Cloud mountains

I worked the farmers market today for the last time with Jim and Pritya. There was a 100% chance of rain but the winds kept the clouds at bay throughout the day. Hardly a drop fell and where we were all expecting a wet dreary drizzly day it was cool and breezy, the air saturated with moisture and huge billowy clouds circling the island. The sun even poked out in between the clouds for most of the day.

In the afternoon I went on a bike ride to the tip of the island, South Beach. An old colonial military fort, now park is here and there is beautiful open prairie on the bluffs that run down the hillside to meet the deep blue of the sound. The straights of Juan de Fuca and the outlines of the Olympic mountains on one side and the Coastal peaks of Vancouver BC on the other. I curled up with a book in the prairie grass in the lee of the wind. Gazing out on the clouds today. They were absolutely spectacular and I can think of no words to give them justice here. I was in glee and awe of those monstrous cloud mountains stacked out to sea reflecting every prism of light as the sun sank below the horizon.

Before I biked home to meet friends for a local potluck that evening I wandered down to the bluffs over the shoreline, and lo and behold I caught the site of shapes a few hundred yards out in the waters. Cresting above the surface and then disappearing again only to punctuate the dead calm surface long moments later. Orcas, killer whales! A wonderful day indeed full of omens and signs of good luck and good fortune ahead no doubt. I watched not one, but two pods migrate pass through the straight. Every now and again one would rise up and torpedo like a skinboard over the surface and I even saw one jump clear out of the water in what I could only ever recognize as joy. I watched them there in that calm water above those huge mountains of clouds on the prairie bluffs and counted my blessings for such a moment...