Fog, Again

Moisture laden air is not unknown in the Florida Keys though usually we see it as oxidation on metal surfaces as salt air eats everything in sight. Every now and again we see actual fog, and when I out the word fog into the search function at the top of this page I got back half a dozen photo essays on the subject dating back to 2008. Like this one: Fog 2011  I got some rather decent photos I think, though I say so myself on my half a mega pixel android phone. I mention all this because fog has descended once again onto the Keys to the usual chorus of shock horror  and "this never happens here!"

It was warm yesterday morning and humid when I stepped out of the house at four in the morning to "check the mail" with Rusty. On my work days he likes to walk to the end of the street and poke around where the dogs from Venture Out trailer park have been walked the previous day. It is a lovely peaceful start to the day after the jangling of the alarm clock has been forgotten. Spanish Main is a major side street a mile long pointing due north at Highway One in the distance. Turn left and it's 23 miles to Key West and  turn right to drive 27 miles west  to Marathon.

My decision to pull over at the Sugarloaf Lodge (Mile Marker 17) was prompted by the fact that fog was still hanging around and I hoped for some atmospheric pictures in the low light conditions at the lodge, a pool of street lights on a darkened highway. 

This one below I liked as it looked like a film set, moisture laden air swirling under exotic palm fronds....Yes I know it's just the marina at Sugarloaf but I did allow myself to use my imagination just a bit.

There was a vacancy at the lodge but I had to be at work in 40 minutes and I wanted to stop on North Roosevelt and get a few more pictures of the fog in the city.

That never happened. I got stuck behind a long line of cars that decided they were unable to manage the hairy driving conditions and we crawled across the mangroves at a stately 45 miles per hour which put my arival time at the police station dead on ten to six when I like to be sitting down already.  I barely had time to put the kettle on before I took over from night shift.

Well I suppose that's all the fog excitement we shall see for the next year or two in the keys. That being the case I might not see it again, so I'm glad I stopped when I did. It was all gone by the time the sun came up around 6:30 and I had my first cup of tea.

Fog And A Dog In Old Town

I took these pictures earlier this week, after work and with Cheyenne who loves the cool of winter. She was on a mission to lead me on a forced march through the deserted streets. It was between two and three in the morning, and despite the fog which we associate with cold clamminess I walked behind her in shirt sleeves, torn between snapping pictures and keeping up. From time to time she stopped to look back at me balefully wondering what the hold up was.

The picture taking was frustrating, partly because the dog, whose walk this was, wouldn't slow down and sniff something to give me time to frame a picture, but also because the fog took the edge off everything. I felt as though I couldn't get anything in focus.

There she is, looking at me demanding to know why I can't get a move on:

From Charlie's Grocery she led me straight down the lane to Bill Butler Park.

And on past the usual collection of lovely Key West homes and their greenery.

Classic Florida louvered shutters:

I just followed...

...my Labrador. I was her shadow for a change. There she is in a feeble pool of light, waiting for slowpoke:

 

 

 

A lone cyclist wrong way on Olivia flashed a light at me as though I were in danger of not spotting her and running her down; literally as I was still on foot.

She was panting like a steam engine after an hour of this, 14 years old and unstoppable. Every day I am grateful for her. How else would I see the world through her amazing eyes?

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Marine Inversion Layer

Fog is not unknown in the Florida Keys, land of perpetual sunshine. But, like the occasional winter cold snap it is rare enough to cause comment. As a general rule I am not fond of fog. It combines the worst meteorological elements all into one. It's cold wet and it mutes sound and destroys visibility and if you're on the water or on the road it makes the simplest journey disorienting and at worst dangerous. I have no appreciation for its artistic enhancements of daily life.

Actually I have some night time pictures of Old a Town I will post later and as reluctant as I am to write it, the fog does look...interesting. But on my way home in the middle of the night driving home from a short shift the fog was surprisingly thick and impenetrable. I was in the car because Cheyenne wanted to come into town with me so I let her wait in the car, not her favorite place, while I worked.

By the time my Labrador got her reward, an hour long walk through Old Town, I was ready for bed none of which drowsiness helped me on the twenty mile drive home. I don't think the photographs display adequately the utter darkness surrounding the outer edges of the wall of white cotton wool that lay just out of reach of the head and fog lights on the Fusion. I was reminded of driving home after Hurricane Wilma wrecked Key West in 2005.

