Solitude

I've been busy with all sort of chores and projects this Spring. One of my favorite things to do is get away with friends that I rarely get to see. I recently went to a lovely place in Sequim with a very dear friend for a few days so that we could catch up.

Cindy and I try to get away once a year together. She to get away from the hustle and bustle of a full house and a full time job. I for the pleasure of going somewhere new with a dear friend.

This year we really studied hard and used the Internet to scope out our destination. We chose Sequim because it is close, and we wanted to be near salt water. After doing quite a bit of research we finally decided on Sunset Marine Resort. Our choice of cabins was The Boat House. It was the view out the windows that really clinched the deal.

From every window in the cabin.........which was very beachy, full of antiques, retro eBay purchases, extremely comfortable furniture and a wonderful ambiance was a view of the water. When the tide came in, the water was literally under our cabin because The Beach House has piers for a foundation.....right ON the beach. It was called the Boat House because it was the original boat house for the old Sunset Marine which was the very first marina on Sequim Bay.

We were lucky enough to be able to go mid-week so there were very few people and lots of peace and quiet.

We went to The Three Crabs for a great Captains Plate our first night there, and then chose to spend the rest of our visit at the resort exploring the beach. This beach had more marine life than any other inland beach I'd ever visited.

It was a wonderful experience.....one I'd gladly do again and again.

I highly recommend this wonderful little secret get away.

SunsetMarineResort

Follow up to Earth Hour

H/T Tim Fowler

Earth Hour, candles and carbon

There's one thing in particular that bothers me about Earth Hour - these people who electric lights and then go and light up candles, and think that they're helping do something about anthropogenic forcing of climate change.

The widespread practice of misguided eco-Luddites turning off their lights for Earth Hour and burning candles as a source of light is grossly misguided and actually contributes to increased carbon dioxide emissions.

Yes, I know candles are nice and romantic - but you're taking paraffin wax, in the form of a candle, and burning it, very inefficiently, at a low temperature. This stuff is pure hydrocarbon - it's a heavy alkane fraction distilled straight off crude oil. This stuff is getting so scarce that nations are prepared to go to war just to secure it, remember?

A candle flame burns at a low temperature - so it's a thermodynamically very inefficient source of energy - and most of the energy released in a candle is wasted as heat, anyway.

Even if 80% of your electricity comes from coal and fossil fuel fired power stations, as it does in Australia, burning candles is very polluting and certainly very greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions intensive, even more so than electric lighting...

...Therefore, for every candle that is burned to replace electric lighting during Earth Hour, greenhouse gas emissions over the course of the one hour are increased by 9.6 g of carbon dioxide.

If the light output from a 40 W light bulb was to be completely replaced by candles, this will lead to the emission of an extra 295 grams of carbon dioxide per over simply using the electric lights - if the equivalent of one thousand 40 W bulbs are replaced by candles, that's an extra 295 kilograms of CO2 emitted.

In places where a greater proportion of the electricity supply is generated by nuclear energy or hydroelectricity, this increase in greenhouse gas emissions is even larger.

Link