Porter in the Morning

Porter Bay, Vermont

We love this spot as a weekday anchorage. In the first place, we have the whole bay to ourselves. No other occupied boats are around. Second, the bay is so well sheltered that the water and the air are normally very still. Third, there is abundant wildlife in the water and on the shore. At dusk we see deer come down to drink from the lake. A doe and her fawn came within 100 feet of us.

The mornings in the bay are also very pleasant. Today, for the first time this summer, I came up on deck to find ourselves wrapped in dense fog. It was damp and chilly, so I went back below to get a sweat shirt.

At first, the horizontal visibility was only 50 feet. However, looking straight up I could clearly see blue sky. That means that the fog is a thin blanket overlying the surface. It won't take long for the sun to burn it off.

The sun appears as a fuzzy bright spot in the gray. One can look right at it without squinting. (Probably foolish.)

True enough, in less than 10 minutes visibility increased to a half mile. Then it closed in again. Now, 20 minutes later I can see the mountains on the far shore, perhaps 3 miles away. I can also start to feel the warmth of the sun's rays; a sign that the infrared frequencies are penetrating. Off comes the sweat shirt already. Obviously, the fog on Lake Champlain has nowhere near the body and substance of fog such as that encountered in Maine.

A special thrill from the mornings in Porter Bay are the really loud splashes one hears every 5 minutes or so. Ever time I hear one nearby, I whip my head around trying to see that did it. I've never yet heard it. The splashes are really loud as if a big salmon jumped or that Champ himself was frolicking in the bay. My conclusion though it that it is a bird. Besides the gulls and the cormorants, and ducks and numerous geese, we have osprey and eagles that hunt for prey here in the bay. We also have a half dozen great blue herons in the bay, but they don't splash much. I suspect though that the splashes are really caused by a kingfisher. There are numerous kingfishers around here, but I have never personally seen one hover and dive. I'd love to experience that some day. (p.s. Flash update. As I wrote this post, a big fish about 18 inches long just jumped near the shore and made that same splashing sound -- so much for my theories.)

As I enjoyed this nature I also enjoyed reading a copy of last week's Wall Street Journal. I read of a stunning milestone in the advancement of technology. CBS just places an ad in Entertainment Weekly that put a screen and electronics on the printed page that is able to place 40 minutes of video clips. WOW! The article said that the cost per copy of the ad were in the "high teens", so this ad must be an experiment, and not something that will be commonplace overnight; but still WOW!. As a final note, the article mentioned that other experiments included a lick able ad (yuck) to promote a flavor. In 2005 another experimental print ad could produce audio. That resulted in an incident in a Manhattan court room when a juror's copy of the magazine suddenly started playing Elvis' rendition of Blue Suede Shoes during a trial. Hee hee.