Fog

Leaving behind a hot and humid Halifax, driving south through the Annapolis Valley dotted with little towns, we have now arrived at Sandy Cove, Nova Scotia, our home for the next six days.

Passing through the fierce heat of the small University town of Wolfville, experiencing the friendliness of the Digby Atlantic Superstore, we were eventually greeted with the promises of a few Sandy Cove residents who all promised to attend church on Sunday. (More on church in a few days.)

Our host had aired out our rectory accommodation, a mid-nineteenth century old house beautifully maintained and very comfortable. OK, it was still rather hot . . . but then the fog rolled in . . . and it is still settled inland, and is projected to remain so until Monday shortly before our departure. For a moment as the sky dimmed and the temperature dropped, I thought another solar eclipse was upon us; the relief from heat was however welcome.

I have a long relationship with fog. I grew up with fog on the other edge of the country, in Victoria. As a child, I remember the soothing sound of the fog horns from the Trial Island lighthouse. The long rumbling howl of the horns was followed by a harrumph. While the interval of the light was specific to the location, the fog horns simply gravelled on, hour by hour, to warn of rocks and inshore hazards.

Years later one could still tour the Sheringham Point Lighthouse near Sooke where two massive diesel-powered compressors fueled the sea-directed horns. Everything is digital now, an effect hugely inferior to the good old fashioned howling horns. When the fog descended on my childhood home in Victoria, everything quieted down, except for the horns themselves. It was calming and, in a way, lovely.

Regardless of location, fog is inevitable where moisture meets land. Fog shows up when water vapor, or water in its gaseous form, condenses. During condensation, molecules of water vapor combine to make tiny liquid water droplets that hang in the air. You can see fog because of these tiny water droplets. Water vapor, a gas, is invisible. [Wiki]

Years ago in Lima, Peru, a large city poised on the western coast of South America and given the peculiar climate setting where the winds bring warm air from the high Andes down to sea level over Lima, the air is always foggy and the sky drizzly. One wag from our group suggested this was why the Inca worshipped the Sun God. They never saw the sun.

During mid-summer months bobbing up and down in a small fishing boat off Whiffen Spit in Sooke with a member congregation member we always needed to be very careful of fog. In a matter of minutes we would move from the comfort of glorious sunshine to a thick blanketing and potentially dangerous fog.

Fog is every photographer’s dream. Fog captures and refracts light, light in all colours of the visual spectrum. Fog creates mystery and magic for the heart and eye.

Finally, fog finds its place in music.

A foggy day in London Town
Had me low and had me down
I viewed the morning with such alarm
British Museum had lost its charm
How long, I wondered, could this thing last
But the age of miracles hadn’t passed
For, suddenly, I saw you there
And through foggy London Town
The sun was shining everywhere

Well, as I write, the sun is not shining here in Sandy Cove. In fact, the fog has now given way to torrential rain. And the rain came tumbling down.