I mentioned Mathew Hargreaves’ achievement a few weeks ago. He was the reader who undertook a two-year effort to document a genuine West Coast Sunrise over Water. He described his efforts as they unfolded in a series of comments on that earlier article.
We speculated that one might be able to witness this unusual geo-oddity somewhere along Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Still, we didn’t have any proof. There were places, we believed, where the line of sight over the Strait of Juan de Fuca might be long enough to produce a sunrise over water at certain times of the years.
Mathew scoured maps and narrowed the possibilities down to an area near Sekiu on the west side of Clallam Bay. He returned a number of times — at a hundred miles per round trip — until conditions were just right. Here, the notoriously fickle Pacific Northwest weather and the path of the sun had to align and cooperate. That was no easy task and should never be taken for granted.
Perseverance Pays Off
He struck paydirt on September 20, 2011 as the sun rose at 7:01 am. It proved that a sunrise over water exists on the West Coast of the Lower 48 United States. Well, at least in this one special place. He described the location as “the beach at the northwest end of the protective jetty” in Sekiu (map).
Mathew kindly offered to let me display some of his photographs to the loyal readers of Twelve Mile Circle. For the record: all photographs in this article are “© 2011 Mathew Hargreaves; all rights reserved. Used with Permission.”
I’ve reduced the size for display purposes. But feel free to open any of them in another tab to see them in the larger format.
The Evidence
This is a great shot Mathew took just as the sun began to rise. Then a container ship coincidentally came into view. I also like smaller boats that he captured as they left Sekiu harbor. I think this might be my favorite image in the series.
Notice that the sun has emerged completely above the horizon without any landforms beneath it whatsoever. So this is the definitive proof of a west coast sunrise over water. It is the image that we had postulated long ago and that Mathew had been stalking all that time.
Panorama
Mathew explained that he took three photographs and stitched them together to form this panoramic view. You’ll want to open this one in another tab for sure. Go ahead, I’ll wait. You can see Canada very faintly on the left part of the image. The eastern end of Sekiu harbor appears distinctly on the right. The original image (not the version I have on the website) prints out to an astounding 11 inches by 35 inches!
Infrared
Finally, another interesting perspective is provided in an infrared image.
It appears that this condition exists from around September 10-30 (and a corresponding period in March). So this creates a maximum of forty opportunities per year. Combine that with prevailing weather conditions and I’ll bet there aren’t but a handful of chances per year to observe this phenomenon in person. AND it only last for 10 minutes! There can’t be more than a scattering of people who have observed this phenomenon and understood its significance. This has to be an exceedingly select group.
If you like these images, I will gladly forward your contact information to Mathew. Then the two of you can work out an arrangement. He will process images from uncompressed TIFF files and print them on Fuji Crystal Archival paper. They will be absolutely stunning compared to these much smaller, compressed jpeg images that you see here on 12MC.
Thank you again, Mathew. This is amazing.
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