Life's a Coast

What might deceptively look like a big "fish" in the above video is actually a Florida air-breathing mammal that goes by the name of the West Indian Manatee, also known as "sea cows", said to be a relative of elephants. Notice about half way into the video it grabs a breath of air. The size of the manatee in this video may be deceiving, as it was about six feet long, but they grow to be much larger. There are supposed to be lots of manatees in the intracoastal waters, and the area at the north end of the boardwalk where we capture the sunset videos is a "no wake" zone where boats have to slow to a crawl to avoid hitting "sea cows". However, to actually see one like this is a very rare occurrence, and this was in fact the first time in our twelve years of residing here that we had ever sighted one. So, with the repeat performance of yet another cloudy gray overcast sunset, there was considerable deliberations as to whether or not to go over to the intracoastal boardwalk to see what was going on, or to just walk over to the tiki bar and watch the (lack of a) sunset from there, commiserating with the local yocals about the rotten weather here over the last year, although toasting to the lack of hurricanes last year. Anyway, for some unusual reason, the video guy opted to hit the boardwalk to see what was going on, and we lucked out catching our first video of a manatee. Things have been kinda boring here with the prolonged lousy weather, so you'll have to excuse our enthusiasm about seeing some big ole cow of the sea swimming along...

The customary warm sunshine that we were blessed with for the last several cold days was noticeably absent today, mostly cloudy all day long, with only occasional teasing bursts of brightness that hinted that the sun was up there somewhere. High temp was somewhere aroud the mid 60's, but at least the air was still, no sign of a breeze, so there was no wind chill dragging down the "feels like". Still, blading or biking of course did invoke a bit of a chill, so not much exercise today either, had to settle for long walks on the beach and mostly staying inside and working on our other blogs and websites, kind of like a snow day up north. Looking forward to weekend, supposed to get back up to near normal temps, just in time for the "in-landers" to invade our beach...

Ok, this is Tuesday, and the temps today were quite chilly with a breif high in the low 60's, so we are still in the throes of a recent cold front that moved into the area that has not yet had time to move out and we have yet another cold(er) front moving in tonight to drop the temps into the low 40's again, a repeat of Sunday, which was a repeat of Friday, and so on backwards for how long we can't remember. Global cooling? No, just a cold winter from a stronger than normal El Nino (caused by warmer than ever water temps in the equatorial Pacific), which proves out with the typical extra cold and "moisture" in the midwestern, southern, and eastern U.S., and warmer temps and less moisture along the western seaboard of the U.S. (standard with El Ninos), all of which has been evident from the "Snowmageddon" news stories in the midwest, south, and east along with the reports from the northwest where the Winter Olympics are seeing higher than normal temps with the trees blooming already and melting snow such that they are trucking in tons of the white stuff. Take that dose of reality you climate change deniers, and stop hypocritically ho-ho-hoing about what is simply the normal effects of a strong El Nino phenomenon coupled with blocked Atlantic highs which are caused by cooler water temperatures from the ice melt of the ice sheets and glaciers in nearby Greenland and Iceland due to the documented global rise in temperatures. Remember that we had above normal summer-like historic record heat last year as recently as December, just before the January El Nino "Deep Freeze" set in...

At the close of a sunny but very chilly Valentine's Day, the wind had laid at sunset, and the temps had started the overnight plummet from the low 60's into the low 50's. Not quite as bad as this morning when it plunged all the way down into the low 40's with a bit of a wind chill on top of that. A merciless winter here, almost too cold to get out during the day unless bundled up with layers of heavy clothing, looking forward to summer when we can get back to shorts, flip flops, and a thin t-shirt (or not).

There is a phrase that the NWS uses, "a light chop on the intracoastal waterway", that describes the conditions this evening to some extent, but there is a better description more fitting for this unusual occurrence of choppy waves on the waterway, that of "whitecaps on the ocean" where Jimmy Buffett sings that "it's time to close the shutters, time to go inside" because there is a storm coming, in this case a "severe thunderstorm warning" from a rather strong storm front moving in from over the Everglades that would bring in some out of the ordinary summer like storms within the hour, at about the official time of sunset which would produce rather unpleasant conditions in which to attempt to capture a video. So, we give you this video, a little before the onslaught, well before actual sunset, as the front end of the clouds from the storm have moved into the area. Quite abnormal for this time of year, but quite in line with the unusual weather conditions of the last year or so. Frankly, we locals are getting tired of the incessant wind, clouds, and cold; but, as we check out the northern storms, we do feel fortunate...

Not sure what this form of exercise is called, but these standup paddle craft (they are not surfboards, but appear to be designed for this rowing activity) are often seen on the ocean when the water is calm. At sunset, a cloudy squall line from a cool front was rolling into the area off of the everglades, the southern tail of the major blizzard up along the east coast...

