30 Minutes in the Life: September 2014

In the life of a photographer, whose art is created in tiny fractions of a second, thirty minutes is a sustained thought. ~ Sara Kelly

Last year this time, I was in the same place, but my photos were of an incredible sunrise. This year I went a different route.  Same beach, different time of day.  St Augustine has always been one of my favorite places to vacation.  You have the city, you have the sea and I love both of them.  

An added bonus this year, was that our daughter, Amy, came through to visit. Even better it was her birthday and we got the chance to spend some time with her on her birthday for the first time in a number of years.  Living away at university makes it a little harder to be together on those special days.  

We woke up to a great morning, sun was shining, and we were soon ready to head on down to the beach. But first, Happy Birthday Amy.  She has limited patience.  She had already opened her birthday presents the day before, so we did not have to wait for that.  We just had to wait for her to wake up.  

On a side note I will also tell you that Amy is my dare devil.  She reminds me of me, when I was so much younger.  Over the years I have become more cautious, but I see in her that reflection of me at that age.

I have a confession to make though.  I messed up with these photo's.  I had been using my 100mm macro lens that I had just bought, and on the camera screen the shots looked awesome, and so instead of using my 55-250mm lens I shot all of these with the 100mm.  A learning curve that is for sure - Hindsight is 50/50 but I guess next time I will know better.  

Once she was up we headed down to the beach.  The flags are flying.  Ok, so we are Africans, the water looks good, the waves are up, we are ready to hit the ocean.  Maybe not all of us.  My plan is to stand at the waters edge with the camera.  It was only as I edited the flags that I decide to go an look for the meaning of the flags.  Might have been better if I had known at the time but oh well next time I will. Apparently what we have is high hazard (rough conditions), and Marine Pest (such as jellyfish, stingray and dangerous fish). What can I say - we are Africans - surf's up and it's time to play.  

The waves are pretty neat.  Rough, maybe a little, but awesome anyway.  And no I did not see any pest like creatures.  I did see a dolphin fin though and loved every minute of it.  Back to the story, off my two go, way ahead of me. Once there they decide the waves are big enough and head back to the car.

Richard had spent a couple of weeks looking for a paddle board on line, and he eventually came across a windsurfer without a sail, being sold really cheap.  So he decided that potentially this could be his paddle board.  It worked really well on flat water, but in the waves it was not stable enough. So, instead he used it to surf on.  He has spent the previous two days playing around on it and it worked fairly well.  So Amy decided she wanted to try this.

There were a couple of spectators on the beach, watching the event.  Seems like they had a lot to say about what was happening here.  

Amy is pretty stoked.  She is going to use her Go Pro to video herself surfing. She had taken some photo's in the waves the day before that were pretty neat but she wanted to see what the video would look like once the board started moving.  

After lugging this really heavy board along the boardwalk, down the beach, Amy is now ready to get the board in the water, and ride some waves.  

While she is heading out, dad is giving instructions.  Remember this, don't do that, make sure your balance is right before standing up.

Of course, you get out there and you have to wait for the right wave.  Quite honestly right now I am not seeing any big waves to surf on.

Is this potentially an option?  No, I guess she does not think so.  She just let the wave go.

I loved the close up splash action.  I just wish I had been using my zoom.

Finally, she goes, I am pretty excited.  I have the camera primed, I am taking multiple shots, and I am so happy for her.

For me her smile says it all. "Yay, I am moving on the board".

The stand up was a little wobbly but she did it and before we knew it she was standing up.

Looks pretty easy right now.  She just cruised on in.

"Look Mom, I made it in".  All in one piece, standing on the board.  Way to go Amy.

That was fun, so lets try that again.  The Go Pro is set to record, and she is out in the ocean waiting for the wave. 

Off she goes again, everything looks good.  It is a reasonable size wave.  I am looking forward to some action shots.  Go Amy!!

Oh no.....look at the feet.  She looks too far back on the board, her feet are out wide and there is no sense of balance.

The board nosed dived into the water......

And so did Amy......

All I saw of my girl, was .....nothing, and then suddenly she was up and looking frantic.  The Go Pro had come off her head in the nose dive and flip.  We searched every where, moving north and south along the shoreline to see if perhaps it had caught the tide and been washed up further along the water. During that time a bystander on the beach saw a fin in the water and cried shark, and everyone evacuated the water ....not a shark, but a dolphin.  So back in the water we went.  We probably searched for about 1.5 hours, when Amy decided enough was enough.  She was burning and it was time to go back to the campsite.  We reported the loss of the Go Pro, but I think the Go Pro spent the next couple of hours videoing the fishes in the sea.  

That was a real bummer on her birthday.  The Go Pro was gone and it was not insured.  That I guess is one of the lessons in life we all have to learn, but when you are just out of college the insurance kind of expenses are not high on your priority list.  I have to give her credit, she took the loss better than I did.  I was bummed for her.  

For the next few days, Richard spent his time on his bike riding the beach, looking in all the rock pools, and I walked along the waters edge hoping that something would come up.  No luck.  While searching up and down the beach, Richard had a run in with a topless woman. She was not happy that he was riding his bike past her on a public beach while she was clearly suntanning topless.  Suffice to say it was not pretty all the way around.  

I know I have always hated lessons in life, but sometimes we just have to go on through them.  

I could not leave this blog without sharing the closing of the day.  Amy left around 3pm and I did not feel like going to the shop to buy food, nor did I feel like another barbecue.  We headed off, to a place I found last year, for dinner and to watch the sunset over the edge of the city.  So while this is not part of my 30 minutes, this was definitely a gorgeous close to a day that started out good as we enjoyed celebrating Amy's birthday, and then not so good when we lost the Go Pro.  

You never really know what's coming.  A small wave, or maybe a big one.  All you can really do is hope that when it comes, you can surf over it, instead of drown in its monstrosity"~ Alysha Speer

Don't forget to follow the circle and take a look at what the other photographers have for you this month.  Colleen Putman Photography / NYC Traveling Photographer is the next photographer up and she always has the most incredible and interesting  travel photographs amongst other types of photography.  Please time time to check out what she has to offer.    

If you are interested in seeing more of my photography take a look at my Facebook page or my Flickr Page.