I half expected to see wrecked boats driven onto the road by the storm and abandoned on their sides by the retreating waters, left on the highway in the dark like beached whales. Instead this time around the road was clear except for a few cars who drove like maniacs. Believe me when I tell you I crawled home, well under the speed limit, mesmerized by the curtain always in front always out of reach. My speed would increase gradually to a maniacal fifty miles an hour when I would come out of my trance and quickly slow down. One of the axioms of safe riding is to only go as fast as you can see. Last night I could see 35 miles per hour. Others apparently had x-ray vision for of the few cars I saw in either direction all were traveling at normal speeds. I pulled over several times to let them go (a courtesy I wish would be reciprocated to me but never is) and was astonished none of them wrecked.

During the day this bizarre fog makes the Keys look like a California summer day. The cloud hangs low over the water, the penetrates it here and there and the air is crisp and unnaturally cold. All I can think of is standing on the cliffs in Santa Cruz looking out over the roiling Pacific Ocean and wishing I were in a warm place. Fog changes everything, and not for the better, no matter how artistic I think I may want to be. Fog sucks.

 

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Fog

Yesterday we awoke to fog, a Keys phenomenon not unknown but rare enough.An early morning walk with Cheyenne produced a dawn that looked like something out of Africa. Cheyenne and I usually go to the Pool on north Ramrod Key when I get home at 6:30. yesterday we hardly knew the place in the mangroves.

Apparently this is a pocket of mixed warn and cold air preceding a cold front, a storm that has undoubtedly dropped snow Up North this week.The Serengeti Plains:We met a neighbor with her family's two greyhounds; they came and went from the fog and back into it.

It looked other worldly.

The sky was clear to the south and east where the sun was coming up.

In the midst of all this aerial dampness I found this spider's web.After my customary morning sleep Cheyenne and I went into town. One of my water pumps has failed, according to Wayne who tore the cistern pumping system apart, and i took the pump to the shop for a check up in Key west. The weather was ominous on the way in.

The fog was hanging overhead as we crossed Boca Chica Key.North Roosevelt Boulevard looked like a different place.

Amazingly enough some idiots forgot to turn their lights on.

Garrison Bight Marina looked like it belonged in Scotland or some other frigid misty isle someplace.

The view from the top of the Palm Avenue Bridge

By five thirty yesterday evening the fog was lower and thicker than ever. Here we are back on Boca Chica headed north.

As darkness crept down over the long slow line of cars traffic moved slower and slower as though mesmerized. The power of Nature, a wonderful thing, and a reminder we are in it's thrall.

Marine Inversion

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather synopsis for Key West:

SATELLITE IMAGES DEPICT SUBSTANTIAL SEA FOG JUST NORTH AND WEST OF THE LOWER KEYS. A LIGHT NORTHERLY BREEZE SHOULD ADVECT THIS SEA FOG OVER THE MIDDLE AND LOWER KEYS THIS EVENING AND EARLY TONIGHT. HOWEVER...THE LATEST DATA INDICATES A LIGHT EAST TO SOUTHEAST BREEZE DEVELOPING LATE TONIGHT...WHICH WOULD PUSH THE SEA FOG BACK TO THE NORTH AND WEST OF THE MIDDLE AND LOWER KEYS. THEREFORE...THE DENSE FOG ADVISORY IS NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL ONLY 400 AM SATURDAY FOR THE MIDDLE AND LOWER KEYS.I looked west as I rode into town and below the setting sun, bright in my eyes, I saw a bank of fog. Hmm I thought as I slipped onto Stock Island wedged in between rows of cars jockeying for position at the triangle. Hmm, this looks like a genuine California marine inversion layer, and I felt a cool blast of air hit my chest as I rode under the gray bank of cloud. It felt just like a summer day in Northern California. Behind me was the sun:In front it looked like the Sunset district of San Francisco:For me it was deja vu, for others it was an opportunity to get home without too much sweat:Or to get some exercise in an unaccustomed cool breeze taming the afternoon heat:When I got to work I talked to Noel who is certainly not used to these conditions, and he was marveling at how cool the air was on his skin. "Refreshing" he marveled. Out on the water it looked weird in a town used to unending vistas of blue skies and blue water:I was meeting my wife for cafe con leche in Searstown, at the end of her work day and the beginning of mine, and we marveled at how much the low ceiling sea fog reminded us of Santa Cruz, California.We neither of us liked it much, as we are both fans of crisp unadulterated sunshine, but like all less-than-perfect-weather in Key West, we know it will pass soon enough. It is a trial working police dispatch into the night though as the officers are grumbling at the lack of visibility and unaccustomed burden of "bad" weather:
It's not a blizzard or anything, I know that, but it is a bit weird when you're in the police station and can't actually see the fire station next door. I'm glad this is a temporary phenomenon.