Fall and Fog

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.




Carl Sandburg

Fall fog arrived this morning, blanketing harbor and city, but forgot to move on. I awoke to its presence early, well before sunrise, as the first ferry of the morning sounded a series of 60-second blasts on its deep-throated horn while it traveled across Discovery Passage. Might as well get up, since the ferry travels back and forth across the channel every 30 minutes, all day. Other horns sounded at random intervals during the morning, and this cacophony of blasts, toots and wails has continued into the afternoon; intermittent and audible, almost routine enough to become a background of white noise to the usual harbor sounds. Routine only until a quick sequence of 5 blasts alerted the entire harbor to a potential problem of some sort. "Danger! Danger!..." it warned of a situation nearby, somewhere just outside the breakwater. Hmmm, what was that about? 




Foggy days have their own beauty, but this morning I really missed the cloudless blue sky and sunshine of yesterday, the last official day of summer. Somewhere after 3:00 pm I looked up and saw a few scattered patches of blue in the sky. The fog had thinned, the day warmed up and I realized this summer to fall transition wasn't so abruptly unpleasant after all. I'm ready to check out some fall color as we drive down island soon.