Here are some pictures of Mirador in the snow on January 12, 2007.   It is very unusual to get this much snow in Tacoma and even more unusual to see the saltwater frozen.  Click on the following small pictures to see a full screen picture (1024x768):

  This is on the walkway above the marina looking North towards Thea's condos and the 11th Street Bridge. 

On Wednesday morning we had about 2" of snow.  The forecast for the rest of the day was a trace to one inch ending by 6 PM.  At 7 PM it started snowing very hard and by 4 AM on Thursday we had over 6 inches.  Then the temperature dropped to about 27.  Thursday it never got above freezing and Thursday night is 14 degrees.

                                                                        The Museum of Glass

 I took this because it is very unusual to see ice around the boat.  This is only the 2nd time in 12 years Mirador has felt ice on her tender hips.  Inside the boat the air temperature is 41 and the water in the water tanks is 43.  That's because Puget Sound water is always 43 - 48 degrees.  When it is very still and not much tidal action the surface water can freeze as it did here.  The daytime high on the 12th was 33 but it got down to 14 during the night.

Not much to say about this other than the side decks are really slippery and it was scary walking around.  The cockpit was frozen solid since the sun never gets there.

   This is what started the picture taking at the boat.  I wanted to document that the solar panels do not make any electricity when they are covered by 5" of snow.  I swept off the snow but found there was about 1/2" ice frozen onto the panel surface. 

I'll just have to wait until next week when it warms up to the upper 30s for the ice to melt. I can't plug the boat into shore power because that is off on our dock and the Marina staff can't figure out why it is off.  They told all of us to move to the guest docks if we need electricity.   That's too much work!

Just more ice and snow!

 This poor commercial diver had been hired by Olympic Boats to check on one of their "For Sale" boats that was way down in the bow.  He said the snow makes no difference because the water temp is still 43 and the ice isn't thick enough to be a problem.

 Thea's Condo's from our dock