One of my favorite things about paddling the BC coastline is the
way light is accentuated, diffused, bent, filtered and muted to create
impossible colors and a million shades of grey. It’s true that the precipitation that created
the world’s largest temperate rainforest can provide greyness in seemingly
endless quantities but in smaller doses it interacts with light and makes
magic. Paddling in fog or overcast you
may experience a visual transformation of dark monotones changing to silvers
that suddenly erupt into violent explosions of color. Longer angles of sunlight passing through
moisture suspended in the air bathes us in unworldly colors that have no names.
There is a particular magic light that occurs when the sky has a
low overcast or a thin fog layer and the sun tries hard to work its way though.
Everything is in shades of silver and grey. The water is in motion and reflects
light like mercury. The cloud cover
thins in places and beams of sunlight break through, explode then disappear.
