Blue. Icy blue.

 A view from the shore on a cold, cold afternoon. Icy water and flying blue islands.

Looking east across the northern end of Georgia Strait to the mountains of the mainland.

A Skywatch post.

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Una vista hacia el oeste, mirando las montañas del continente al otro lado del Estrecho Georgia. Con unas islas que parecen volar sobre la superficie del agua. Fue una tarde muy fria.

Blue and white

 It was one of those days when you just have to abandon your plans and go sit on the shore. Too cold to sit for long, too cold to walk very far. But the sun shone brightly, and the sea and sky and distant hills were blue, blue, blue. Cold air doesn't hold as much moisture as warm air; the clouds were gone, and the line of snowy mountain peaks on the mainland were clearly visible. And very white. So were the gulls on the shore.

A long line of mountain tops and one lonely little cloud.

Blue and white. And pink feet.

An old ship's anchor serves as a handy perch. Cold underfoot, though.

Logs are warmer.

After a spell of warmer weather, we're back to freezing. The temperature is supposed to drop to 9°C. tonight. My Johnny-jump-ups, that managed to bloom under snow, have frozen solid.

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 Hoy fue uno de esos dias en que hay que abandonar los planes hechos e ir a sentarse en la playa. Hace demasiado frio para quedarse largo rato, demasiado frio para caminar mucho, pero el sol brillaba con fuerza. El cielo, el mar, y hasta los cerros distantes; todo lucía un azul puro. El aire frio contiene una menor cantidad de vapor y las nubes habían desaparecido. Allá a lo lejos en el continente, se veían claro las cumbres nevadas de las montañas. Blancos, muy blancos. También lo eran las gaviotas.

Un dia azul y blanco.

Fotos:

1. Vista panorámica; muchas montañas y una nubecita solitaria.
2. Azul y blanco. Y patas color de rosa de una gaviota.
3. Una ancla vieja es un buen sitio de donde contemplar los cielos. Pero será muy frio para esas patitas.
4. Los troncones en la playa no se sienten tan frios.

Después de unos dias en que la temperatura subía, ahora va bajando; nos dicen que esta noche bajará a 9 grados Celsius bajo cero. Mis pensamientos salvajes, que pudieron florecer todo el invierno aun cubiertos de nieve, ahora se han congelado por completo.

Baby-blue chiton

The sun came out!

I walked on the shore at high tide, following the line of tossed-up seaweed, looking for kelp and barnacles for my aquarium critters, and empty whelk shells for the hermits; they've been growing and I've noticed them arguing over shells. The old ones are too small.

I found one damaged whelk shell. I was searching the wrong stretches of shore. Each section of the coast and intertidal level has its own unique community.  For whelks and barnacles, I need a lower tide.

But the weekend's stormy seas had ripped up and discarded things I usually only find at the bottom of the intertidal zone.

Mossy chitons, for example. Dead and crab-cleaned. And blue.

Mossy chiton, Mopalia muscosa

This chiton, alive, is covered with stiff, dark bristles, and the shell plates, from above, are dull grey or brown. Creeping over the rocks, it blends into the background.

But the inner shell is a bright blue, the flesh pinkish.

Tide and probably crabs have peeled off much of the outer coating, so even from above, this one is blue.

Another view, on a beached log.

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¡Y salió el sol!

Caminé en la playa, buscando kelp y bálanos para los residentes de mi acuario, y conchas de caracoles marinos para los cangrejos ermitaños que han crecido tanto que ya están peleándose para reclamar conchas que les queden. La marea estaba casi a lo máximo, y no encontré más de una concha, y esa rota. Cada sección de playa y cada zona entre mareas tiene su propia comunidad. Para conchas de estos caracoles, hay que buscar cuando la marea está muy baja.

Pero a causa de las tormentas de los últimos dias, las olas habían arrancado vegetación del fondo, y sus habitantes, y las habían aventado a la parte superior de la playa. Buscando entre las algas y hierbas hecho pedazos y secándose al sol, hallé unos quitones, poliplacóforos, ya muertos y pelados por las olas y los cangrejos.

Y eran azules.

