Sea Captain Skies

FTLComm - Kinistino - April 28, 2001

The power of the West wind shapes the lives of all those to stand and face it. For dacades my father worked outside dealing with elements everyday as part of his job and though heat and cold had to be respected, the wind was never a friend, always a relentless and torturing enemy. The old saying about a red sky at night being a sailor's delight is one of the few roles ever, where people loved the wind. When sailing ships ruled the oceans carrying goods and people hither and yon it was the strength of a steady wind that put smiles on the faces of the sea captains. That wind would get them home faster and thus cheat death one more time as the perils of travel at sea then and now, when relying on the wind alone for motivation, have always be great. The picture at the top of the page shows some cirrus cloud miles above the ground and some alto cummulus also far beyond our reach. These clouds in the high atmosphere are collections of ice crystals and though this picture failed to capture the very subtle halo, this picture was actual taken to try and catch a glimpse of the sun dogs that were visible to the eye but not, unfortunately, to the camera. Sun dogs in spring are most rare as water vapour frozen high in the atmosphere is a normally a winter thing. Between Melfort and Kinistino huge flocks of migratories were making their way North Friday afternoon aided by a steady South surface wind. These flocks were hustling along right at the height of the high line electrical transmission towers.

Coming down 2nd Avenue in Prince Albert at 8:30 the sun was just heading over the horizon and the particles in the atmosphere from the high winds aloft told the story of winds for the night and perhaps the coming day as a large weather system seems to have taken hold of this part of the world and the Jetstream high above picks up speed and gives us a red sailors delight sunset.