Clueless, Overburdened, Muddy Trio

[Duncan Edwards]

I'm not sure what the point of the whole excercise is but here's a new video on Youtube of three women fighting some estuary mud. The narration says its eighty degress F but they are wearing these ridiculous drysuits and boots and carrying way too much gear. Anchored to the shore by guys with ropes and pulleys its not hard to understand why they go nowhere. Anyone here would know much better.

Some of you will really like it though - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMaKdlXzosM

[Fred588]

Clueless is right. They are making a mountain out of a molehill. All that gear is in their way. During the American Civil War there is a classic story of a Union general arriving at an obstructing river and being quite stymied as to how deep it might be..... until a lower ranking officer (later to be much higher ranking) rode his horse into the river and said, "Its this deep, General". Simpler is better.

I'm not sure what the point of the whole excercise is but here's a new video on Youtube of three women fighting some estuary mud. The narration says its eighty degress F but they are wearing these ridiculous drysuits and boots and carrying way too much gear. Anchored to the shore by guys with ropes and pulleys its not hard to understand why they go nowhere. Anyone here would know much better.

Some of you will really like it though - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMaKdlXzosM

[Mike Nomic]

These are clips from the 2004 'Extreme Archaeology' series on Channel 4 in the UK, from the programme exploring a reputed Roman bridge over the River Wye.

The three women are Katie Hirst, Alice Roberts, and Meg Watters.

I don't suppose for one moment that their 4OD site goes back that far. Damn!!

Mike.

[Mynock]

Add a set of those little orange floaty things that go on your arms and those ensembles would be perfect.

[Nessie]

This was definitely entertaining. Although it made me a bit uneasy here and there. Foolhardiness of this degree is scary to watch.

What the -- ???

It'd be about a hundred times easier to crawl out of there if they lost the drysuits and the backpacks and wore...much, much less...since a camera's watching, I recommend a sturdy but skintight one-piece swimsuit. And if possible, nothing else. Go in barefoot. All shoes get stuck.

And it looked like they were trying to get someplace. You can't walk on mud like that the way you walk on regular ground.

You SINK! (But I guess I don't have to tell this forum THAT.)

To go anywhere in a thick mudpit like that, you need to travel over the surface horizontally. I'm not sure how to describe this, exactly, but in certain Southern claypits where solid ground and the deep spot were a lonnnng way apart, I had to learn to do it.

But you wouldn't find me at this place anyway. If I only have one hour before the tide comes in, and especially if it might be "cementing" quicksand -- you won't catch me putting one toe in there. No way. Nohow. Don't care how many ropes or lifeguards they offer me.

I'm a low-risk personality.

Nessie

[Mike Nomic]

They are not mud experts like us, nor were the production team. This was undoubtedly their first time in such a situation. Katie Hirst is an archaeologist, Alice Roberts an anatomist, osteoarchaeologist and anthropologist, and Meg Watters an archaeologist and geophysicist. They're unlikely to be happy going into the mud in swimsuits on mainsteam UK television; health and safety paranoia dictates that they wear drysuits, etc, etc, and were roped up to the riverbank and they were carrying their gear in backpacks to reach their target right at the waters edge.

See here for more details.

If I remember correctly, having abandonedthis approach, they reached their goal from boats on the river, with the cameraman suspended on a wire slung across the river.

By the way, it's not quicksand there, it's estuarial mud, although it is deep - I've been up to my shoulders on the Severn estuary (which the Wye joins just below the site of this programme) on a number of occasions. The tidal range can be in excess of 15 metres at the spring tides. They chose a bad time (mid-August) to do this exercise, as the tidal range is smaller at this point, giving them less time at the water's edge.

If you know where to go, when and where to start, it is possible to walk across the Severn estauary at low tide wearing thigh waders - but it's not for the uninitiated.

Mike.

[bart1997]

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[Billie Bonce]

The video is posted by a man who is active at DeepSinking.org. He says he has the video in better quality but he doesn't know how to make it available on DeepSinking. He started at least 3 topics there.

About the video itself. You may incriminate me in sexism again, but I absolutely can't understand the idea (other than damsel-in-distress fetish) when 3 unprepared women are sent to a hard, dirty, and somewhat dangerous job, while more than 3 men are doing nothing but explaining how difficult is the situation in which the women are. It is amusing for me, and I enjoy it, but when I try to estimate the whole idea without the obvious relation to quicksand fetish, I have to say that it looks like the complete idiocy. To safely and easily walk on such thick mud they need... just a few pieces of plywood - the stuff that all that firefighters use when they rescue someone from the mud.

[Duncan Edwards]

... just a few pieces of plywood - the stuff that all that firefighters use when they rescue someone from the mud.

Exactly and I suspect this is not unknown to most of Britain. The producers were obviously going for maximum drama out of a typically "dry" subject. I guess they had to make it look like the Romans, skilled engineers that they were, overcame the incredible obstacle of mud in a river. Not to minimize the effort required but if Kristine and I can slog through a greater expanse on a hotter day it was probably short work for the Romans.

[joedeep130535]

Mike Nomic makes the point that this was estuary mud.I have tried to find qs in several parts of this estuary-& failed.I did get caught by the tide once & floated up the river in company with a large shoal of mullet. Don't know who was more surprised !!