En vida, estos quitones son peludos, con pelo tieso, oscuro, y están cubiertos de una piel de color pardo, que sirve de camuflage. Arrastrándose sobre las rocas, casi desaparecen.

Pero la parte interior de sus ocho placas es de un azul claro, la carne de color de rosa.

Blue sky, blue water

 The view from Baikie Island bridge:

Fall colours, reds, yellows. And deep blues.

The bridge is the access point to Baikie Island. An arm of the Campbell River angles off to encompass the island, and loses itself in calm backwaters and blind pockets.

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Esta es la vista desde el puente que cruza hacia la isla Baikie. Un desvío del rio Campbell le da la vuelta a la isla, y se pierde entre bahías tranquilas y canales donde sube y baja la marea.

A Skywatch post.

Blue

Oyster Bay, on a sunny afternoon:

Canada geese, going places

Old pilings and mainland peaks

Canada geese, on the way, honking as they go.

About those pilings, tomorrow.

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Azul. Una tarde asoleada desde Oyster Bay.

Los pájaros son gansos de Canadá, Branta canadensis. La vista es del estrecho de Georgia, y las montañas del continente.

Esos pilotes todo cubiertos de mejillones, mañana.

2020!

So here we are. 2020. It's just gone midnight here; we're late to the party in slowpoke BC. I know the rest of the world has given up and gone to bed already. But we get there, eventually.

So it's 2020. And just last week, wasn't it, I was staying up all night working on my daughter's computer on New Year's Day, 2000? Seems like yesterday; seems like a century ago. Time's a funny thing.

Anyhow, here's to 2020! Wishing you a good year; wishing you courage, wisdom, and fortitude: we're going to need it.

From my windowsill while it blew and stormed outside.

Study in blues

On a grey afternoon, with rain clouds.

Even the fishermen's boat is blue.

Island blues

The tide was low; so were the clouds, and the light was blue. I walked on Stories Beach.

Looking north, over Quadra Island to the mainland mountains.

Looking east. The clouds are sitting right on the water. Mitlenatch Island on the far right.

In spite of the clouds, the occasional raindrop, and the almost invisible sun, it was warm. I left my jacket in the car.

A Skywatch post

Palest blues

Oyster Bay at mid tide.

From the new tip of the sandbar, looking east over the tide flats to the breakwater. Mitlenatch Island in the background, at mid-Strait.

Incoming tides swirl around counter-clockwise, then reverse when they cross the inner leg of the bar, making these wavy indentations in the sandbar.

Deep blue sea

This morning, the ocean was calm and a strong, primary blue; I watched it as I drove along an upper level street. This afternoon, from the same vantage point, the sea was pale, silvery grey, and corrugated; by sunset (after 9:00) it had picked up lilac tints.

Every time I see it, it's wearing a different face.

In a ruffled mood. A rich, deep blue, with green tints. Off Oyster Bay.

Half an hour later, still choppy. With bird, tug, and barge.

Splash!

Same location, same time, four days earlier, with drifting kelp.

Oh, so blue!

When I set my photo processing program to the sunlight setting, it adds a yellow or reddish tinge to everything. Why, then, when the sun shines brightly, are we surrounded by blue?

Taking the dog for a paddle. Saratoga Beach

I switch back to "as shot". Sea and sky play with blue. The reds and yellows can stay on dry land.

Bare rock mini-islet somewhere out in the channel.

The sun sends us white light, a blend of wavelengths, visible and invisible (to our eyes; birds and bugs see things we can't.) The gas molecules in the atmosphere ignore the long wavelength rays, like red and yellow, letting them pass by on their way to land, and grab onto the blues and bounce them all over the sky. So we see the blue everywhere when we look at the sky.

Just before sunset, last February.

Near the horizon the light has travelled further to reach us, and some of the blue has been scattered off in other directions, so the sky looks paler. At sunset, pollutants and salt crystals (over the ocean) filter out even more of the blue.

Quadra Island lighthouse, July. The mountains in the distance are blue, too.

I always thought the sea just reflected the sky. Or vice-versa, maybe. I was wrong. The sea processes light differently. The water absorbs the warmer colours, and rejects the blue, bouncing it back into our eyes.

