Look what the tide dragged in...

Well, wind and tide.

We have been busy around the house since getting back.  We planned to run around on the scooters yesterday, but the wind was gusting around 30 mph, and that just wouldn't be fun.  Today, we decided to get an earlier start on that - hopefully, before the wind builds up (as it is predicted to do again).

We drove around in the resort, with the wind building to about 20 mph.  Most of the winter crowd has gone north - the resort is more empty than full.  There are new places being built here, something we haven't seen much of since the economy tanked.  Good to see that people have confidence again.

The canals in the resort are not all like ours, running straight...

Some of them are L-shaped, and a couple U-shaped...

That's the resort on the lower right side of the photo.

We have pretty good circulation in our canal.  That's not the case in every canal here.  With the higher spring tides and the strong south wind the past few days, we saw this in one canal...

Seaweed... packed into the dead-end of this canal.  You can see the "clear water line"  down the canal a ways.  Here's a closer look...

I haven't seen it like this before, other than at our boat ramp when there is a west wind.  My best guess is: it moved into the opening of this U-shaped canal on the north wind we had a few days ago, high tide brought it around the corner, then the strong south winds kicked up and packed it in.

Workers are removing it by hand...

I spoke with one of them briefly - he said it would take them "probably 3 or 4 days to clean this out."  They can't let it sit in there - it will eventually start smelling and disintegrate, settling to the bottom.  That will add to any silting that happens naturally.

Up north, we had to rake the leaves in the fall.  Down here, they rake the water in the spring.

Before anyone things this is a Gulf Coast problem, we see seaweed this thick and more come in on the tide and pack into the marina at Friday Harbor.  A protected area is nice... until the wind and tide switch and conspire to bring crap in and pack it in.

Our maintenance fees are paying the workers to keep this place looking and running good.  The resort looks good, too.  Kinda quiet right now, before the summer folks come in.  While scooting around, I saw this sign on a porch railing...

:-)