Deep Freeze
When the water temperature hovers in the 40s and the air temperature dips down below zero, the bay begins to steam with sea smoke. Once or twice I’ve run RAVEN in conditions like this and it is daunting, inducing sensory overload. Not at all like fog that settles down upon you, sea smoke rises out of the water, wafting silently upward into the strangely altered, glowing silver sky. It is entrancing.
But immediate danger lies within this beauty. When it’s this cold you make sure to take no chances…none whatsoever, other than going out in the first place. One slip, one significant miscalculation, and you are in a world of trouble. At this time of year, there is nobody else out there, nobody likely to hear a call for help, much less act upon one.
Staying, perforce, on one’s toes and being hyper-aware is intensely stimulating. As is, of course, the exquisite light cloaking the present danger.
