Amazing Sky

 

Lots of heavy weather as of late ...

 and then you get something like this!

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SkyWatch Friday

Scenic Sunday and Weekend Reflections

 A mercury sky on an outbound tide!

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Scenic Sunday and Weekend Reflections

SkyWatch Friday ~ Extreme Weather

Last night, this was the weather system sitting over top of us. Winds blowing 70 to 90 km/h with gusts to 130 km/h and I can assure you there were lots of gusts at 130 km/h.  Despite the winds the cabin remained sound.

This mornings sunrise(?) saw the tailend of the overnight hurricane force winds but brought with it an unstable southwest weather system.

We are also experiencing extreme tides.  Yesterday we had a 25' 3" high tide (about 16" over our usual high tides and the low was a "0" tide(usually it is 3 to 4 ft.)

 High tide was at 2:53 PDT today.  If we had been experiencing last nights winds during this tide there would have been a 1 to 3 ft surge and the waves would have breached the dunes. 

 As it turned out the winds calmed before high tide and the waves just scoured the beach of logs.

Still photos do no justice to the power of the ocean.  Tlell is on the east side of Haida Gwaii about 100 km from mainland British Columbia so we don't get monumental surf but watching these waves form and watching what they do to the beach gives one a glimpse of what being on the ocean is like.

By the time the tide started to ebb and I headed back to the cabin there was no time to lose as another weather system was moving in. This is my Friday skywatching!

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Our World Tuesday ~ Agates

 One of the many activities that visitors and Haida Gwaiians like to do on island is to search for agates.  "Agate is a microcrystalline variety of silica, chiefly chalcedony, characterised by its fineness of grain and brightness of color. Although agates may be found in various kinds of rock, they are classically associated with volcanic rocks and can be common in certain metamorphic rocks."(from Wikipedia).   Agates are a result of gas bubbles in lava.  As the lava cools the gas escapes leaving a cavity.

 Silica in solution seeps into the cavity and forms layers, gradually filling the cavity.  As erosion by wind and water occurs the agate or nodule is released. Agate is translucent and relatively hard.

 It shows up in various sizes and colours here on Haida Gwaii.  In the photo above the big rock is opaque while the agates are translucent.  The density of agates is considerably lighter than "normal rock".

 Most agates found on Haida Gwaii are the size of the little ones in the forground but occasionally after a good storm some big ones will wash up on shore.  The agate on the left weighs in at 6lb 2 oz and is currently being looked at for possible cutting to see what is inside.  (My orange crock is size 11 for size comparison!)

 This beautiful opal geode(a form of agate and quite possibly what the other big agate is) I found last week after one of our big storms.  

 In this case the nodule did not fill with silica before it was released from it's birthplace so crystals formed in the open space. You can see the layers of silica that formed to make this the agate.

 The is the source of most of agates found on Haida Gwaii, Tow Hill.  Tow Hill is the the lava flow of an ancient volcano.  The left side of the volcano has eroded into the sea exposing the dolomite columns.  As the sea batters and erodes the exposed dolomite nodules or agates are released to be tumbled and washed ashore on the beach.

This beach, within Naikoon Provincial Park is called Agate Beach for a reason!  The two large agates I found come from ancient volcanic activity south of Tlell.

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Our World Tuesday

Wordless Wednesday ~ A picture perfect evening...

Picture perfect evening!

Wordless Wednesday

SkyWatch Friday ~ If you don't like the weather just wait 15 minutes!

 There is a saying on Haida Gwaii that is frequently repeated and very true.. "if you don't like the weather just wait 15 minutes".

 Haida Gwaii is a place of micro climates and influenced largely by the winds and the ocean so change is rapid and frequent.

 Our daily walks are generally an hour long and cover a three kilometer circuit travelling north along the beach to Naikoon Provincial Park, walking inland through Misty Meadows and  

 then coming out to return along the edge of the dunes.  In the course of the walk we went from ebbing cool overcast skies to warm blue skies and then it rained all afternoon and evening!

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SkyWatch Friday ~ Good Friday

This feels like a Good Friday sky. 

Have a wonderful long weekend everyone.

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SkyWatch Friday ~ "Not a Sky in the Cloud"

The calendar says it's summer but the weather definately has an autumn edge to it and in Tlell, Haida Gwaii, British Columbia the weather is in your face!  Located on the west coast of Canada our weather is wet and moderate with temperatures ranging between 0*C and 20*C year round.  Being located on the east coast of Haida Gwaii means you get the full force of our prevailing weather which blows out of the southeast.  As you can see "Tlellians" have a sense of humour when it comes to the weather.

View Tlell, BC V0T in a larger map, the blue thing is where the cabin is located.

Tlell(a Haida word meaning "where big waters meet") has no real town centre, it is a collection of homes and properties stretched out along Highway 16 for about 20 kms. There is a post office, a small store that sells groceries, liquor and rents videos, a bakery/cafe, three artisan shops, a prize winning cattle breeder/ranch/feed store/veterinary and a collection of about three hundred eclectic souls.

As you can see from the map it runs along the coast with the Tlell River and Skidegate Plateau covering its back to the west.  The road along the coast has been eroded away in places several times however there are no plans to replace it should it wash away.  The one thing you learn when you live on the coast is that you can not beat Mother Nature!

We are waiting for the tin roof for the cabin which has to come from "off" island so work is at a stand still.  This photo is taken from the beach overlooking the dunes.  The cabin  is backed by a mature spruce forest and nestled in the new growth or "regen" at the edge of the forest.  The weather comes in from where this photo is taken.  Yesterday morning there was a fog dome over the cabin!

Morning sun burning of the fog

The Tlell River is what is known as a tidal river.  We have two high tides and two low tides every day.  On the new and full moon we can have tides as high as 24 ft and low tides below sea level, known as minus tides.  Several times a year we have these extreme tides and this new moon brought 24 foot tides.  The picture above is the Tlell River when it is flooded by a big tide, which reverses the flow of the river for several kms up stream.  The actual river bed in this photo is right along the tree line.  If you look carefully or enlarge the photo you can see the fencing for the cattle and if you look at the map you can see where the flooding occurs on the river .  If these high tides occur when we are having "weather" surges can add several feet to the tides and cause homes to be washed away, extreme shoreline erosion and road loss.  Last big storm when that happened was Christmas Eve day 2003.

 The weather has been chaotic this week with a huge southest storm on Friday/Saturday that saw driving rains and winds gusting to nearly 90 kph.  With the winds come huge surf which tears up the bottom of the ocean and brings all matter of things ashore.  In this case it is seaweed which we will harvest for the garden.  This was taken Monday just after the big storm.

The clouds they are a building!

As the day wore on the weather moved in, bringing amazing clouds, sheets of rain

and amazing colours.  The previous photos are looking north along the coast.

Despite the weather fisherpersons where out in full force to try there luck at catching coho salmon.  This is the most people I have seen on this beach ever!  This is looking south.

More rainbows this week than I have seen in all my time on these islands.  Looking north.

At the end of some days there were these beautiful sunsets with amazing colour.

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SkyWatch Friday ~ Autumn evening

I was sitting at the window table answering emails last evening when I looked up and saw a beautiful sunset evolving.

It was a beautiful evening for a walk, 18*C and calm.  From the dune the northeast sky was just starting to colour and a loon was calling from the ocean.

I walked through the forest to the road to witness the last of the setting sun.

From the dark the sound of geese and sandhill cranes lingered on the air....migration has started.

A walk back to the dunes through a neighbours property offered this wonderful view and the view below is the view in front of the cabin.  (For more detail click on photos, especially the bottom one, to see the whale eye!)

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