Rainy day over Tyee Spit. What little warmth arrived in the light that has percolated through the clouds highlights the dry grass.

The evergreens that cover our hills produce aromatic terpenes that form small particles in the atmosphere, and these also scatter blue light, seen better from a distance. (Up close, the trees are green.)

Saratoga Beach, with distant kayakers. Blue sky, blue mountains, blue water. Red kayaks.

Kite, over Tyee Spit last week. Looking almost straight up, the sky becomes deep, deep blue.

Something to ponder: when I look at the water, from the docks, for example, it is usually blue or blue-silver. But if I'm looking straight down into the water, it is often a deep green. Why is that?

A helpful article on this topic is "Why is the Sky Blue?" by Philip Gibbs. Also, see a briefer explanation on Scientific American.

A Skywatch post.

Very blue

Flowers so blue that the name of the shrub just had to be "blue blossom".

Ceanothys thyrsiflorus, aka California lilac. Native to California and Oregon, common here.

The lilacs have bloomed and faded. Now, the blue blossom takes over and will bloom through June. The blue is more intense, the tree denser than the lilacs. But they don't perfume the neighbourhood like a lilac does. 

A few other tidbits of information about Ceanothus thyrsiflorus: the blue flowers can be used to make a green dye (though why green rather than blue?), and all parts of the plant can be crushed and worked into a lather to use as a gentle soap, as the plant contains saponins. (From UBC Botanical Garden)

And butterflies and bees love it, too!

So blue

Away from the light pollution of cities, night falls quickly. The last colours to go are on the blue/violet end of the spectrum.

Brown's Bay Marina, 6 PM.

Fish boats, Brown's Bay

Small lights, orange and white, reflecting over water have always carried the connotation, for me, of welcome, food, conversation and warmth. So I was disappointed to find the Brown's Bay restaurant closed for the season. Next visit, I'll carry a bag lunch.

Icy blue birds

In Crescent Beach the snowdrops are flowering already, the bush glows with yellow-green lights. And ice imprisons the sloughs and lines the creeks.

Ice shelf over a thin coat of ice on the running creek.

Captured feathers

Who cares if it's cold? This bushy tree doesn't!

It was low tide, and the wide, muddy beach was covered with sandpipers, flying, feeding, flying again, swooping and flashing their white undersides. They didn't seem to mind us, dropping in to feed almost at our feet, flitting away, swirling back, landing in front of us, just behind us, anywhere, as if we were just more innocuous rocks on the beach.

We took hundreds of photos, peeps flying, feeding, even bathing. But it was so cold - so cold! - that I had no feeling in my fingers, and early on, I brushed against the dial on the camera, turning it to my setting for tank photos. Never noticed, of course; there was no time to check the photos as I took them; just to wildly click, click, click, click, over and over for 200-odd photos. Which all turned out blue, deep, deep blue.

So did the ice, and a cute blue wren, and a deep blue sunset. Blue!

I may be able to rescue one or two.

Blue! Gah!

Orange, blue, ... and pink

Another happy dog, this afternoon on Boundary Bay.

Going places, waving that blonde tail like a flag.

Mmmmm ... salt!

Meanwhile, we wimpy humans bundled up in jackets, tuques, and gloves, and tried to keep our feet dry.

Wordless

Blue

Crescent Beach, Friday afternoon:

At the south end, almost at Kwomais Point

A half-dozen juvenile eagles were soaring over the point. This young couple were especially playful. The one in the rear repeatedly flipped upside-down to fly underneath the other, almost belly to belly.

Wet rocks and waves.

Blue and white and deep, dark grey.

Not blue:

Someone had tied this kelp stipe around and around a leaning alder.

A Skywatch post

Primary colours

At Boundary Bay:

Blue

Blue

And red

More red

Yellow (Cedar waxwing)

Yellow. And pink, on the way back to the car.

The blues

On Reifel Island:

Pair of swallows on a grey snag.

Unidentified tiny pale blue flowers ...

with purple buds in a tight spiral.

More purple than blue in these lupins.

Blue sky, blue water.

Great blue heron. Not really blue.