My Frozen Harbor Obsession

I parked my car on the way back from some errands today and walked to the boat launch ramp, to see how the ice was doing.  it was fun to see the slabs of ice piled up on the end of the ramp like this.  It easily shows how thick the ice was. Part of me wonders if the ice was strong enough to walk out on, if just a small way, but I wasn't stupid enough to try.  The thing is, with the tide rising and falling each day, if you looked closely, there were fractures visible all over the top of the ice.  That alone was enough to keep me from seeing if I could walk out just a "little" way.

This is a view to the right off the boat ramp, which shows how the ice was broken into blocks because of the tidal action.  And then you can see other broken ice off in the distance.  I also went up to the park that overlooks the sound and I could see that large areas of water are now visible now that the temperatures are not sub-zero.  I hope you will humor me with my obsession of the ice photos, but to me this is historic, given that we haven't had a freeze like this since 1977, which turns out to be 49 years ago!  Yikes!  I would have been only 35 years old at that time!

 

Carefully Spaced

Here's the good news - this is not a photograph of ice or snow!  I saw these gulls all lined up on the rusty railing of a structure that is used for the volunteer firemen's competitions, in the parking lot of where we have our Tuesday coffee.  I desperately needed something different for the blog.  I like that it is all rusty angles of pipe and carefully arranged birds.

 

Back In The Old Days

Back in the old days, in this case 1977, there were no such things as drones.  So when we had a long spell of bitter cold weather, I suggested that I go flying an see if I could find some interesting photographs of frozen harbors.  This was up in Oyster bay.  I would just fly around at 1000 feet and look all around until I found something interesting.  This is a meandering creek that has frozen over.  I love that it looks like a dragon.  I stumbled across this 35mm color slide by accident the other day, and so made a digital copy of it and here it is for you to see. This was one of a number of aerial photographs I did that ran in four issues of the Newsday Sunday Magazine, called "The Seasons From The Air."

 

After Dinner at McDonalds

We couldn't decide what to make for dinner tonight.  We were stuck.  So I said "Do you want to go to McDonalds for dinner?"  Kathy lit up and said "Yes!"  No cooking and no dishes to clean tonight!  We didn't eat too much bad stuff...  One small hamburger each and we split one medium order of fries, and a medium diet coke.  It actually tasted good!  As we were finishing up, I looked over at a nearby table and saw this.  Gimmie a break!  You mean to tell me that if you have something to eat here, you can't carry the tray over to the waste bin before you leave?  I do think that this is an interesting photograph, artistically.  I love that the yellow seats match the yellow paper on the tray.  And the objects are arranged in such an interesting way.  I love this photograph!  AND...   The photograph doesn't have any ice in it!

 

My Ice Obsession!

I am sorry for my obsession with ice on the harbor.  But I have just realized it is really the only visible sign of the many days of below freezing temperatures.  This may look similar to a post two days ago, but although it is subtle, the ice is extended further out into Long Island Sound.  Click on these first two photographs to try and see where the water is.  It is an extremely thin line of darker blue just before the shoreline where the buildings are.

And once again, Sands Point to the left and Execution Rocks in the distance.  If you compare this to the photograph from two days ago, you will see the ice is closer.  I think this is the largest ice cover that we will see.  It was not that cold last night or today, so I believe from this day on, the ice will be shrinking. But what an amazing thing we have seen.  1977 was the last time we had this much ice on the harbor.  I just did the math, and that was 49 years ago!  So these are relatively historical photographs, I believe.

And, closer to home, this is a view looking down over the railing along the sidewalk that runs along the edge of the harbor.  It is so interesting to me to see details in the ice which has broken apart and then re-frozen as the tide rises and falls.  I think this is abstract art.  Or not!

 

Theree Degrees!

Not a very interesting photograph today.  But what a story it tells!  Can you see the story?  The number 3 in the upper right had corner tells the story.  That 3 is the temperature this morning when I woke up!  Yikes!  I read in the paper the other day, that this is the second coldest winter since the winter of 1977- 1978 which was colder.  I have a 360 degree panorama that I took in 1977 when the harbor froze over.  In the panorama I was out on the ice, half way to Port Washington.  I was actually standing by a buoy! That was a cold winter and this one is too!  I want it to be warmer!

 

A Different View of The Harbor

This is the harbor looking out from Sea Cliff beach, which faces north.  A couple of days ago I did an aerial photograph of this part of the harbor with my drone.  So on this day, after I did the drone photographs I saw that there were some nice photographs to be had from the ground.  What is interesting here at Sea Cliff beach are the really thick ice blocks that we are not seeing on the beach at the foot of our hill.  The difference is that at our beach, there are sandbars that go out at least one hundred or more feet.  Here at this beach, the beach drops off quickly.  The light was perfect for this, illuminating the ends of the blocks making them look more three dimensional.

When I turned and looked to the west, the low afternoon sun showed the blocks of ice in different light and I loved the dark clouds on the horizon.

When I was done down on the beach I drove up to the park that overlooks the harbor and got a nice sense of how far out the ice is.  I love the bright light on part of the ice - that was formed by the clouds blocking the light from the dark areas.  The tall buildings you see on the skyline in the center are in New Rochelle.

Then I used a long telephoto lens and you can see Sands Point with all the trees, then the mansion on the tip of the land, and then in the distance, Execution Rocks and the lighthouse.  The ice from Hempstead Harbor at this point is way beyond the harbor itself now.