Home Again Miscellany

Oooh look, it's pouring down rain out there. No, now there's blue showing through, and a rainbow in front of the clouds due north. (The sun is so low in the sky all the time now, we get rainbows any time of day, in nearly any direction.)

As I headed back from Elwha yesterday afternoon, Mt Baker was huge and looming on the horizon, and coming down the hill from the library I could see there was a red ship out in the harbor. Apparently red ships are especially irresistible (1); I whizzed out onto Ediz Hook as soon as I'd collected mail and library books.

Maritime Tuntiga, with HMS2000 and tug (click for larger image)

A tug and the oil barge HMS 2000 were doing something to Aurora Tankers' Maritime Tuntiga. She is or was Chinese ('Dalian Shipyard, Dalian, People's Republic of China; TUNTIGA NAVIGATIION COMPANY LIMITED, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China'), a chemical carrier. She has a big warning sign painted on the side of the superstructure which reads,

DANGEROUS CARGO
NO NAKED LIGHT
NO SMOKING
NO VISITORS

From out on the Hook, Victoria very clear on the other side of the Strait,

Victoria over there; note the ferry almost all the way across. (click for larger image)
and Mt. Baker reduced to a white bump on the horizon. As to ducks, buffleheads and Barrow's Goldeneyes. And black turnstones.