Fog

Fog is an incredible force of nature. I stand in awe of it. It has the ability to appear and disappear without warning, and inevitably does both at the worst possible moment. Today I got up at 7:30 (that's early for out here--it's barely even light at that time) to go start work on the seal rookery. I had a lot to do today. It was foggy. I knew it was foggy when I left the house. It's been foggy for days, this came as no surprise to me. I went to the rookery anyway. On the 10 minute 4-wheeler ride to the south side of the island, I saw little or nothing. I still wasn't worried, as the fog is often thinner at the water's edge, and it's not like I need to be able to see for miles in order to work. I hiked out to the rookery and found that I could in fact see enough to start my work without too much trouble. It was going to take longer than usual, but I could do it. Fast forward 30 minutes. I abruptly became aware of the fact that I was having more difficulting seeing the seals. I looked around and discovered that I couldn't even see the ocean anymore. This is not a good sign when you're sitting on the edge of a cliff overlooking the water 35 feet below. I struggled through the section I was working on and promptly headed home. On the way back, I would have driven by the airport unaware of the fact that there was a runway if it weren't for the sign a few feet off the road. I returned to the village (where, of course, it wasn't foggy) to get some food. The rest of the day consisted of all of us (who have been unable to do the work that's been piling up over the last few days) sitting around and admiring the fact that we couldn't see anything. Then, at 9:15 pm, one of our housemates walked in and asked if we'd looked out the window. For the first time in five days we could see the cliffline all the way down the north coast of the island. It was an incredible sight. I could swear that moments before there had been nothing but hazy whiteness everywhere. We all started to wonder if we could get any work done before the light was gone. 45 minutes later, I could barely see the next building down from our house.