The photo of the transit with seabird and dock reminds me of 1976 or 1977. I was on my boat on Long Island Sound in a dense fog. The sun was not so low in the sky but as the fog burned off you could see large sunspots with the naked eye without needing protection for a few minutes.
This was during a sunspot maximum and we had some weird weather for a couple of years. Extreme summers and winters.
