Cruising in the Clouds

Cruising through the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound. Often in the late summer, before the sun dips low on the horizon, the warm moist air of the San Juan Archipelago condenses into a fine mist that rises off the surface of the ocean to shroud these islands above the clouds. The clouds roll across the water like a curtain across the stage of nature’s finest production. Advection fog is formed whenever a current of relatively warm, moist air passes over a colder body of land or water. As the late summer sun warms the air, evaporating moisture from the sea, it passes over the cold ocean and creates the afternoon recurrence. In this mysterious land, I have even seen these clouds at sea level seemingly unaffected by a forty-knot wind set to blow you to Helengone.