CEE’S BLACK & WHITE PHOTO CHALLENGE: BUILDINGS

~ tomadaonline ~ 2 Comments

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.

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Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Buildings

SERENDIPITY

~ lingo480 ~ 2 Comments

Serendipity_sign

Photo Credit: Unknown

 

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!

High Seas, Big Moment

~ tomadaonline ~ 11 Comments

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.

Check it out.

 

Write Here Write Now

~ tomadaonline ~ 4 Comments

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.  portrait landscapes-1000049

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.

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With the zoom as far as it goes, the paddle is visible, but where are the waves?

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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.

Write Here, Write Now

Childhood Revisited: Birthday

~ tomadaonline ~ 4 Comments

My mom lay there on a shiny steel table. I was upside down, paralyzed at the ankles as a man in a bright white coat held me with one hand and examined me with one giant brown eye. Water from his eye slipped down his cheek as he breathed the lingering ether from the general anesthesia. He pulled strips of sticky stuff from my warm red body as I squirmed for a look at my mom, lifeless with a tube taped into her mouth. She didn’t move even when I cried. The man had a soothing voice for such a hard handed grip. He talked to a woman in the corner who wore a stiff white uniform and wrote fast on a hard board. A large round black and white clock ticked and tocked right over her head. The man’s attention turned to flashing red and yellow lights as a pulsating beep brought many footsteps. The man with the big eye handed me to the woman in the white uniform who wrapped me into a warm white towel. I heard my mom moan. I closed my eyes against the bright white lights.

But a year later, hanging from my mother’s hands, I laughed ear to ear as the sea rushed over my sandy feet and brought more joy than any toy. My dad was invisible, working day after day, then there all at once, helping me do circus tricks, flying from his belly with my arms out-stretched as he held my legs real tight. He looked at my mom, who gave him a wink. He just smiled.

In the blink of an eye my brother was born. He was in my mom’s lap, bathed in soft white light from the living room window on Painter Street, sucking away on a large pink breast. Cars honked outside, and there were occasional shouts from the college kids across the street. It was quiet inside, except for the shuffling of feet going by my crib, and the creaking floor boards in the corner where my mom rocked my brother to sleep. I closed my eyes and sucked my thumb loudly, wanting what I could not have.

This memory is vivid, and some say I could not possibly remember that far back, but I do and it seems so real. I think it sticks because I almost lost my mom that day; my birthday. It’s always connected with the ocean though, like a salve that smooths all wounds.

Childhood Revisited

Stand Up In Victoria B.C.

~ tomadaonline ~ 2 Comments

Victoria British Columbia left its prints on me. I was only there once, back in 1973, on the return leg of a leisurely jaunt through B.C. and Alberta. The place seemed magical. I saw my first Belted Kingfisher in Victoria. It was on the west coast. There were Bald Eagles too, but the Kingfisher is the bird I remember best. There were two and they sang. They danced in the air. They flew high, and turned hard. It was a courtship of sorts, and it brought the coast alive.

We spent the late afternoon and evening at Buchart Gardens touring the grand landscape while waiting patiently for the sun to set so we could bask in the garden’s luminous evening light. It was as promised.

I hadn’t been to England yet, but in retrospect, Victoria reminds me of the quaint bits of London. Very proper, yet ever so enchanting.  And they have Stand Up Paddleboarding, from flat water to surf.

Today, I’d stay at Ultimate BnB on the West Shore.  Within two blocks you can SUP the lagoon or the ocean.  The BnB is gorgeous, and the owner loves the water.  There are board rental shops at several locations including SUP Victoria and Ocean River Sports.

And there’s great surfing up the west coast at Tofino.  You can rent gear at Tofino Paddle Surf.  Check out the Tofino SUP Surfing video.

If you have 8 minutes, check out the Naish SUP trip into the northwest.  They paddled in flat water, SUP Surfed in Tofino, and paddled by bears. Naish has a full line of stand up paddleboards for flat, surf, downwind, and more. You can s

Naish SUP-tripping up the Pacific Northwest from Naish International on Vimeo.