Odds and ends
MIRAGES
April 26 2009
by Kit (Alison) Szanto
Several people on Gabriola have seen some fascinating mirages. (See Wikipedia for a discussion of mirages. The ones described here are called “superior mirages. ”) In the sixties, a group of astonished onlookers gathered on the beach close to where the Haven is now, to look at a sight that they all knew was not really there. A large ship, tied up at a wharf, appeared in the waters just beyond Taylor Bay. This lasted about an hour, and as the people dispersed they joked that it was lucky so many of them had seen the same thing, since anyone not there would assume the person who talked about it had been hallucinating, under the influence of some substance.
In the 70’s, Vera Wayman and Kitty Silva saw a different mirage, in the middle of Silva Bay. It first appeared when the two were in Kitty=s kitchen, on the Silva Bay side of the North Road (north of the Log Church and Fairbairn Road). As they looked out the window, they saw what appeared to be a house in the middle of the bay, its windows glinting golden in the late day sun. For a moment Vera thought it might be one of the Richmond houses that were barged over, but there was no barge, just a house. It looked like the houses they had seen on Point Grey with windows reflecting the late afternoon sun, and they assumed that was what the mirage was - an image of one of those houses somehow suddenly appearing in the middle of Silva Bay. When Kitty saw a similar mirage later, she called Vera to come and witness it again.
