I love this stretch of coast. It can get pretty wild at high tide and quite tame at low tide. Late afternoon I took my camera for a walk. In case you missed it, yesterday I shot big surf video at the pier and challenged the camera’s reputation for being slash proof. It worked fine today for both stills and HD Video.
We call this area Boat Docks. Is sits at the base of an area called Pedro Point. It’s one of my favorite buildings in town. Today, toward sunset, the tide was low and returning. Gulls bathed in the fresh water from San Pedro Valley Creek as it emptied into the Pacific. This morning, at high tide, I would have been standing in 3 feet of water taking this shot.
There are literally millions of bloggers in the blogosphere. Some mysterious entity bears upon us and we choose one, or a few, to read. Perhaps the title, the author’s avatar, or ? I really can’t say for certain but I think it was the acronym, SUP. What the heck is SUP? …click!
I begin to read about some guy and his love for the water. Empathy! I was born on a tiny island. I look at one of his pictures. It looks like Maine. “Are you from Maine?” I ask. “No, but I’ve travelled there”, he replies. He talks about his youth, of surfing and summers by the water. I harken back to the endless fun; the crazy boyhood adventures I had during those early years; getting lost in the fog and being carried out to sea in a dory or jumping off the rocks into a tidal pool at the ‘foxes den’. Glorious fun! Instant affinity! I comment. The author ‘likes’ and follows my blog. I decide to dig deeper and realize even though we were raised worlds apart, there is commonality…lots of it!
In 1973 Tom jumped in his sporty yellow MG convertible and took a road trip. He ended up on Vancouver Island, my home for the past 25 years. If you read his guest blog on my site (Stand Up In Victoria BC) he talks of joyous discovery in Victoria BC. He tells of courtship he witnessed between 2 Kingfishers and the lasting impression it made. Just a few short miles to the North, in Campbell River my band played Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock” and Jim Croce’s “Big Bad Leroy Brown” for loggers and working girls. They danced the night away amid another type of courtship.
There’s no telling exactly how many times I may have come close to crossing paths with Tom. I remember a road trip of my own in 1980 where I stayed with a friend in Marin County, just a short drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. My friend Skip was from New York City and he was the drummer in one of the best bands I ever played in, Ajax Blues Band. Skip later went on to play for Elvin Bishop and then Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.
I remember visiting Big Sur during that trip. Wait a minute…could that have been a younger, more daring Tom out there soaring across those thunderous waves while I stood enviously watching from the shore? We’ll never know for sure.
From these coincidences…cogent similarities, the seeds of friendship are planted. Tom is a business man; I am a businessman. Tom has travelled the globe; I’ve lived in Europe for a number of years. Tom owns a video production company; I owned a recording studio. There are literally millions of bloggers in the blogosphere…what mysterious entity was the trigger that made each of us go…click? Serendipity!
I am grateful to Tomadaonline for the opportunity to guest-blog this article. Thanx Tom!
Today my spirit was buoyed by a large ocean at high tide. The pier was closed as huge surf pounded the coast. Our local KPIX TV camera crew was on hand, and got wet as wave after wave breached the sea wall. They interviewed me with my wet camera in hand. You can see the video here.
About the wet camera. I got a new Lumix camera that has a “Worry-free splash proof / dustproof” body. Guess I’ll find out about the splash. A few year back I lost a Nikon D200 when large surf caught me by surprise and buried me and the camera with one big blast.
Today a man in full rain gear held the sea wall guard rail tight. I caught a shot of one large wave completely cover him up. Then I ran, but not fast enough.
While traveling in Provence’s Luberon Valley we found stones everywhere. The village where we stayed, Saignon, was built in the 12th century from local stone.
These images were shot with an iPhone 5 and edited with Snapseed.
The wind is up, my hands are dry. I’m cold. There’s a solitary paddle boarder on the water who looks like a spec without binoculars.
The second shot is a little closer. The paddleboarder is just left of the pump house at the far right of the parking lot. He looks like a slender stick in the water.
With the zoom as far as it goes, the paddle is visible, but where are the waves?
I plan to go out and get a few shots, but later, when I’m warm, when the tide is out. For now, I like it Write Here, Write Now.
We finished the year in Point Reyes National seashore. The Photo is at Drake’s Estero. We saw so many birds and met lots of people. Now onto The Station House for dinner.
SUP DAYS are better than others 