Sunset and sailboats…

When we house hunted in Florida all those years ago the first place we looked was Dunedin. Such a charming town, but I had to face the fact that I couldn’t afford it then, and I can’t afford it now. The reason for this visit was to see the Dunedin Boat Parade, which we attended last year. But this time we wanted to stake out a prime spot to shoot our photos, and since we would be in the area for a morning with the photo group it seemed like a good idea to just head to Dunedin early. I’m not going to tell you what time it was when we snagged the last possible spot right on the seawall, you’d think we’d lost our minds. Not that other people we waiting already. Nope, they had just placed their blankets and chairs extra early. We didn’t have things we were comfortable leaving to save out spot so we stayed, but I will make a note for next time. In the meantime there were a few things to take pictures of as we waited.

This shipwreck caught our eye. I have no idea what the story is, and amazingly people walked on the rocks with their kids to see it up close, and looked like they were going to break their necks as they did it. Thankfully no one did. And by the time the sun set all the rocks were underwater and the boat looked like it was just at anchor out there.

This anhinga seemed happy to fan his feathers on the sail.

Boats came and went all afternoon, including this guy. When my kids were young we had a raft like this one, minus the electric motor, you had to row. My son and his friend used to take it out on the lake we lived on in MD, and they always came back soaking wet. They insisted that they didn’t know what happened, ‘it just tipped over’. So I stealthily set out with the dog on the leash to investigate one day, and saw them happily jumping out of the raft and climbing back in. I’m glad now that he got to do things like that growing up.

As it got darker the lighted boats started out of the harbor to take their place in the parade.

As you can see from the feature photo the sky did develop some color as the sun set. And the birds took to the sky to return to where ever it is that they rest for the night.

I’m quite happy with this photo taken with my new camera. But it’s the only picture that I got with it. Someone needs to read up on the settings in the camera because I fooled with them and it wouldn’t take a picture after that.

I pouted a bit, okay a lot, since I couldn’t take the pictures I’d expected to take, but I finally got out my phone and took a few more pictures.

There were a LOT of boats, and it was a very long day. But by the next time this event rolls around again I’m sure I’ll be ready to try, try, again. I’ll make sure I’ve conquered the camera by then.