A highly unusual day here today, as we were not blessed with any sunshine at all, an especially rare cloudy-all-day-long day for this time of year. They are talking about some kind of out of the ordinary summer like conditions out in the gulf continuing to roll in from the west over the Everglades, resulting in cloudy, rainy conditions in the middle of our supposedly sunny and warm "dry season".

The above video was captured from the top of the observation tower at Kolb Nature Center in West Lake Park, an expanse of mangrove swamp in a nature preserve west of the intracoastal waterway, over which we capture most of the sunset videos. A nicely preserved natural area highly unusual for this region of southeast Florida this close to the coast -- no condos, no roads, just nature (which includes mosquitoes and no-see-ums at times). This park is a short walk from the oceanside beach broadwalk, due west of the south end of North Beach park, over the intracoastal waterway bridge on Sheridan street.

Dark clouds from another weather system moving in from the northwest, to bring humidity and chance of showers tomorrow, same ole, same ole for the year so far, round we go again...better than the weather "up north" though...

Sunset video was almost cancelled due to miserably lousy cold rainy dreary weather, and non-existant sun, but at the last minute the video guy got stir crazy cabin fever, bundled up, grabbed an umbrella, and walked over to the intracoastal to capture the rare phenomenon of steam blowing off of the water ("Smoke on the Water" was a song by Deep Purple back in the early 70's if I remember right). The video was captured at sunset with a temp of 42 degrees and a wind chill of from 32 to 36 in the area. So, day 9 of our relentless cold snap was highly unpleasant outdoors, no sunshine, heavy clouds, with winds of over 10 mph, with temps in the 40's, and a very relentless all day cold rain, making the air feel much colder than it was, the most brutally bitter cold day we can recall here. A rare scene was "steam" rolling off of the ocean making erie spotty pockets of fog. The local weather service has posted freeze warnings for both tonight and already for tomorrow night with wind chills as low as 25 degrees. Looks like lots of local vegetable produce and citrus is at risk, especially further north where they have had a "mix" of precip including traces of snow already. Local folks are having out of state friends and family purchase and ship space heaters in since they are all sold out here -- some people without any form of heat, which are many, are experiencing inside temps down to 50 degrees. And to think, just last month, in the midst of prolonged summer-like record breaking heat waves, we were saying that we would welcome a little cooler weather, but now we are wishing for some August heat.

Day 7 of the prolonged "Deep Freeze" was sunny and the warmest daytime temp for a while at about 62 degrees. Warm enough to get out for some exercise in the heat of the day, well bundled up. They are predicting a slight upward trend into the weekend at which point they forecast near freezing dips in the temps by Sunday...

The varied range of unusual contrasting colors made this sunset very unique, spectacular in it's own muted way. This video was captured just after a lead squall line of storms from a cold front blew through the area with high winds and a brief torrential downpour. The colors in the video do not come anywhere near to doing the actual colors justice, due to our low-end video camera and the fact that much of the resolution is lost by the video host (if downloaded, the video host effect is eliminated and the video is much sharper, although still lacking the effect of the actual sunset because of the cheepo camera and "pixelation"). Below is a second capture later in the sunset.

As '09 comes to a close, we have posted a "year in review" summary. If interested in perusing what we feel were significant events here locally, just click on this link.

They "ought" to have been better. But, guess they were pretty good years for Wall Streeters, Big Bankers, Big Pharma, Big Med, and the bureaucratic Big Business industrial complex -- the rich got richer and the rest of us got...explicative deleted... For any of the younger crowd, "ought" is terminology from the "old days" used to mean zero, and is a spelling variant of "aught", which in turn is related to "naught" which generally means "nothing" or "zero", corresponding to the leftmost zero in the '00' through '09' years of the "ought" decade (we are aware that the official calendrical end of decade is not until the end of this year, but for historical reference purposes a decade encompasses the 'x0' through 'x9' years...).

December 27th, 2009 - The weather was a little too nice today, resulted in waaay too many locals out and about, very crowded, and the locals were crazy, a.k.a. "loco locals"...

This first take was well before sunset, but it shows a rare dense blanket of "popcorn clouds". Typically, it would be expected that this would transpire into a spectacular sunset, but as you will see in the second take, sometimes the light just fades without much if any color, "fade to gray" they call it. So, that is why we posted this video, it was early, but it was the best of the bunch... Take 2 of 2 has been moved to the archives, but again, as spectacular as the clouds were (they really were to the naked eye) the sunset just faded to gray, not much color at all...

A little rain at sunset, followed shortly thereafter with "severe" storms that would continue through the night, with heavy rains, strong winds, and lightning, feeling a lot like a tropical storm...

We are experiencing continued delightful weather, with a very nice day today, low humidity, warm sunshine, pleasantly cool and fresh air with only a slight breeze, still carrying pungent fragrances of fall, and hardly any noticeable presence of tourists just yet. A great time of year to get out and exercise here.

