On my last day in Halifax before I moved westward, I sat one last time at the end of Point Pleasant Park, watching the water, gulls, sailboats, breathing in the salt air tinged with the scent of seaweed, listening to waves lapping on the shore, birds calling in the sky, the whispering of the slight wind in the trees. It was a very hot day, with a deep blue sky, a few puffy clouds, and the breeze was refreshing. Past McNab’s Island, at the mouth of the harbour, sat a huge wall of white. Fog. As long as the sun was high and beating down with full force on the land, the fog had no purchase. It was relegated to sitting patiently out on the cooler water mass, biding its time until the enviable happened. The sun began to loosen its grip on the land as it lowered in the sky. The fog seized its opportunity. Tendrils of white began to tentatively reach out towards land. As heat resistance continued to fade, it began moving in with more confidence. The Bluenose headed out, in full sail, and looked like a ghost ship floating through a mass of white. Soon, visibility was reduced to the distance of the length of one’s arm, sound was heavily muffled and the world disappeared. It was a magical experience and a wonderful sendoff from a place I loved.
The coast is often like this. Days that are hot and clear can suddenly change at the end of day. And so have been our sunsets at the cottage so far. We have been having hot and hazy days. Puffy clouds move along the horizon, as they do here in summer, and the sun moves through the sky, unobstructed for the most part. But, as magic hour approaches, cloud banks form on the horizon and grow as the sun continues to lower. Instead of specular bidding of goodnight’s, the sun has being quietly retiring, slipping unremarkably behind the cloud. Occasionally, we see some glimmers of colour, setting off the quiet lavenders of day fading into evening.
High tide and calm water at Saturday’s end had a number of boaters tied together out in the channel, talking, some with fishing rods in the water, socializing in a unique circumstance.
