16 December 04

Oil Spills Near the Solstice

The ship that is breaking up off Unalaska has my colleagues on alert; if a lot of oiled animals start coming in and they need a vet, somebody’s going to have to work over Christmas.

The problem is, there are only six hours of daylight. The spill seems not as bad as feared, and it’s possible they’ll blow up the ship and release the oil in a controlled manner, as long as they get good weather, which is in short supply in the Aleutians in winter, along with the light.

Long nights. Getting off work and it’s already dark. My brother and sister-in-law who live in Juneau get this darkness thing a lot worse than we do, yearn for the snow because at least it brightens up the long darkness.

The darkness, though, makes the light so much more welcome when it returns. I’m not sure I’d enjoy the tropics with sunset at six year-round. How then can you drink cocoa?

Written for the Ecotone’s Solstice Place.

Posted by at 07:56 PM in Nature and Place | Link |
  1. The suddenness of sunrises and sunsets in the tropics is also very disconcerting. One minute the sky is pink, the next minute the sun’s up.

    — Dave    17. December 2004, 08:39    Link
  2. Hot chocolate is enjoyed in intense air conditioning under wide ceiling fans under the arcades of hotels with colonial names such as Raffles or the Peninsula. It’s not so much season-less as all-season all the time.

    — Nicole    17. December 2004, 12:18    Link
  3. Remember the darkness in Boston? Though the winter days were often beautiful, I just couldn’t get used to waking up at 6 in the darkness, bicycing to work along the Charles in darkness, sitting inside the office building all day without a window while the daylight glided by outside, and then, after three, the world descending back into darkness after which I bicycled home along the Charles, again in darkness. All while the trees were bare and the streets were grey with people in black coats walking about. Dismal.

    The tropics have color. And cocoa is a tropical drink (isn’t really logical, is it?). I’ve never lived in the tropics but I think the animals would more than make up for the brisk, clear mornings.

    — butuki    17. December 2004, 14:51    Link
  4. I once visited Juneau in mid-June, a week before the summer solstice. The light barely dimmed at 10 p.m., and my wife and I strolled delightedly around after a late dinner. I’m not sure I could live with the dark end of the year, but the other end—ah, wonderful.

    — p.    19. December 2004, 14:21    Link

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