The month of October was the hottest, driest October ever recorded for the region. And don't tell anyone but WE saw the highest high tide here on the intracoastal waterway during the month of October than ever before -- the water was actually coming up through the planks in the waterway boardwalk at low points. You won't hear anything about that from the big media bobble-heads though, as they are paid off by big business, real estate firms, and the chamber of commerce to keep it all quiet.

Of course that "extra" water has nothing to do with the the polar ice caps melting, nor with the Greenland and Iceland ice sheets melting, nor the meltdown of the Kilimanjaro and K2 ice fields, nor with all of the planet's glaciers melting, nor with existing sea water thermal expansion due to higher temperatures which are due to increasing record levels of human-made pollutants in the atmosphere trapping the planet's heat. Nope, can't be any of those silly little ole things. Heck there isn't really an "global warming" at all according to the "Big Deniers", just because the planet's temperature is increasing, it'll start going down again, someday, after we are all living up in the mountains, close to the seashore at the foot of the mountains. We even noted one Big Denier comment that even if everything does melt, then all the sea life will die from the toxins we are dumping in the oceans and that will make plenty of room for the melt water, heck the water levels may even go down...

By the way, having mentioned Iceland, we hear that they are thinking of renaming it soon to No-iceland, or Iceless-land, or Iceallgone-land, or Whuthappendtoduhice-land. Hey, seriously, do a search on "rising sea levels map" for some very interesting information, especially if you or someone you know lives or owns property in a low lying coastal area. Here we all come Montana!

Editorial Comment: Flooding the Everglades, Naturally...

Observation: on a mid October evening we noticed that at the entry to the intracoastal waterway boardwalk (from which we take the sunset videos) the planks were wet with water -- water from the waterway! Yes, at high tide now the waterway is up to the boardwalk at low points, which has never occurred before. Just last year a road constriction project was conducted to raise the level of AIA (the road that runs between the intracoastal waterway and the coastal barrier island) by about two feet, putting in abutments on the waterway side to keep the continually rising water of the intracoastal from washing over and flooding the road (which had become an increasingly frequent problem over the last few years). Looks like they will have to do that again soon, as the level of the water in spots is now near the top of the new abutments at high tide... Also, on the ocean side of the barrier island, we have recently observed tides flooding into beach areas that just don't see salt water except during tropical storms, obviously this is due to new higher ocean water levels... Global warming? Climate change? Nah, there's just a little extra water from all those melting glaciers and polar ice caps. But don't tell anybody, might hurt the price of waterfront property down here in sunny and soon to be soggy Florida... And to think, they want to spend billions of dollars to restore (raise) the water level in the Everglades swamp. We are all for "preserving" the 'Glades (why the heck did they spend billions to drain the swamp in the first place?), but how stupid is that? All they have to do is just wait a few years and the swamp WILL be completely under water, salt water, naturally from the rising sea levels -- and of course they will then be spending billions more to build seawalls in a futile attempt to keep Florida and the 'Glades from being flooded by the rising ocean levels. Mark our words, we know, and the Big Media bobble-heads are keeping it quiet. It will soon be time for Floridians (and all low-lying coastal dwellers world wide) to move to higher ground, like "mountain country". Think of that, living in the mountains with ocean waves washing in at the foot of the mountains - it'll be just like Hawaii, but a lot more crowded...

The cloud line at the top of the above video was a front moving into the glades from off of the ocean, and as contrastingly colorful as it looks in the video, it was quite a bit more impressive with the naked eye, the clunky video camera just does not do the real thing justice. Also, this was the last take that we got out of the camera tonight, as it did get even more colorful, but then the camera went into the increasingly irritating power down mode...

This was actually an incredibly vivid DOUBLE rainbow, but our stupid cheepo camera does not catpure the color of rainbows well for some reason, nor does it handle the lightning well -- I assure you that this was quite impressive to the naked I, I mean naked eye (really, we had clothes on, just in case we were struck by lightning, but it was tempting, as no one else with any sense was out on the beach...)...

In order to simplify what was an overloaded main sunset page, we have migrated the featured samples of "best ever" sunset videos, that were previously located at this point, to their own pages which can now be found by clicking on this link to the "best ever" sunset videos.

And, even more sunset videos are available on the "Archives" page.

If viewing the videos sparked an interest in more information on visiting this area, click on "Visit Here".

Links to other video pages: Sunrises, Flora, Fauna, Nature, Beach, Broadwalk, Clouds, Boats, Best Sunrises, Best Sunsets.

If you would like to see a map of the general location from which most of the sunset videos are taken click on this link.

If you have questions, suggestions, or requests you may either send us an email at jeb@lifesacoast.com or leave a comment at the bottom of this webpage. .

If you are interested in obtaining information on establishing a site like this, click on this link to our Google Knol documenting how we went about it.

If you would like to help us out with a contribution in the interest of improving the quality of the videos and the performance of this site, click on "Donate".