Winter “officially” begins with the Winter Solstice at 12:11 pm today, December 21, 2013. For those of you back home in the north, it must feel as though winter arrived a few weeks ago! The Winter Solstice is a very significant day because it is the shortest day of the year for all of us in the Northern Hemisphere. The United States will receive only 9 hours and 32 minutes of daylight today. Al and I have always made note of this day because the days will now start to get longer, adding a few additional moments of daylight each day until the Summer Solstice in June. Hooray!
The word solstice comes from the Latin words for “sun” and “to stand still.” At the winter solstice, the Sun’s path has reached its southernmost position. The next day, the path will advance northward. However, a few days before and after the winter solstice, the change is so slight that the Sun’s path seems to stay the same, or stand still.
Enough science talk! Time to get back to beach talk. It has been busy here in Hope Town with holiday festivities, but we still manage to squeeze some beach time into most of our days. Sometimes just a walk, sometimes a dinghy ride, sometimes snorkeling. The weather has been perfect, breezy and not too hot, just the way I like it.
I really don’t mean to torture you with beautiful visions of warm breezes and beaches, but…. what else can I show you? That’s all there is here – paradise!
Colleen Murphy
Love the towel! Too funny.