoir, allowing only a brief stop for them to get gas and breakfast at Yujing. I was slightly worried however, because the weather forecast (sunny with clouds) was turning out to be badly wrong - it was foggy. We arrived at the bay sometime after nine and whilst they were excited by the aesthetic of the place, I was interested to again assess the fall in the waterline from two weeks ago.

Here is what it looked like two weeks ago...

And here is what it looked like this time (where Gary and Howie are kneeling off to the right, was where I had entered the water in my boat on February 8th six weeks ago)...

The wooden board which had served as my makeshift raft to transport my equipment two weeks ago was now stranded about eight feet or so above the waterline. That's how much it has fallen in the previous two weeks of drought - about two and a half meters...

Not far from my old raft, I found the blue T-shirt I had lost whilst stumbling around in the pitch black two weeks previously...

Holding my battlestained blue Liberal flag, er, T-shirt.

The clouds and fog were so heavy that I was expecting rain any minute and had half a mind to cancel the whole trip, but Gary and Howie were adamant that they wanted to go ahead and I couldn't blame them given that they had gone to the trouble of buying their own boats and following me all the way out here - plus the likelihood that they wouldn't get another chance at doing anything this for a long time, if at all before they move to the U.S. later this year. And so we began to get things ready...

Myself, busy inflating the new boat which has four rather than the standard three air compartments.

Howie, using my spare pump to inflate his boat - almost done.

All three boats ready, with Gary's in the foreground being the same model and colour as my old one which I had also brought along as a spare in case of mishap.

Gary was like an eight-year old kid about to go on a roller-coaster for the first time. I couldn't believe how excited he was.

Entering the water. 

There are three points to remember about getting into the inflatable boat. The first is that given the floor is muddy and sticky, there will be some resistance to lifting either foot off the floor and into the boat - it is best not to compound this problem by weighing your movement down with additional pressure owing to water depth - so enter at the shallowest depth possible. The second, is to put whatever gear you are bringing with you to the front of the boat. The third is to get your backside in the approximate center of the boat and lie down rather than sit up - this will mean your weight is more equally distributed across the boat and you're less likely to take in water. Both Gary and Howie managed to get into the boats fine...

Howie lying correctly in his boat just after setting off from the shore of the bay.

Gary in particular was eager to reach a little island that had become exposed during the past two weeks of drought. Below is a shot on that little island with Gary in the foreground and Howie in the background and our boats on the other side. Behind both of them is the spit of land on the eastern shore on which I took a short breather during my return swim last time I was here (at that time the island was entirely submerged)...

The view from the little island out toward the main ravine which cleaves through the middle of the western shoreline - it is barely visible due to the fog...

And looking further to the north up along the shoreline toward the floating barge over a kilometer away; again it is almost invisible...

This time I had the good sense to fetch the spare pump along in one of my waterproof bags along with a spare boat. If either of their boats lost air on reaching shore, I would be able to pump it up again, or substitute it entirely if necessary; and if two boats had been damaged beyond repair, at least I knew I could swim the distance with relative ease this time, not being encumbered by having to push a makeshift cargo-raft out in front of me. Fortunately there were no mishaps. The crossing to the western shoreline was quicker than I expected, but there were two obvious reasons for this - the first was that there was absolutely no wind at all and so we had no waves to contend with whilst the second was that, because the waterline had fallen so much over the past two weeks, the floating barge had been moved yet further south still: it was now some distance to the south of the little gulley I had swam over to return to the barge last time. Even though the crossing was much quicker this time, Gary and Howie made hard work of it; they couldn't seem to put into practice my instructions as to how to paddle and handle their boats...

The paddle must be gripped with both hand at or near the top of the pole for maximum leverage and the angle at which the paddle enters the water must be as close to 90 degrees as possible to generate forward thrust with minimum lateral spin. Rightward and leftward strokes must follow one another, one each, in quick succession. If you look at this image above you can see that Gary has one hand at the top of the pole and one hand closer to the actual paddle and that the angle at which he is holding it is closer to 20 or 30 degrees.

Arrival at the floating barge.

Eventually, we arrived at the floating barge on the western shoreline and were very lucky to catch the (semi) wild boars still hanging around after having been fed bread by the kids on the tourist boat that occasionally glides up and down the reservoir...

Gary and Howie feeding them...

After they were done I popped across the shoreline briefly to have a look at some of the changes. I approached the gulley I had crossed previously but from the south this time rather than the north...

An incongruous looking tree stump had now emerged just a few meters to the right of where I had entered the water last time...

There wasn't much point in hanging around as any pictures I could have taken would have been rendered next to useless by the fog, so we set off again for the return journey back to the eastern shoreline...

Finally returning into the bay past the eastern shoreline - Howie is tired but gives the salute of satisfaction.

I was the last to set off but the first to make it back to the bay behind the eastern shoreline. Once out of the boat, I took pictures of the other two paddling their way back...

After we got everything packed up and put away we drove off to the little village of Dapu at the northern end of the reservoir. I was curious to see how low the water level had fallen here (since the reservoir's bed is sloped at a slight angle from north to south, and therefore the situation should be much worse than in the middle and south of the reservoir). Indeed, although there was still some water left in the reservoir, it was rapidly approaching dry-out point; the narrow stream grooves for deep water coursing through the muddy bed on either side were now visible just beneath the surface. Several years ago the drought had proceeded to such an extent that I was able to walk across the reservoir almost to the other side, so there is still some way to go yet before things are that bad...

After marveling at my account of previous high and low water points at Dapu over the last few years, Gary and Howie followed me back into the village where we stopped for a quick bite to eat and something to drink before the drive back to Tainan city.

It is a remarkable thing to record these highs and lows in photography.