Sunset Harbor

This is pretty interesting so it gets a post all it’s own…two in one day!!  After we finished our afternoon excursion today, I was walking back to the car and couldn’t resist this scene.  It’s a three image stitched pano of the harbor here in Homer Alaska right at sunset.  I liked the color on the mountains behind, of course, but also the mass of confusion amongst the boats.  It gives you a real idea of what it’s like – this is a real working harbor!  One of the more fascinating things about this area is the amount of swing there is in the rising and lowering of the tides.  They may range from a high tide of +25 feet (!!) to a low, later in the day of 0 to -3 feet!!  That’s a swing of up to 28 feet.  If you click on the image and look closely at the walk bridge on the far right hand side, you’ll see it’s slanting down at a pretty steep angle.  That’s the walk to get from the parking lot down to the docks themselves.  Three hours earlier, when we boarded our boats that bridge was pretty darn near flat because we had just had high tide.  Now it’s on it’s way down to low tide.  All those tall posts with the pointy white caps just three hours before were almost submerged!  Everything at the docks is made to rise and fall with the tides.