We have made an arrangement with the Weather Channel for
owners to watch the temperature around the Casa Ybel pool, and let us know every three hours how happy the guests are at this instant and also what next 10 days will bring with regards to Sun and Rain.
Keep dreaming, we will be back!
Sun sets are now close to being visible from our beach.
This is the time for some reports from owners to end our previous discussions whether or not we have to get on a boat?
Someone there, let us know what is happening next week!
send a photo to james@casaybel.com for display on the web, and settle all differences? Thanks Carl

OK, Carl, you have my proof. I can send more photos next week; I'm not sure how many you need to satisfy the naysayers.

Wishful thinking George and Carl, but a sunset at Casa Ybel is one gift I cannot deliver.

Never, not even in a billion years will you be able to sit on a porch at Casa Ybel and witness a sunset.

I visit there this time every year and the Mrs. and I have been known to take a break or two from the workshop to vacation down there over the months following.

Carl, my helpers and I have been perusing this site all year and you'll be happy to know that you have managed to stay off the naughty list this year. Oh, but you still try us from time to time.

Merry Christmas All!

Post my photos, Carl.

I wished we could get some more science help into this.
Thanks to our new connection with the Weather Channel you can now read time for sunrise and sunset on Sanibel right in our www.casaybel.com website. Click under photo of pool photo on page 1.

Sunrise on our so-called shortest day, actually today, December 21, is 7:12. Sunset tonight is 5:41, which gives us a period of daylight 10 hrs and 29 minutes long. That should give us 5 hours and 15 minutes in either direction if we are facing south in the center of our time zone..
.
That tells us that we are not placed in the center of our Eastern time zone and a correction is needed. We have sunrise at 6:45 and sunset at 5:15 to make a 10 hour and 30 minutes day, and tells us we are not facing straight South. Our sunrise is therefore delayed 27 minutes, and our sunset delayed likewise. So we are located ½ the width of our Eastern Time zone center in a westerly direction. I am ignoring the tilt of our planet. Perhaps our slight time difference might be neutralized by including the tilt, any scientists out there?

Data from our spring or fall equinox would be more accurate. Anyway East is East and West is West and with our days only ten and half hour long, the sunset must be watched south of a the straight westerly direction. Our Casa Ybel beach makes a curve with the deepest part facing towards South.
So standing on the beach you should always have the opportunity of views of a sunrise East or sunset West in the winter time, and not have to look in a northerly direction.

Photos of sunsets will be displayed, thanks to our owners, under the “Forum” photo link, before you make final click into the Forum.

You know, it makes more fun discussing nature than politics or religion! God provides us with fixed rules about Nature, that we can’t change, whereas we always seem to find someone trying to destroy an idea for any betterment of a Church or a Nation (for all to enjoy) due to a selfish “someone” looking out for himself only, with no sensitivity at all to real life, as it exists.

Niels Bohr, a leading Jewish Danish scientist made famous during the birth of our atomic era, was asked: “With everything happening in your line of science, do you really believe there is room for a God?”
Bohr’s answer was: “ The more I study and see the new developments, the more I believe there has to be a God above it all”

I wish you all a very merry Christmas to all our Casa Ybel friends with another thought for you:

Even our old Nordic Vikings studied the Sun and found somehow that days starting to get longer after winter solstice:
So they started to celebrate the fact that “light conquered the darkness” and wished to keep this change up, and made a feast for it during the darkness of winter every year! They felt their annual “Renewal of Light” happened due to their annual ceremony for thanking their Gods.

Carl J Appelberg
!

A short addition to this theory of changing darkness into light.
Was Jesus born December 24/25 to ad truth into this theory, that he was actually brought to earth by God for us to follow the same thought symbolically of being the conqueror over the dark through him?
Carl Appelberg

Ok, Carl, much of what you have said is largely correct, but irrelevant to the issue at hand; i.e. whether the sun sets over the water from the perspective of an individual on the beach in front of Casa Ybel. Here is some science: The tilt of the earth’s axis cannot be ignored; it is the only reason that the sunset (and sunrise) positions on the horizon change during the year. If the earth’s axis were perpendicular to its orbital plane, sunset and sunrise would always be at the same position on the horizon (due east and west), day and night would be equal (12 hours) at every point on the earth every day of the year, and there would be no seasons. The greater the tilt, the more extreme the seasons and the greater the difference in sunrise and sunset positions during the year.

But, the 23.5 degree tilt of the earth’s axis means we have seasons, summer days are longer than winter days, and the sunset positions change throughout the year. At the northern hemisphere summer solstice (approximately June 22), the sun sets (and rises) at its furthest north position. After that, the sun sets further south every day until the winter solstice (approximately December 22). The position changes gradually at the solstices, but relatively rapidly at the equinoxes. For an observer on the Casa Ybel beach, the sun sets wsw and over the water at the winter solstice, and for a few weeks before and after. This is a fact, and can be proven by photos such as those Carl has posted ( I have several hundreds more). If anyone has the opportunity, they should witness sunrise and sunset at Casa Ybel near both solstices; it would be illuminating. Most of us are at Casa Ybel at the same time every year, and lack that perspective.

The sunrise and sunset positions are not perfectly symmetric at the Casa Ybel beach (relative to the Gulf) because the beach faces slightly east of due south. Thus, for much of the year the sun rises over water but sets over land. But not for an approximately 8 week period around December 22; we get both events over the water. I’m sure we will get some crank postings disputing this fact, as we already have, but that doesn’t change its veracity. As they say, “It is what it is”.

to ad to your article "And there is nothing we can do about it".

Thank you George,for a very fine article well worth reading. I appreciate your patience and the time you took to educate many of us in the finer things about celestrial happenings at Casa Ybel.
If you do not mind I would like to present more of your photo skills to our owners, perhaps with some text for better understanding. I can copy them into
e-files for use on the web pages.
Thanks again
Carl

Fine with me. Let me know if you need or want anything else.

This is all too complicated for me. As long as you can see the sunset from somewhere in Casa Y'bel, what difference does it make if it is from your porch, at the beach or in the car park?

The issue was whether you can see it set over water, or behind a condominium complex; Not whether it sets at all.

Do not forget that it all started with our help from Weather channel showing our air Temperature at periods during the day, look forward to your stay!

Would apprecitate photos taken on beach (close to our pool) facing sunset and adding to collection by the week?
Send copy to James@casaybel.com
Thanks
Carl