Sunrises, sunsets, kayaking and other adventures
Sunrises are best shared with friends. Rose and I went out to Turimetta Beach this morning. After a drizzly day yesterday, the clouds dispersed enough for the pre-dawn colors to shine through.
Glorious. We should have also then persevered and gone swimming at Manly to Shelly, but after a big breakfast, I was ready for a long nap. Plus, my toes were freezing.
Christmas morning. Rise and shine. Drove out to Turimetta Beach, my happy place.
The tide was high, and my heart was full.
What are the five stages of grief again? Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, then finally acceptance?
I feel like I’ve run through the course over the past hours. My dreams last night were variations of the same living nightmare. I keep waking up, only to find the new reality.
It’s times like these that show the mark of one’s character. My first instinct, and still the same one I am trying to manage, is to stick my head in the sand. To mourn the loss of America and the collapse of its democracy. To run away. Then here comes HRC, to demonstrate the courage, conviction, and strength it takes to stand up and concede. To say that she will work with the new administration to help keep the country great. To bring together the divide.
Goodness knows what the future will bring. The new presidential elect certainly hasn’t helped with any clarifying policies. But I’m drawing strength and hope from the grace and resilience HRC showed today.
With clear skies forecasted for the entire weekend, it seemed more worth it to sleep in for the sunrise and stay up instead for some astrophotography. So after dinner on Saturday, we skipped up to Turimetta Beach to soak in the stars.
It was cold this morning, with wind chills sending temperatures down to 3 degrees C. And there wasn’t any cloud cover in the sky, just low over the horizon out east, recipes for a not so stellar sunrise.
Still, it was nice to be out, hearing and seeing the waves crash onto the sand. That’s oddly relaxing.
And then, just as I was setting up for the shot below, Jeff yelled out, dolphins! Indeed, a large pod of them were surfing the waves just 20 feet from the fishermen at the tip of the rocks. I impatiently yanked my camera off its tripod, ripped the ND filter out, and slipped my way onto the rocks to get a closer look. I didn’t quite manage to tune my camera settings in time to get tack sharp pictures of the dolphins joyfully skimming the waves, but they were beautiful to watch all the same.
Another gorgeous morning in the books. Haha, afterwards, we went grocery shopping, bought a ton of food, and was home by 1130. Comfortably sitting out the rest of the beautiful blue-sky day in the warmth. Because hey, we had seen the light already. 😀
Took another pass through my collection of shots from Saturday’s colorful sunrise, and my eye caught on this one. Love the pastel colors. Wish I’d set the camera a touch further back though, to get in more of that textured sand in the left foreground.
After browsing the photographs on Facebook for a year, I finally joined the group of seascape photographers to catch the sunrise over at Turimetta Beach. The organizer was warmly welcoming, and told me how the storms of the past week had eroded a ton of sand on the beach, such that there were now shelves of exposed rock that hadn’t been seen in years.
It was a brilliant sunrise. Gorgeous whiffs of clouds that glowed a brilliant pink orange. The waves were gentle; the awesome curls from the storm had dissipated. Our group of a dozen of so fanned out along the otherwise quiet beach, everyone quietly focused on the brightening sky.
Afterwards, we gathered at a nearby cafe for breakfast, as is their weekly routine. It was fun tucking into a hot breakfast (that rapidly turned cold in the brisk morning temps) and chatting about recent photographic expeditions.
The guy sitting next to me, an American, was relaying how he’d just gotten pulled over by a police for making a U-turn at a light. I chuckled. But later, as I was pulling into my street, I inadvertently drove onto the wrong side of the road. Right in front of a police car. I guess there is karma in this world after all. At least it was a gorgeous sunrise.
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