One ship came in during our hike on Saturday, and another left just before sunset. The barges have been unloading madly.
This panorama shows the ship coming in on the left (Southeast), the suburb of Apex on the right (Northwest), the neighbourhoods of Tundra Ridge and Tundra Valley in the middle, and the fuel tanks that store our precious reserve of deadly fossil fuels. No barges yet visible -- they must have been about to head out with the tide coming in.
The wind was been from the Southeast for days, so the ice moved in. On the far right you can see how big those chunks of ice really are, though they barely float above the water.
You can see the road to Apex on the far right, then a small path down to the water. That was our path. We started hiking a bit before 2pm, when the tide was at 2.6m. About halfway across the inlet I called on the rest of the group to stop taking so many pictures of the growlers, because the tide moves fast. They though I was being a doddering old man but agreed to placate me. When we finally got across after just an hour of walking, the tide was at 4.5m. We had lunch, headed up a small hill, looked back, and that's when my companions realized that the tide is not something you fuck with around here. At the new moon it rises faster than 2 meters per hour!