We Sleet Under Water, sometimes

Right now the water temperature of the San Francisco Bay is 54 degrees. Not the temperature that you want to go swimming in. Yet, that is the temperature that our house sits/floats on. In fact it acts as the opposite of a heated floor that covers our downstairs.

The bedrooms are downstairs, we do have windows but they are not really at "normal" window height. They are a bit higher. On the outside of the house under the windows is a ledge, and then the water moves up and down below that ledge. During the night and day as you walk downstairs you do notice that change in temperature from the upstairs to downstairs. I attribute this to the fact that part of the downstairs is submerged in water. Probably similar to when you walk into a basement in the summer.

Last night as I was trying to fall asleep I started thinking about the water level outside. It was a full moon, and it was close to low tide when we went to sleep. Then I was thinking about the water rising and figured that at times we may be sleeping under water. Which is a tough thought to get around when you look around you and everything looks like a normal house. Now I haven't done anything completely scientific like, um, measure the water levels. Right now we are in the "hypothesis" phase. Who knows if we will move into the next phase.

Since we are still in "fall" like weather I feel strange turning the heat on, but that will change as we get closer to winter and the air and water temperature move a little closer together. wonder what winter will be like here?

Stuff in the Water

Off of our floating dock there is a thing in the water. After heavy investigation I have discovered that this is probably part of an old dock, but it is just the plastic floatation part. Several days ago, I found that it is still tied to a rope that is connected somewhere on the rocks on the other side of our yard. This thing is covered in plant life! Since I do not know a ton about marine plant life, I am unsure how long it has in fact been there. All I want to do at low tide is poke and play at this thing, knowing that I would need a couple more set of hands to deal with it.

Ben and I had a conversation about it while I was poking it and lifting it halfway out of the water with a boat hook. He has no real interest in this old dock which is stuck in the ground. He would really like me to stop messing with it. Then he went inside, and then my trials began. I was on the not so floating dock at low tide, because then it becomes a sitting dock. The house was up to my shoulders. Needless to say it took a couple of tries, but I was able to lift myself onto our house off of our dock. I am glad that no one was watching this go down.

The mix of only seeing this old dock and the fact that our floating dock is sitting on the bottom during low tide make it really hard to mess with this thing with any real commitment. Well I guess I could mess with it until the tide comes back up.

I'm Going to be Your Friend

Our "backyard" is always changing and moving, and this happens twice a day. Ah, good ole tidal movements. As we all know this happens due to the magnetic pull of the moon, but enough science for one day!

Yesterday there was a huge fluctuation in the tides due to the fact it was a New Moon. The low tide was at .6 feet, and the high tide was over 6.0 feet. You can actually watch the water going into our canal during the flood, and leave during the ebb. Now all of the sailing questions about what the current is doing makes a lot of sense to me. All I needed was to move onto a houseboat to have it all click!

As we have all learned together, at high tide our home begins to float. This was apparent yesterday, but only in slight movements, nothing drastic. (During the next storm I will create some movement video.) During really high tide we worry about our cars in the parking lot, since there is a possibility that it may flood, but I think we need raing added into the mix to see that happen.

While low tide is another story. The bottom appears. You can see two old stumps which look like they used to be an old dock on the other side. The rocks off the point where the egret (Yes, I am learning about birds), stands appears along with all of the other rocks which are typically covered by water. It is fascinating to see what you are usually unable to see because it is covered by water. It does not smell per se where we are, but let's just say if you are down wind on a hot very low tide day there is a specific stench. The aroma is nothing like old dead fish smell or anything like that. Instead it is sort of a dark damp mud and gunk smell. Nothing that you'd want to go out and bottle to make a hand soap and lotion set. The smell isn't always there at low tide, because depending on the phase of the moon the tide is not as drastic as it was yesterday.

Everyday is unlike the last when it comes to the tides. As I look ahead to the coming months the movement and flow of the tides are not really repeated. Therefore it will always look different when we have visitors. I thought you should all know what we are dealing with here, as well as what it looks like during there times. Above are photos of the high tide and low tide from yesterday.