A bomb of a day...waterbomber, that is!

It has been a summer of wildfires here in BC.  We have spent much of our time out here unable to see across to the other side of the lake.  

The past few days, however, the winds changed direction, and blew some of the smoke away, leaving us with 3 days of blue skies, and air that finally did not smell and taste like smoke.  What a gift!

Cousins enjoying the water and sky down at the beach - Aug 11

Late yesterday afternoon, Duncan and I drove into Sicamous to pick up some groceries.  To our shock, it looked like all the wind had whipped up the Two Mile fire (which we had thought was under control).  Smoke was billowing up from several spots.

the view from downtown Sicamous

By late last night, you could start to smell the smoke again.  This morning the sky was still mostly blue, but the smoke was super-visible over to the Sicamous side of the lake.  I was over at Glen's to check on the kiln when the deep thrumming started.  It sounded like it might be a helicopter.  Nope.   A water bomber.   More specifically, FOUR water bombers.   I grabbed my phone to see if I could capture them going by.  Wow.  

VIDEO:  [here is a 2:10 minute video that shows all 4 of the planes grabbing water from the lake right in front of us)

At the Bates house next door, everyone was up on the deck with their phones out.   Glen called out that this was the second time.   Within minutes, we could hear them coming around again.
 
I phoned back over to Mary, to see if she could get any good shots from Arta's deck with my camera (which I had left there).  Here are some shots Mary got from Arta's (which is kind of amazing since we have all those trees between us and the lake!)

Can you see Steamboat Island in the background?

Over at Wyona's, there was a more open view of the action.  By this time, Glen had done the timing, so we knew the planes were doing a circuit every 7.5 minutes.  I decided to grab the camera and go right down to the beach to see what the action looked like from there.  

VIDEO: [1:49 minute video of the planes coming to the beach...you can hear it first, so look for it to emerge around 30 seconds]

VIDEO: [This one is 2 minutes long, but you can see how close some of the the planes were coming to the beach]

Here are some more still photos of the action.

 I hung out down at the beach for at least another 6 or 7 cycles.   It was pretty amazing.

Steamboat Island again

Then Glen phoned and told me I should check out the view from the top of Bernie Road.   I headed up there to see what I could see.  I only managed two cycles before they stopped flying (they had been going around 3 hours, so I was guessing they needed to fuel up).

Skirting the tops of trees on Bernie Road

Later afternoon, they started up again.  By then, the smoke had really started to roll in again, so things looked much more misty.

I did wonder why that fishing boat was not moving back closer to the shore.   Or maybe this is just one of those rear-view-mirror 'objects may be closer than they appear' thing?  The boat and the bomber did look pretty close to each other in the video!

The sun casts a golden glow on the water

The planes kept going in the smoke

And as the hours moved along, the smoke got thicker and thicker.

The smoke didn't really stop the kids playing in the water.   

Piper takes a leap of faith off the dock

Gabe makes the catch!

But the smoke kept thickening, and finally the planes gave up for the day.  I hope they managed to push back the fire!

So... that was our 'bomb' of a day.   I wonder if any of the other family members caught some good photos to share?